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| 1962 - 2008 suicide |
"Victory for the Forces of Democratic Freedom!"
I feel really dumb trying to write about DFW's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. I said I wouldn't do it, but here I am. I don't usually like 'innovative writing' when it goes beyond a certain point of the unfamiliar and becomes an absurdity of no interest. For instance, one of the pieces in this (Datum Centurio) is a series of definitions of words in 2096. I admit to skipping over it. And I admit to not liking Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko. I think only the hardcore DFW fans really like those ones. However, one of the weirder ones ('weird' as in if your mom read it, she would have no idea what was going on) was one of my favorites: Church Not Made with Hands.
Top Two Stories in the 22 Story Collection:
1.) B.I. #20 12-96 New Haven, CT: I don't think I can name any other short story that has made me as sad as this one. It's one of the 'Brief Interviews' scattered throughout the book and is one of those story within a story type of thing that usually goes rotten when other writers attempt it. The interviewer is never heard, thankfully, but she's addressed, so it's sort of like a schizophrenic monologue. This format is excellent, because it conveys a realness to the reader with all the interruptions and the side tracking. If the story had been told without the interviewer and the interviewee, I think it would lose some quality that is present only when something is discussed. The quality, I think, is defensiveness. That need to represent something to someone else in such a way that it does not lose its ability to run you over.
2.) On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father Begs a Boon: Family discord, but not in the usual sense. A man grows to hate, not his wife, but his son. On his deathbed, after pretending all his life that everything was perfect and normal, he dies confessing his unending hatred of his son. It sounds awful, but it's really funny.
