Where be your jibes now?

Thanks for posting this. I'd read Patricia Lockwood's article because I always have time for her writing, but I've never actually read David Foster Wallace so it was interesting to read some deconstruction of her critiques of him.

I especially enjoyed Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted's long comment, which begins as follows:

I think the thing that Lockwood contends with over and over again in this essay is that, at times, David Foster Wallace really was that good, and at other times he was a self-mythologizing narcissist who was really full of how that-good he was. At times, he had brilliant things to say; at times, he was doing a "guy with brilliant things to say" voice. Sometimes his work has a powerful moral bent; sometimes it's the preaching of Yet Another Guy who feels like he has something to teach you about morality.

This demytholigizing of DFW actually makes me feel more inclined to read him - he becomes less a Great (Male) Writer saying Important Things and more the product of a certain culture and time. An artifact to be investigated rather than an altar to be worshipped at.