An excerpt from David Foster Wallace‘s unfinished novel, The Pale King, appears this week in The New Yorker. It’s good.
New DFW
Not Ideal
“The most unfortunate / Thing about history / Is not pornos. No, it is how Americans / (And we were talking about men but may I take this opportunity / To be more inclusive, because inclusivity is in!) were once better than they are at present.” In which an imagined David Brooks writes a sestina about misogyny. Here’s a Millions piece in which the real-life Brooks is thought of not as a pariah, but as a harbinger of hope.
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The Swamp of the Non-Reader
Jonathan Gourlay used to read all the time, then one day he stopped. “I knew that I had taken up residence in the swamp of the non-reader. Here is what life is like in that swamp.”
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Nothing if Not Consistent
Fans of Moby-Dick should read Nathaniel Philbrick’s outstanding historical account In the Heart of the Sea. The book, which tracks the fate of The Essex, a New England whaling vessel sunk by a humongous sperm whale in the South Pacific, is vivid and harrowing. It’s also, as it turns out, only one of the naval catastrophes to befall George Pollard, Jr., The Essex‘s captain: a second wreck of his was recently located off the coast of Hawaii.
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I’m a Very Sexy Baby
Last night I went to listen to Chris Kraus, Tamara Faith Berger, and Sheila Heti read the dirty parts of their books. Then I wrote a #LitBeat about it. For a little extra context, you might like to also read this article, written by Elizabeth Gumport for n+1, on Kraus’s writing and publishing career.
Four Easy Steps
1. Research a social issue. 2. Start a blog. 3. ??? 4. Become a public intellectual! Or not.