Oblivion: Stories Review

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Oblivion: Stories ReviewThere are some writers who it becomes fashionable to read and then, when they become too popular or widely praised, fashionable to put down. We are in the midst of the recoil that began after Infinite Jest became popular. I think the recoil is probably going to continue (and appears to be continuing in these reviews) because Wallace is a writer whose flaws are so easy to spot, and it's simple to quote sections of his writing and hold them up as everything that's wrong with today's literary writing. His style is frequently bloated and self-indulgent, and if you're not paying attention it's easy to get lost and call all of it nonsense. Sometimes he tries as hard as he can to make you stop paying attention, when he throws in what appear to be irrelevancies or whatever oddity he can come up with to be more original - because god forbid that any of his writing have the taint of old-fashioned conservative storytelling.
This is, unfortunately, only half the truth, because there really are magical moments in Wallace's writing, and just when you're about to get absolutely fed up with him he pulls out something beautiful, or shocking, that for whatever reason stays with you. Even in a two page story like "Incarnations of Burned Children" I went through all of the probable reactions to the stories in this volume: initial interest, confusion with the prose style, impatience, boredom, and then suddenly a moment where the story seems to open up and become incredibly moving.
The story is about a mother accidentally scalding her toddler, and is told in the long clause-filled breathless sentences that Wallace uses - with occasional good taste. At first, the prose is frustrating, because it seems to be getting in the way of actually enjoying the story, but eventually it falls into a certain rhythm, and as the parents are frantically trying to cool down their child it starts to imitate their panic, until both the parents and reader realize with horror that the hot water inside the diaper is still burning the child, and despite knowing nothing about this family, in just this little story we can start to understand what it's like to feel terrified for a child that is ours.
When a writer enjoys goofing around, and seems to be scared of clarity, it's occasionally hard to judge his genuine value. Reading an early novel of Beckett's, with its incessant clowning around and self-conscious erudition, I wasn't really sure what the big deal was about him - he just seemed like an aggravatingly precocious little kid. But there were glimmers of a profound talent there. And I think there are here too. Instead of complaining about the obvious surface clutter - which, who knows, might be inextricably linked to the virtues, although I hope not - I'm pleased enough with what he can give us.Oblivion: Stories Overview

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