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Wallace writes circles around himself in ‘Oblivion’

by John Sewell

David Foster Wallace is like a brilliant but pretentious former roommate. Every couple of years he’ll call out of the blue, and you immediately bolt out to meet him and rekindle the old friendship. Sure, he’s quite the interesting fellow. But after a while, the conversation gets tedious: the lout blathers on ad nauseam about his brilliant projects, and you just can’t get a word in edgewise. So you end up leaving the encounter saturated, thinking he’s a great guy and all, but what an egotistical, narcissistic so-and-so.

Yes, Wallace is back. The nation’s best showoff writer has reemerged with Oblivion (Little, Brown, $26), a collection of not-so-short short stories that are long on imagination and longer on pure cheek.

For the uninitiated, a quick description of Wallace’s modus operandi is essential. The author, who seems to love multi-syllabic words nearly as much as he loves to flaunt his intellect, has apparently never understood shorter words like terse and succinct. For Wallace, the every-single-instance-is-pivotal-to-the-entire-scenario, realities within realities, rapid-fire stream of consciousness shtick is but a jumping off point. His prose is a nonstop, retinal view of anything and everything that enters anyone’s (and everyone’s) mind.

Oftentimes, there are plots submerged within the morass of verbal flippety-tricks: they’re just hard to find. (It would be amusing to quote Herr Wallace here, but his usual sentence is longer than this entire review.)

For Wallace, the minutiae of each and every single instance are essential to the big picture—or something like that. For the reader, however, figuring out just what exactly the big picture is can be a challenge of Tantalusian proportion. Apparently Wallace is of the mindset that if you’re not smart or tenacious to hang with the big dog—in this case, Wallace himself—well, that’s just too damn bad.

Now, if you can get past the author’s obvious pretense and overflowing verbiage that multiplies like suburban sprawl, there are some thrills to be had.

Wallace is every bit the genius he fancies himself. And his prose can be absolutely breathtaking—once the reader is hip to his ways and in sync with his cadence.

Wallace’s short story collection kicks off with “Mister Squishy,” a tale about a marketing analyst who injects poison into packages of a snack product that he’s promoting. As usual, Wallace uses the story’s framework as an opportunity to inject his own additives, which may or may not contribute to the overall quality of the story.

The author provides myriad distractions from whatever plot there may be: continuous references to the ploys and psychology of product packaging show that Wallace is aware of the subtleties of marketing; multiple digressions about exactly how chemical additives affect the taste and texture of junk foods prove Wallace no slouch when it comes to food technology; and then there’s the usual cascade of verbiage, proving that Wallace might just as well have written Roget’s Thesaurus on his own.

“Good Old Neon” fares much better, probably because the story’s subject matter hits closer to Wallace’s personal experience. It’s the obligatory tale of a young urban overachiever’s insecurities, the old self-worth quandary previously mined by Wallace’s contemporaries Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney. And for once, the author stays focused—well, you’ve got to keep in mind who’s writing.

Oblivion finds its acme in the firm of the final tale, “The Suffering Channel.” Oddly analogous to Wallace’s way with words, the story concerns an artiste whose medium is fecal matter—miniature sculptural masterpieces are delivered, direct from the bowels in completed form, in the creator’s Midwestern bathroom.

Again, “The Suffering Channel” is actually several stories within one: there’s the artist’s morbidly obese wife who works as his agent; a magazine writer who attempts to verify the credulity of the artist’s claim; an upwardly mobile magazine intern; and the conglomerate that owns the magazine and is introducing a new cable product, you guessed it, The Suffering Channel.

As ridiculous as this story might sound, it actually works in a skewed, Vonnegutesque way. Unfortunately, none of the interwoven subplots gel into a definitive ending. Once the story gets enthralling, it is discarded abruptly—the slice of life presented is summarily lopped off, cutting room style.

Fancying himself as a postmodern heir to James Joyce, David Foster Wallace’s abundant talents seem squandered on literary narcissism. Sure, everything’s probably already been said time and time again. But Wallace’s rapid-fire, remix style puree of the language is no substitute for basic storytelling.

That said, I’ll probably have developed another thirst for snake oil by the time he comes around again.

September 2, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 36 © 2004 Metro Pulse