Operating in a world where life and commercial narratives have become virtually indistinguishable, Wallace's characters appear to us at points of solemn epiphany, ardent self-delusion, existential collapse and grotesque narcissism. Though only two of the volume's eight stories are, strictly speaking, "new" fictional offerings (the first six have appeared in journals from AGNI to Esquire), Oblivion is shot through with a largely consistent set of themes and arguments, rendering the work Wallace's most penetrating, disquieting and altogether kick-ass compilation to date. and early July here in the U.K.), the term seemed somehow right. But upon reading David Foster Wallace's latest short story collection, Oblivion (out this June in the U.S. Too loaded with foggy connotations of even foggier, poorly-defined "breaks" from (nonspecific) (nebulous? well, at least, invariably, nefarious) regimes or states of being. Emancipation is not a term I much like to use.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |