Comments on: Remembering David Foster Wallace

By: Wooden Disposition : Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits

Wooden Disposition : Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:06:30 +0000

[...] It is difficult to respond to James Wood’s remarkable misreading of Richard Powers’s Generosity without giving away the ending. As someone who respects a reader’s sense of discovery and who therefore stays mum on “spoilers” — a term that I suspect Wood is unfamiliar with — I would not dare give up the ghost. Needless to say, as I anticipated, Wood has again demonstrated his predictably vanilla failings with idea-driven novels. He is once again hysterical, starving and naked in a sad but interesting way, about a novel that is not always intended to be explicitly realist. Wood is certainly a fine literary critic and a giddy finger drummer. He’s been leveled with many needless generalizations about his aesthetic tastes and sensibilities, including Colson Whitehead’s puerile parody. But this latest New Yorker essay simply does not reflect his apparent good faith efforts to adjust his own opinions and prejudices. [...]

By: The Walrus Blogs » Infinite Summer: Required Reading » The Haulout

The Walrus Blogs » Infinite Summer: Required Reading » The Haulout — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:31:29 +0000

[...] of casting Wallace as an aesthetic villain in his extraordinary 2008 effort How Fiction Works, wrote in the aftermath of Wallace’s death, “Whatever one thought of his work, it was hard to imagine any serious reader of fiction not [...]

By: GranneBlog » Now THAT is fantabulous!

GranneBlog » Now THAT is fantabulous! — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:17:22 +0000

[...] Roy Kesey’s piece in “Remembering David Foster Wallace” (Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits: 15 September 2008): The first story of David’s [...]

By: <HTMLGIANT> > Blog Archive » Today at the Daily Rumpus: Useful Additions to D.T. Max’s “The Unfinished”

Fri, 01 May 2009 22:05:27 +0000

[...] Self, by Nigel Beale(the quotation “pursuit of vitality at all costs” is given context here); Remembering David Foster Wallace (Wood’s comment is [...]

By: unreliable narrator

unreliable narrator — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:03:24 +0000

Since Mr. Ames doesn’t know the difference between “nauseous” and “nauseated,” I think we may safely let his comment speak for itself.

Thanks for posting these, Mr. Champion, no matter how reluctantly.

By: David

David — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:07:10 +0000

Having been ill, I got the news a month late. So I’m still absorbing it — but I got one more month than everyone else of believing that this wonderful writer was still alive, and that another “Infinite Jest” might be somewhere in the pipeline. The world is running out of people who can even read prose as good as Wallace’s, let alone people who can write it. This is a catastrophe for literature.

By: Surplus Matter : An Index to the work of Tom McCarthy

Surplus Matter : An Index to the work of Tom McCarthy — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:12:08 +0000

[...] McCarthy, “Remembering David Foster Wallace,” Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits 15 September [...]

By: Stephen Tennent

Stephen Tennent — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:46:43 +0000

TO THE PUBLIC AT LARGE: Ignore writers and people like “Mark
Ames” he is just another “me too”: e.g. “I am a writer too, I am a painter too, I am a musician too–look at me.”
He has nothing to say. His only saving grace is that his ego is so
self-congratulatory that he smoothly reveals his lack of respect, lack of curiosity, and his enthusiastic to spew empty words. He is brave enough to have NOTHING TO SAY and ACTUALLY SAY IT.
Bravo. Your ego and blindness are transparent and those of us with hearts and brains applaud you for it. Come to Detroit sometime-I’ll introduce you to some actual writers and people: you daft twit.

By: Stephen Tennent

Stephen Tennent — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:39:45 +0000

Mr. Ames, You are an idiot, a charlatan, and a non-human. The world would actually be better off if you had died, so that the reading public can be spared more thoughtless, smug, smarmy,
wastes of time and words LIKE YOURS ARE in your entry.
Thank you for convincing me that your writing is worthless–and I actually read your words in order to come to my conclusion (unlike you and D, F. Wallace’s words). Please tell me when someone you respect dies–make sure it’s someone I don’t know, or have had any significant contact with, and I will be pleased to write my comments and a special obit for your friend–friends, have u any?

By: Stephen Tennent

Stephen Tennent — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:33:59 +0000

Mr. Mark Ames: why did you bother writing your self-promoting, superfluous, and completely unresponsive and irrelevant comment re: David Foster Wallace, a writer whose “master work” Infinite Jest, you have never tried to read because you were turned off by “literary allusions” and “typefaces”.You are are a writer, corrrect ? An actual writer ? Do you ignore books by masters because the color of the cover of the book doesnt’t appeal to you ? You ignore Joyce, Pynchon, all of whom will be remembered (unlike you) and state with ultimately arrogant bad taste (re: Wallace” that “now that he has killed himself, I cannot help but have some respect for him”.

By: Laura Foster

Laura Foster — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:30:58 +0000

It took me a year to read IJ the first time, 6 months the second time and 3 months the third. All these tributes are from scholars way, way over my head. I wonder why no one mentioned that he isn’t suffering anymore?

By: Amazon Literature Book » Blog Archive » Watching DFW: State Fair Twirlers and Cruise Ship Service

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:18:25 +0000

[...] places you might want to stop by, if you want to read more, are the tribute pages put together by Edward Champion and McSweeney’s (the latter is especially full of life, including a photo sequence of DFW [...]

By: Johan

Johan — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:15:21 +0000

I’m shocked and depressed about this news. I almost can’t believe it. The world is more boring now without such a mind in it. He should be remembered as a genius based on Infinite Jest alone. My thoughts go to his family and friends.

By: Watching DFW: State Fair Twirlers and Cruise Ship Service

Watching DFW: State Fair Twirlers and Cruise Ship Service — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:02:48 +0000

By: fieldus » Blog Archive » James Wood on DFW

fieldus » Blog Archive » James Wood on DFW — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:06:22 +0000

[...] Remembering David Foster Wallace : Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits James Wood: [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:39:18 +0000

Fuck you, Mark Ames, you fucking cowardly, heartless, soulless, no-good piece of shit.

By: Book Links: Because I haven’t been on the ball enough to get out six questions requests this week edition | Minnesota Reads

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:16:02 +0000

[...] Local writer Jake Mohan writes a beautiful piece on the death of David Foster Wallace for the Utne Reader. (also Harper’s has made a ton of his non-fiction pieces written for them available, including the piece that became the “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”) (and another thing McSweeney’s has remembrances of Wallace on their front page which is a nice compliment to Ed Champion’s collection of memorials by writers) [...]

By: Elena

Elena — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:07:48 +0000

May I say that I feel sad ?
His writing is – in my opinion – somewhere in between poetry and science. It’s a thin line. It is many times some kind of incadescent research. Like getting close to understanding our possible connection to the dark matter, whatever that is.
DFW mastered the English language so well, he could have written a series of best sellers. But he cared about really experimenting and trying to reach more than that, so he gave us much more than so many others.

(By the way, who is Mark Ames ??? Nauseating he is.)

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:26:18 +0000

Mark Ames used to write for the New York Press, which ipso facto makes him (a) a jerk, (b) a pompous jerk, (c) an ignorant pompous jerk, and (d) an envious ignorant pompous jerk. Even if he did memorably take down Klosterman.

By: Chuzzwuzzer

Chuzzwuzzer — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:37:26 +0000

Look what Mark Ames wrote in his bullshit, worthless newspaper:

“Now, no one with an ounce of literary vanity can kill themselves for at least another 50 years, until the stench of this fat-cheeked middlebrow’s suicide wears off, and the field is once again cleared of his three pompous whitebread names.”

So, once again: Can someone hunt this guy down and kill him? He lives in Panama, right? Surely there’s someone there who’d be willing to beat him to death for a few hundred dollars. Mark Ames is enough to make one root for Putin and the KGB.

I guess I don’t get how a guy can be this much of a dick. He openly admits he’s never read Wallace, then figuratively pisses on his grave. I mean . . . why? Who would want to live in that rotten, miserable skull? Mark, please, and I really mean this: Kill yourself. It might give some of us miserable over Wallace’s death something to smile about.

By: Judith Fitzgerald

Judith Fitzgerald — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:56:23 +0000

Wonder no further when it comes to Joyce, Eileen; he did not conceive of “Silence, Exile, Cunning” with neither logic nor reason. (BTW, he had a sisted named Eileen.) He lived variously (and sometimes briefly) in self-imposed exile in Trieste, Pula, Rome, Paris, Zürich (and, in fact, despite returning to Dublin on occasion, is buried there), et so forthia.

I have heard there will be a memorial held at Pomona for David; I hope Ed can attend and share it with us; that might provide those of us who love him with some kind of closure for this devastating loss (to the Nth degree of unimaginability, still). And, yes, Ed, I’m with those who thank you for providing this gathering place to express their sweet sorrows for David Foster Wallace, an original non-pareil (now gone to the great tennis court in the sky).

^i^

By: S. Archibald Tennemell

S. Archibald Tennemell — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 09:39:27 +0000

We love you David.

Also, Mark Ames has a small penis.

By: Vitro Nasu » Blog Archive » R.I.P David Foster Wallace

Vitro Nasu » Blog Archive » R.I.P David Foster Wallace — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:17:16 +0000

[...] Remembering DFW (Lit. Community/Edward Champion) [...]

By: Chuzzwuzzer

Chuzzwuzzer — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:16:04 +0000

I thought that, too, actually! Which means Mark Ames is not only tactless but deeply ignorant!

By: Eileen Favorite

Eileen Favorite — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:35:56 +0000

I’ve taught “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” nearly every year for the last nine. That essay alone puts DFW high on the list of Best American Authors, even without the prodigious list of his other great works. When critics call his writing show-offy, I wonder what they would have made of Joyce in his day. The young and gifted are always subject to jealousy. I loved the humor in his work, and am so saddened to think that he couldn’t find some comic relief from his deep pain and depression.

By: Patrick Stephenson

Patrick Stephenson — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:15:00 +0000

I’m actually convinced Mark Ames has David Foster Wallace confused with Mark Z. Danielewski, and “Infinite Jest” with “House of Leaves.” Confirmation?

By: Chuzzwuzzer

Chuzzwuzzer — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 22:05:15 +0000

I would love it if someone in a position to do so would punch Mark Ames in the nuts ASAP. Ed, please remove his “tribute.” It’s obvious he never even looked at Infinite Jest, which has no “telegraphed literary allusions” (as though he’d even be able to identify one) and absolutely no “zany typefaces.” It has exactly one typeface (two, if you count the footnotes’ typeface). The man (Ames, that is) is a literary garbage mouth and does not deserve a single atom of attention. The man Ames dismisses was a great and beloved writer. It’s like asking Pat Robertson what he thinks of Stephen Hawking.

By: Living Reflections from a Dream

Living Reflections from a Dream — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:31:13 +0000

links for 2008-09-16…

David Foster Wallace (Harper's Magazine) DFW's Harper's archives in pdf. pure joy. (tags: readingisfundamental) Coudal Partners' Field Tested Books Is your perception of a book influenced by where you read it? (tags: readingisfunda…

By: blue skies above us » Archive » DFW

blue skies above us » Archive » DFW — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:52:03 +0000

[...] wonderful. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94626723 (and check the archives) http://www.edrants.com/remembering-david-foster-wallace/ http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/09/hbc-90003557 [...]

By: links for 2008-09-16 | I Will Dare

links for 2008-09-16 | I Will Dare — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:01:58 +0000

[...] Remembering David Foster Wallace : Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits Edward Champion has collected a stunning list of the reactions to David Foster Wallace's death by writers from around the Internet (tags: edchampion davidfosterwallace tribute writers) [...]