Christopher Antimie > Recent Status Updates

I can't seem to escape books about trauma rn

Not sure how much I would care for this book if I didn't find the characters tragically relatable. I guess my emotional response is proof of quality

A story about a traumatized American expatriate living in Paris in the 1920's with his writer friends and traveling to Spain: I guess you write what you know. So far, not bad

I've mostly enjoyed my time with this collection but I wouldn't recommend it as a place to start with Wallace. I have read a few pages of the final story/novella and I am optimistic regarding its quality but it is clearly doing some serious, referential metafiction for which I am unprepared. I will get back to it once I've read Barth's "Lost in the Funhouse". For now I rate this at 3 stars on the goodreads scale

I've mostly enjoyed my time with this collection but I wouldn't recommend it as a place to start with Wallace. I have read a few pages of the final story/novella and I am optimistic regarding its quality but it is clearly doing some serious, referential metafiction for which I am unprepared. I will get back to it once I've read Barth's "Lost in the Funhouse". For now I rate this at 3-4 stars on the goodreads scale.

Feeling underwhelmed. Not really picking up on why people like this Pynchon guy

I'm still unsure how I feel about this one. There are moments of juvenile humor which I find to distract from whatever other mood or flow is being put forward. There are moments of insight and profundity but it feels like they are a surprise whenever they arrive, rather than something I feel secure in expecting. Regardless, the story is enjoyable enough that I will continue reading; I've heard the ending is the best

This isn't where I'd recommend starting with DFW. Many of these stories would benefit from more polish or editing or focus, yet the writing is unmistakably DFW's, and much of what would come to define his later work is on prototypic display here in character, setting, and theme. Loneliness, disfunction and grotesquerie, trauma, corporate dystopia, love and responsibility,etc.. All very American and essentially DFW

It's ok. Death Tractates was far more interesting to me

Reading long books can be like hiking or trail-running or backpacking: you spend most of your time working in an uphill slog, but that feeling of flying downhill in the final section is enough to make you forget how much work was required to get there and do it all over again. Put simply, it's finally getting good....and something something about ecstasy.

I'm really starting to enjoy this collection. The last 15 or so poems have generally spoken to me a lot more than some of the earlier, more obscure pieces.