daniell's review against another edition
3.0
This is a faithful retelling of What Happened To Dave, told by a researcher bent more on Dave as a Person than What Dave Wrote (parenthetical note: I'm done using DWF-caps like that), which is to say that this is not an extensive literary treatment of Wallace, but the portrait of a person, mostly a depressed person.
Wallace as The Depressed Person (that one doesn't count because it's the title of one of his stories) prevails in Max's account. He clearly did a lot of legwork in getting material together, and the selections from that work he includes are uniformly choice. Wallace's Amherst period is the most interesting in the book, because this part most benefits from Max's digging. The nearness of Wallace's story is made more evident by the anecdotes Max includes; for instance, one Amherst friend of Wallace can be verified as resembling The Edge with a quick search (he's also a realtor in Texas).
The approach is loosely chronological, with most of the time devoted to 1994-1997, around the time Infinite Jest was published. A striking fact of Wallace's life was his need to teach in order to eat. Max writes of Wallace receiving the Guggenheim grant of $280,000 and not knowing what to do with the money, how he then gave some to members of his recovery group for their children's college payments and also bought a truck, a truck that he let one of his students borrow and quickly forgot what had become of it. He later told this to his class, and was embarrassed to see the student stand up and hand him his keys.
The truck story tells in micro the idea of Wallace that Max does a great job of presenting along with that of depressed person, namely, that of Wallace the recoverer. If he had a religion it was certainly AA support groups. At one point Max gives Wallace's list of things he would like to have as a recurring part of his life, a list including 5x AA Mtgs/wk. A benefit of reading Max was the idea that Wallace fictionalized his essays on many points of what editors call on-author details, details that cannot be verified and are the author's responsibility. In his post-9/11 essay published in Rolling Stone as "9/11: The View From the Midwest," he writes about watching the coverage at the house of his Baptist Church congregants. Max reveals is that they were families from his AA connection.
A strong point in Max's presentation is the role of Wallace's mother, Sally, in David's upbringing and consequent struggles. It's known that her love of grammar shaped Wallace into the literary person he became. In reading this I learned about the abuse Sally received as a child from her father that made her tend to ignore and internalize her problems, which bled into the Wallace family culture and lived with David for the rest of his life. The character Avril Incandenza in Infinite Jest is a lash against Sally, a grammar-obsessed, lusting, abusive parent. David's relationship with his mother goes a long way--in a kind of Freudian sense--to explain all of his relationships with girls. Max's presentation involved both desire for intimacy and selfish retreat, a point illustrated when Mary Carr asks David to get her son from school, to which David responded, "But I'm going to use my truck to go to the gym." Max clearly presents the inconstant nature of Wallace's romances.
One critique of his work is the lack of material included from The Pale King, but this is both reasonable and understandable given that Wallace never got the final cut of what Pietsch published. If you reference other reviews here on Goodreads you will see one of the more popular ones expressing disgust with Max's rampant comma splices, which tend to occur when he wants to pack more into a sentence than he ought.
Another critique is the way passages from his books are presented and explained. As I read I sensed that Max excerpted sections in order to make sure all of his works had their say, not necessarily because they had a direct bearing on Wallace's life. The treatment of his work seems very piecemeal, with no big interpretive ideas coming directly from Max about questions of meaning.
The no-big-idea critique is a sub-point of the idea that this seemed to be a book lacking a clear thesis and a strong narrative voice, almost a homage to Infinite Jest. Unfortunately Max did not set out to write a novel. The duty of a historian is not merely to say what happened, but to talk about the merit of what happened and to give weight to subjects and events. Unfortunately, Max gives a bland, factual recount of what happened with little critical overlay. Wallace is, unfortunately, a big enough figure to have a posthumous biography sell well, but not (I suspect) controversial or popular enough to have sales withstand tough critical analysis--it's a work for fans.
And yet perhaps his life was enough, perhaps his inner turmoil that Max presents so well speaks for itself, perhaps Wallace's self-critical impulse that led to his death necessarily forestalls more criticism. Max presents a depressed, troubled, neurotic, nymphomanical, fast-burning, empathetic, introspective, melancholic man who followed his heart till it cost him his life.
The end of the book is an example of the low-commentary stance Max takes. In the end, Wallace hangs himself and his life is over without any explanation why it had to be this way, what comes next, or what it all meant. There's some verity here that I think Wallace would have appreciated.
Wallace as The Depressed Person (that one doesn't count because it's the title of one of his stories) prevails in Max's account. He clearly did a lot of legwork in getting material together, and the selections from that work he includes are uniformly choice. Wallace's Amherst period is the most interesting in the book, because this part most benefits from Max's digging. The nearness of Wallace's story is made more evident by the anecdotes Max includes; for instance, one Amherst friend of Wallace can be verified as resembling The Edge with a quick search (he's also a realtor in Texas).
The approach is loosely chronological, with most of the time devoted to 1994-1997, around the time Infinite Jest was published. A striking fact of Wallace's life was his need to teach in order to eat. Max writes of Wallace receiving the Guggenheim grant of $280,000 and not knowing what to do with the money, how he then gave some to members of his recovery group for their children's college payments and also bought a truck, a truck that he let one of his students borrow and quickly forgot what had become of it. He later told this to his class, and was embarrassed to see the student stand up and hand him his keys.
The truck story tells in micro the idea of Wallace that Max does a great job of presenting along with that of depressed person, namely, that of Wallace the recoverer. If he had a religion it was certainly AA support groups. At one point Max gives Wallace's list of things he would like to have as a recurring part of his life, a list including 5x AA Mtgs/wk. A benefit of reading Max was the idea that Wallace fictionalized his essays on many points of what editors call on-author details, details that cannot be verified and are the author's responsibility. In his post-9/11 essay published in Rolling Stone as "9/11: The View From the Midwest," he writes about watching the coverage at the house of his Baptist Church congregants. Max reveals is that they were families from his AA connection.
A strong point in Max's presentation is the role of Wallace's mother, Sally, in David's upbringing and consequent struggles. It's known that her love of grammar shaped Wallace into the literary person he became. In reading this I learned about the abuse Sally received as a child from her father that made her tend to ignore and internalize her problems, which bled into the Wallace family culture and lived with David for the rest of his life. The character Avril Incandenza in Infinite Jest is a lash against Sally, a grammar-obsessed, lusting, abusive parent. David's relationship with his mother goes a long way--in a kind of Freudian sense--to explain all of his relationships with girls. Max's presentation involved both desire for intimacy and selfish retreat, a point illustrated when Mary Carr asks David to get her son from school, to which David responded, "But I'm going to use my truck to go to the gym." Max clearly presents the inconstant nature of Wallace's romances.
One critique of his work is the lack of material included from The Pale King, but this is both reasonable and understandable given that Wallace never got the final cut of what Pietsch published. If you reference other reviews here on Goodreads you will see one of the more popular ones expressing disgust with Max's rampant comma splices, which tend to occur when he wants to pack more into a sentence than he ought.
Another critique is the way passages from his books are presented and explained. As I read I sensed that Max excerpted sections in order to make sure all of his works had their say, not necessarily because they had a direct bearing on Wallace's life. The treatment of his work seems very piecemeal, with no big interpretive ideas coming directly from Max about questions of meaning.
The no-big-idea critique is a sub-point of the idea that this seemed to be a book lacking a clear thesis and a strong narrative voice, almost a homage to Infinite Jest. Unfortunately Max did not set out to write a novel. The duty of a historian is not merely to say what happened, but to talk about the merit of what happened and to give weight to subjects and events. Unfortunately, Max gives a bland, factual recount of what happened with little critical overlay. Wallace is, unfortunately, a big enough figure to have a posthumous biography sell well, but not (I suspect) controversial or popular enough to have sales withstand tough critical analysis--it's a work for fans.
And yet perhaps his life was enough, perhaps his inner turmoil that Max presents so well speaks for itself, perhaps Wallace's self-critical impulse that led to his death necessarily forestalls more criticism. Max presents a depressed, troubled, neurotic, nymphomanical, fast-burning, empathetic, introspective, melancholic man who followed his heart till it cost him his life.
The end of the book is an example of the low-commentary stance Max takes. In the end, Wallace hangs himself and his life is over without any explanation why it had to be this way, what comes next, or what it all meant. There's some verity here that I think Wallace would have appreciated.
mary412's review against another edition
3.0
I may have picked up this book because of the haunting picture on the cover. I still haven't read much DFW, but I will get around to it eventually.
lit_chick's review against another edition
5.0
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. It goes without saying that I'm a huge DFW fan, and have been anticipating this book for a few months. Usually I don't hold non-fiction to as high a standard as I do fiction, but I have to say that Max has this beautiful, narrative and sympathetic writing style that made this book a joy to read. It had this weird meta-quality that made the book feel like a novel, and as it ended I had the weird sensation of losing a close friend. I'm grateful for all the work Max put into this biography, which stands alone, by any standard, as a Great Book.
sternjon's review against another edition
4.0
I can't say I loved this book, but I felt an unmistakable need to read it and I thought it was very well done; it
was fair and complex and clearly well researched.
I liked spending time with DFW, who does come to life on the page. I know the book is getting knocked for not being the kind of brave circus of a bio that DFW deserves, but as a matter of record, the book is necessary. The ending is so incredibly sad I can't even think too much about it.
was fair and complex and clearly well researched.
I liked spending time with DFW, who does come to life on the page. I know the book is getting knocked for not being the kind of brave circus of a bio that DFW deserves, but as a matter of record, the book is necessary. The ending is so incredibly sad I can't even think too much about it.
storyonlystory's review against another edition
3.0
A poorly written book that felt somewhat voyouristic to me. I've only read *auto*biographies before. It was interesting and I'm glad I read it but it really was badly written.
lola425's review against another edition
3.0
Max was able to write this biography without fawning or making DFW seem like a saint. He shed light on some of DFW's flaws without passing judgment and discussed his accomplishments with gushing over his brilliance. I read that Bret Easton Ellis had been tweeting that this bio revealed that DFW was an insecure fame seeking phony (how hilarious is that? If you put all those words together my first guess would have been Ellis himself). That is not the reading I'd give it: it just proves that DFW was a flawed human being, as all of us are. To try and denigrate his gifts because he struggled with his won ego is unfair.