Quotes from David Foster Wallace's books, and about them
Infinite Jest on Faust: “Ghostly light- and monster-shadow phenomenon particular to certain mountains; e.g. q.v. Part I of Goethe's Faust, the Walpurgisnacht six-toed danceathon on the Harz-Bröcken, in which there's described a classic 'Bröckengespenstphänom.'”
Infinite Jest on Politics and the English Language: “held marathon multireadings of e.g. Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language,' and whose Avril-chaired Tactical Phalanx (MGM's) was then (unsuccessfully, it turned out) court-fighting the new Gentle administration's Title-II/G-public-funded-library-phaseout...”
Infinite Jest on Oblomov: “Two or three upperclassmen in Levy-Richardson-O'Byrne-Chawaf's Disciplinary Lit. were slumped over Goncharov's Oblomov, looking very unhappy indeed.”
Infinite Jest on Flatland: “A good quarter of the bus was yellow-highlighting copies of E. A. Abbott's inescapable-at-E.T.A. book Flatland for either Flottman or Chawaf or Thorp.”
Infinite Jest on Leaves of Grass: “He was down there reading Leaves of Grass. He was going through a Whitman period, part of grieving for Himself, he said.”
Infinite Jest on Principles of Psychology: “he chanced to read it in a huge large-print edition he'd found behind a bookshelf along the north wall of the Ennet living room of something called The Principles of Psychology with The Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, by William James (obviously)...”
Infinite Jest on Good Morning, Midnight: “she referred to her own program as 'Madame's Downer-Lit Hour' and read depressing book after depressing book—Good Morning, Midnight and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Giovanni's Room and Under the Volcano, plus a truly ghastly Bret Ellis period during Lent—in a monotone, really slowly, night after night.”
Infinite Jest on Maggie: A Girl of the Streets: “read depressing book after depressing book—Good Morning, Midnight and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Giovanni's Room and Under the Volcano, plus a truly ghastly Bret Ellis period during Lent...”
Infinite Jest on Giovanni's Room: “read depressing book after depressing book—Good Morning, Midnight and Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Giovanni's Room and Under the Volcano, plus a truly ghastly Bret Ellis period during Lent...”