Both Flesh and Not
Essays
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4.1 • 12 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Brilliant, dazzling, never-before-collected nonfiction writings by "aone of the most influential writers of his generation" (New York Times).
David Foster Wallace was beloved for his inimitable voice and wit-and, for many of his readers, admired as much for his astonishingly perceptive and inventive essays as he was for his fiction. Both Flesh and Not gathers fifteen of Wallace's seminal essays, all published in book form for the first time.
Never has Wallace's seemingly endless curiosity been more evident than in this compilation of work spanning nearly 20 years of writing. Here, Wallace turns his critical eye with equal enthusiasm toward Roger Federer and Jorge Luis Borges; Terminator 2 and The Best of the Prose Poem; the nature of being a fiction writer and the quandary of defining the essay; the best underappreciated novels and the English language's most irksome misused words; and much more.
In addition to these essays, Both Flesh and Not includes a selection from Wallace's personal vocabulary list, an assembly of unusual words and definitions that serve as a reminder of Wallace's ferocious love of language.
A sweeping, exhilarating collection of some of the author's most emotionally immediate work, Both Flesh and Not reminds us why A.O. Scott, writing in the New York Times, called David Foster Wallace "The best mind of his generation."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Now that Wallace's unfinished novel The Pale King has been published posthumously, the inevitable trawl of his uncollected writings may begin in earnest and, as is the case here, it will inevitably yield both dingers and duds. His writings on subjects ranging from the U.S. Open to Zbigniew Herbert, the AIDS virus to Terminator 2, display, yet again, Wallace's genuine and infectious love for obsessive human endeavors as disparate as pro tennis, analytic philosophy, and pure math. However, for all the gems, a few essays are simply too slight to merit inclusion, while others such as "Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young" have the sort of precociously earnest tone that makes one wonder how happy Wallace would have been about their inclusion. Despite this, the opening essay "Federer Both Flesh And Not" by itself is worth the price of admission. If to that one adds "The Nature of the Fun" (his essay on writing fiction) and "Deciderization 2007 A Special Report" (his introduction to The Best American Essays 2007), the collection already beats most competitors hands down. There is a rare pleasure in reading Wallace at his best. As he writes of Roger Federer: "Genius is not replicable. Inspiration, though, is contagious and multiform."
