Critic James Wood is reading Brief Interviews with Hideous men for 92Y. He'll then speak at an event at 92Y on March 22nd (in New York City) about the experience: The Critic's Voice: First Reads with James Wood.
You can purchase tickets here (and they're cheaper if you're under 35).
When Wallace died in 2008, Wood wrote, “Whatever one felt about his work, it was hard to imagine any serious reader of fiction not being intensely interested in what he was going to do next. I had been looking forward to witnessing his literary journey, and to adjusting my own opinions and prejudices—or rather, being forced by the quality of the work to do so. Of great interest to me was his own ambivalent relation with some elements of postmodernism (irony, too-easy self-consciousness, and so on), and the burgeoning presence of moral critique in his work. One had the feeling that this new work was being written under considerable pressure— and I don’t just mean psychological pressure, but the pressure of staying loyal to his fractured, non-linear epistemology while at the same time incorporating some of that admiration he had for the concerns of the nineteenth-century novel. To put it flippantly, he was aesthetically radical and metaphysically conservative, and the negotiation of that asymmetry would have been a marvelous thing to follow, as a reader.”
(Thanks, Ricardo)
James Wood on David Foster Wallace
If we consider some of Wood's published views about Wallace this could turn out to be a very interesting evening. I'd love to attend, so I'm looking forward to a write-up over at Emdashes.
James Wood on Wallace after his death (originally here):
Whatever one felt about his work, it was hard to imagine any serious reader of fiction not being intensely interested in what he was going to do next. I had been looking forward to witnessing his literary journey, and to adjusting my own opinions and prejudices — or rather, being forced by the quality of the work to do so.
James Wood on Wallace in his book How Fiction Works.
And finally, Wood's review of Oblivion: The Digressionist (the link gives me certificate errors with firefox - misconfigured server maybe?) contains this memorable quote - bold type is my emphasis (thanks for the reminder, Adam):
Wallace has many ardent followers (his name is just "DFW" on some college campuses), but surely no one has ever claimed to be moved by him. Amused, impressed, challenged, even finely tormented; but not involved, quickened, raised, imparadised. Wallace may be torn between desiring the ordinary satisfactions of readerly connection and disdaining their very ordinariness. Alas, the latter impulse almost always vanquishes the former.
No one has ever claimed to be moved by him?