Literary Innovation in David Foster Wallace's 'Good Old Neon' (2004)

Good Old Neon is my favorite thing written by David Foster Wallace.

'Good Old Neon' is an abnormal story. There is a narrator who talks a great deal about his life and the problem of feeling like a fraud. The bulk of this 41-page story is told in the first person. Essentially the narrator feels that his entire life has been nothing more than an attempt to fabricate an impression of himself for other people. I imagine that many intelligent people have experienced the same problem in their lives.

I would not call this story uplifting but there are several hilarious moments. One of my favorites is the narrator's laundry list of all the things he has tried to combat his problem:

"EST, riding a ten-speed to Nova Scotia and back, hypnosis, cocaine, sacro-cervical chiropractic, joining a charismatic church, jogging, pro bono work for the Ad Council, meditation classes, the Masons, analysis, the Landmark Forum, the Course in Miracles, a right-brain drawing workshop, celibacy, collecting and restoring vintage Corvettes, and trying to sleep with a different girl every night for two straight months."

I can't help but think that Wallace himself has tried many of these things himself. When you're depressed, it makes sense to try different activities to relieve your depression. I'm sure many of us can attest to trying a few of these activities. I've tried right-brain drawing, meditation and volunteering for a non-profit. Personally I've found meditation to be the most effective.

While re-reading Good Old Neon, I couldn't help but feel a bit disgusted at the narrator. He's not likable and its hard to read 41-pages that feel almost copied verbatim from his mind. It's a frustrating story to read because of its length and the reprehensible actions of the narrator. I was carried through by my interest in psychology since the narrator is prone to explaining things in a very no-nonsense manner.

One of the most bizarre aspects of this story involves the narrator and his relationship to a character named David Wallace. Without giving away anything, there is shift in perspective in the final few pages that caused me to reconsider the entire story in a new light. This shift is also what makes me wonder how much of 'Good Old Neon' is taken from Wallace's personal experiences.

I can't say that I recommend that you read 'Good old Neon' or any of the stories in Oblivion. I will say that this is one of the most thought-provoking things I have ever read. If there's one thing to applaud in Wallace's work, it's the innovative experimental nature of works such as this. The only thing I can think to compare with 'Good Old Neon' is Dostoevsky's 'Notes from the Underground.'  These works share a troubled first-person narrator who feels alienated from society. In reading these stories, one feels uneasiness at seeing the thoughts of a disturbed person. It's like these thoughts were never meant to be revealed in the first place.

While I can't say that 'Good Old Neon' is enjoyable, I can say that it is a unique reading experience. The story displays Wallace's tremendous strengths as a writer, making it a good story for aspiring fiction writers to examine.

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The novel versus the short story or Why would one bother to read short fiction in the first place?

This entry will examine an idea that I have encountered while following other writers and readers of fiction. The idea that short fiction is not as worthy of a reader's time than other literary forms like the novel, typically pointed to as the most respectable of literary pursuits There are so many great novels written throughout history making this a fairly strong argument.

The best option for a reader is to focus exclusively on novels. When one thinks of the greatest works of literature, the list typically includes only novels, so it follows that the novel form is the best in literature. Frankly, I don't see much value in this argument. After all variety is the spice of life and we should read as many different things as possible to have a greater appreciation for the different forms that literature can take.

So what is a short story? What is a novel? Why should I care?

In terms of definition, a short story is typically any piece of literature with a word count of 1,000 to 4,000 words. However a piece of writing can have a word count up to 20,000 words and still be considered a short story. Due to its shorter word count, short stories generally are less elaborate than novels and take less time to read, but does that mean that we should stay away from short stories and focus entirely on novels?

Ultimately the answer to this is up to you. Read what you want when you want.  If you get satisfaction from reading Gravity's Rainbow or Infinite Jest and then telling your friends about it, then go ahead. I'm not going to stop you. I'm guilty of the same exact thing.

Yet as a reader of many short stories, here is something I would like for you to consider. A short story is basically a more concentrated version of the novel. When someone who reads novels says that short stories are worthless, that person has unknowingly attacked their own literary form of choice. To anyone who says that reading novels is better than reading short stories, I would say variety is the spice of life. Perhaps consider putting down your Thomas Pynchon novel and trying some Flannery O'Connor, perhaps starting with 'The  Barber'

I have read both novels and short stories. I started with novels early in my life and didn't encounter short stories until high school English classes. It was here that I first read the stories of Hemingway, Hawthorne and Poe. These stories showed me the power of the form to create a more condensed and powerful reading experience. It never occurred to me that this shorter form was any less worthy or meaningful. In fact I believe the opposite is true. In a world where attention spans are becoming shorter all the time, I would argue that the short story is the form best suited to meet our literary needs in the 21st century.

I hope that this was informative. Please remember, don't let anyone tell you that short stories are "less than" or "more than" another literary form. All writing is words on a page and we should ultimately read what we want. To me that is the beauty of literature.

/rant

The Kiss by Anton Chekhov

In 'The Kiss' by Anton Chekhov several military officers are invited to an aristocrat's house at night to partake in a party. The military officers are worried about going to the party because they recently experienced a similar situation where a rich old dude kept them up all night talking about boring stuff. But this party turns out to be a lot better than that experience. There are women, dancing and drinks at this party which creates an awkward situation for one soldier in particular named Ryabovich. For every other soldier, this is seemingly not an awkward situation. Ryabovich is decribed as shy, modest and undistinguished in comparison to his fellow soldiers.

Ryabovich enters a dark room where he is kissed by a woman who mistakes Ryabovich for another man. This accidental kiss has a profound effect on Ryabovich. In the days following the party, he thinks about the kiss constantly and it gives him something nice to think about while going through the day-to-day of a soldier's routine.

This is basically all there is to the story. There is also the detailed descriptions of scenery that for me exemplify Chekhov's unique writing style. The way that Chekhov describes the setting of his story is similar to a painter. Chekhov uses visual language which allowed me to imagine the story in rich detail. Here is an example:

'The red moon was reflected near the left bank; little ripples ran over the reflection, stretching it out, breaking it into bits, and seemed trying to carry it away...'

Writing such as this is my favorite thing about Chekhov's stories. The scenery is so richly imagined and described that it almost takes precedence over the story. I know that Chekhov was interested in landscape painting and this interest is reflected often in his stories. In a story like 'The Kiss' where the plot is short, I find myself looking more at Chekhov's descriptions to find insight regarding the story.

At the end of the 'The Kiss' we can see a distinct change in Ryabovich's mental state. At first Ryabovich daydreams about the kiss, causing him to feel pleasure while going through his daily routine. But after revealing the incident to his comrades, Ryabovich's emotions change drastically. "And the whole world, the whole of life, seemed to Ryabovich an unintelligible, aimless jest." This character arc left me with a sad feeling regarding this story. It would seem that Ryabovich would be better off without the kiss from the woman because it merely opened his eyes to what his life is lacking. It's the kind of encounter that is so far removed from daily life that it opens one's eyes to how unpleasant life is in comparison to other people. Just a tiny taste of a better life has left Ryabovich in a depressed state. It's the kind of revelation that leads people to abandon their jobs in the search of something better. Indeed the story ends with Ryabovich refusing the next invitation to a party in favor of going to sleep in his tent.

Here are some other things I noticed about the story:

• The story's unique structure. There is one climactic event (the kiss) that takes place early on and the rest of the story examines the effects of this climactic event on the story's protagonist.
• The social obligation that requires wealthy families to invite military officers to their home. It provides a great setup for this story.

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Analysis of 'Pastoralia' by George Saunders

As you may or may not know, I am a pretty big fan of George Saunders' work. 'Pastoralia' is the first story in Saunders' collection of stories titled 'Pastoralia' that was first published in 2000. This collection is interesting in that it only contains 6 stories each of which originally appeared in the New Yorker. This collection also contains my favorite of Saunders' stories, 'Sea Oak,' which I have written about here if you are interested.

Pastoralia inspired the Geico caveman television ad.

Here is the fun part where I explain the strange world of 'Pastoralia." I greatly enjoyed entering the bizarre world inhabited by the story's characters and seeing how those characters interacted with each other. 'Pastoralia' is the story of a man whose job is to impersonate a caveman at an amusement park. The man's goal is to impersonate a caveman as authentically as possible while also providing a pleasant experience for guests. This man narrates the story in first person with a very dry sense of humor. He describes the daily tasks of his job such as roasting goats or squatting and pretending to eat bugs like a bureaucrat working in an office.

The second most prominent character in the story is Janet, whose job is to play the caveman wife of the narrator. Janet does not do a good job of playing a caveman. She speaks english in the cave when she is not supposed to and she has much less passion for her job than the narrator does. Fortunately for Janet, the narrator does not want to rat out Janet's poor performance in the performance reviews that he fills out each night and faxes to his supervisor. But Janet's performance becomes so bad that the narrator has no choice but to disclose Janet's failures as a cavewoman. This is the main conflict of the story: the narrator's internal struggle of whether to accurately fill out a performance review that would cause Janet to be fired.

I loved this story. Saunders is one of the best at portraying the monotony of having a boring job. The way that certain phrases and actions are repeated throughout the story is one of my favorite things about it. For example the narrator says each day whether or not someone has poked their head in, meaning a visitor has come to his cave. In the past the narrator says that people would "poke their heads in" all the time but now this happens much less frequently. The repetition of phrases such as this makes it easier to feel the narrator's strange experience. While I could see how someone might interpret the repetition of phrases as bothersome, I am thankful that Saunders used this technique and I believe that it makes the story better.

At the end of 'Pastoralia' Janet is fired and replaced by another woman named Linda who possesses a permanently installed uni-brow. The narrator is encouraged by his supervisor to obtain a permanent uni-brow for himself. The narrator is also surprised by his new coworker's commitment to playing a cave-woman. She squats and pretends to eat bugs all afternoon and even eats a bug. There's a sense that life will continue as normal for the narrator with the exception of one thing: he will now have to be even more committed to caveman authenticity because of the pressure to match his co-worker's dedication.

It has been a few months since I have felt the urge to write about a story I have read. Reading Saunders' 'Pastoralia' rekindled my need to process the sheer absurdity of what I read through the act of writing down my thoughts. This is a story I know I will come back to again and again. I recommend it to anyone who is in need of a good laugh or who wants to enter the world of a caveman impersonator.

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'Emergency' by Denis Johnson

Today on the blog, I am talking about 'Emergency' by Denis Johnson. This is perhaps the most critically acclaimed story in Jesus' Son and much has been written about the story. I hope to contribute new insights into this story based on my own perspective.

This first thing I noticed about 'Emergency' is its pacing. The story jumps around quite a bit and there are many sections which comprise less than a paragraph. I had more fun reading 'Emergency' than I had reading other stories in Jesus' Son. The story is also hilarious. There are clear punchline moments meant to provoke laughter such as when a doctor enters a room where a man sits with a knife protruding from his eye. "What seems to be the trouble?" is the doctor's response to the situation.

"Emergency" is told from the point of view of a man working the overnight shift in the emergency room at a hospital. Drugs are this man's main focus. He is friends with an orderly named Georgie who steals drugs from the hospital. Something about working a graveyard shift messes with the body's rhythms. It's the kind of job someone takes because they would rather walk around doing nothing than work. I have not worked a graveyard shift myself but I can imagine the difficulty of being awake when one would normally be asleep.

This is a story where not a lot happens. Generally I do not mind reading stories like 'Emergency' which lack dramatic conflict. I can enjoy reading fiction without a dramatic narrative because I like to focus more on language and the way that language is used by the storyteller. This is why I read stories. Johnson is a master of using sensory details in his fiction. Reading 'Emergency' give you all kinds of sights, smells and sounds of its world and these details are not overwhelming. Johnson uses sensory detail like a chef might use different spices. They add flavor and variety in a subtle yet noticeable fashion.

The same thing that makes you laugh will make you cry. While I find 'Emergency' to be a funny story, I can't help but acknowledge that the story left me with a tragic feeling. The title alludes to this feeling as well. The story exists in a state of tension where the stakes are life and death. This sentiment is echoed in the final final line of dialogue, where Georgie states the he saves lives for a living. 'Emergency' deals with some heavy ideas and the more you dig into the story's layers of meaning, the richer it becomes. This is what makes 'Emergency' a great work of literature.

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Analysis of 'Work' by Denis Johnson

My new year's resolution was to write more but I decided to wait a month before writing. I started in February instead of January.

Today I am writing about Denis Johnson's story 'Work' from Jesus' Son.

At the beginning of 'Work' the narrator is not in a good place. He has lost his girlfriend after a fight and he is feeling pretty crappy. He goes to a bar called The Vine where he meets an old friend named Wayne. Instead of passing out in a corner as he planned, our narrator accompanies Wayne on a job. The two men drive in a sixty-dollar Chevrolet to a riverbank next to a dozen abandoned houses. The narrator assumes that this is a burglary job but Wayne asserts, "You can't burgulate a forgotten, empty house." The legality of what is taking place is somewhat unclear but we can probably assume that this job is more honest than the work our narrator is used to doing. There are no victims that we can identify except for the house itself which is of course abandoned and forgotten. If the wires in the house were valuable, they would already have been taken.

Later on we learn that the house belonged to Wayne at one point in time. We are left to imagine what must have happened to Wayne to make him desperate enough to tear down the walls of his own house for the copper wires. The narrator vomits because the work is hard. A boat drives by with a naked woman attached by rope to a kite one hundred feet in the air. This woman is Wayne's wife.

The narrator earns $28 for the copper wire he collected. He goes back to The Vine with Wayne who accuses "the biggest, blackest man in Iowa" of cheating at cards. Wayne somehow survives this confrontation without injury. The narrator admits to this being one of the best days of his life. This sentiment felt a bit strange to me at first since this story is not exactly uplifting. The narrator is feeling much better about himself because he is with his buddy Wayne and he feels tired from working. Not to mention the bartender has been generous when pouring drinks.

I'm most impressed by Johnson's writing style in this story. There are many small moments in this story that appeared unimportant at first but seemed more meaningful on a second reading. The main theme that Johnson explores here is the effect of time passing. The narrator is looking into the past as he tells this story with knowledge of what will happen in the future. The Vine will be demolished and the bartender will be beaten by her boyfriend. These are tragic events but the narrator chooses to focus on why this day was meaningful for him. It's important to find moments of happiness when life is tough.

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