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Read this to study for the GRE, but not to be entertained 2008-01-26

Reviewer: Aquinas

This is fiction of a style I would label A.D.D. prose: there is very little action yet we spend pages reading about dribbly insignificant details. It is easy to lose focus while reading this book. Wallace writes sublimely detailed sketches of the characters, but it is only a still life; there is no action, no dimension. The one redeeming quality is the English of this book; extremely erudite, it is like reading a dictionary.

Please enter a title for your review 2008-01-09

Reviewer: pancake_repairman

*contains spoilers?*
where the vast majority of "literary fiction" writers say to themselves "i need some detail to add color to this scene, what's a generic characteristic that would be apparent and what's the best way to allude to it possessing overlooked significance?", Wallace finds and focusses on the details that are actually interesting and thus only needs to describe them in an objective rather than poetic way demonstrating the irrelevance of poetic descriptions when you have enough of a sense of reality to find the facts that define the nature of a situation and let them speak for themselves.
i felt like most of the writing in the first half of this book consistently paid off with a new idea that built on the previous ones every second or third sentence. i was too engaged by the minor immediate payoffs to even be anticpating an ultimate ending crescendo. i struggled to find any ideas that could hook me in the second half though, which is the same experience i had with Infinite Jest. all the faults of that previous novel are equally apparent here, the progressively increasing reliance on suspense to hold reader attention and excluding or vaguely implying the most relevant information.
the title story Oblivion is a non-linear minefield of half-ideas with a conclusion seemingly consisting (although i could be completely wrong) of the "...and it was all a dream" twilight zone ending. the cryptic style is perhaps designed to represent a dream, but since all his writing has included an element of surrealism it isn't different enough from his other stories for the intention to be apparent even retrospectively.
The Suffering Channel is alternating boring and frustrasting, spending all of it's 90 pages raising question after question that are never answered and dragging out the suspense with the kind of banal detail that can only be called padding, something DFW clearly knows better than to use. the minor philisophical ideas never go beyond surface level kneejerk reactions, something that, again, DFW clearly knows better than to use.
just like Infinite Jest half of it blew me away but i couldn't see how the same writer could take any pride in the lesser half.

Brilliant 2006-12-21

Reviewer: James J. Sutcliffe

The best collection of short fiction from the best living writer in the English language. It demands patience and attention, but the rewards for the effort are incredible. The best story in the collection is Good Old Neon, which is bifercated (by use of footnotes), such that there are two distinct endings, both of which would qualify the story as probably the best I have read this year.
These stories coil and bend, and the sentences are often labyrinthine; casual reading really won't suffice. If you do put forth the effort, I think you'll find that they engage the mind and that other thing, whatever it may be, that makes us what we call "human." Truly an outstanding collection.

I go back to it fairly frequently 2006-05-18

Reviewer: Rabel Stoltzfus

Pissed off at the mindnumbing aspects of television, I found this collection of stories to be a breath of fresh air showing me the power and scope of what fiction writing can be when someone courageous enough will put in the work. You can trust Wallace to know what the heck he's writing about, just don't think too hard about it - like television - enjoy it and the words and ideas in each story will, in the end, make you glad you did, unlike television. I especially enjoy 'Good Old Neon' and 'Another Pioneer'.

Missing Something 2005-10-24

Reviewer: popjunkie

First, let me say I absolutely LOVE reading David Foster Wallace. This collection showcases one of his strengths: the attention to detail - or, more accurately - the minutiae - of everyday thoughts; how, for example, three minutes of a day can only be captured by pages & pages & pages of prose, because the human brain simultaneously functions on so many levels (best illustrated when you find yourself listening to someone attempting to explain 'the dream I had last night' but use so many qualifiers that a dream that lasts for probably no more than one minute absorbs the conversation of an entire lunch - or as least smoke break).

Ultimately, though, I found myself wishing a strong editorial voice would have confronted Wallace on several counts prior to the publishing of 'Oblivion.' This is especially true with the first story, 'Mister Squishy,' which seems to build up to a crescendo that is never reached. Wallace weaves together several different narratives into what the reader expects to come together at some point, but instead the story just...ends.

'The Suffering Channel' is a lost opportunity of amazing proportions. In this story, a highly engaging tale begins - and the reader falls into it helplessly, increasingly curious as to what it all means and where it's all going. Yet, instead of reaching a conclusion, or really any sort of resting point, the story abruptly ends. I wondered if the printer had left out pages & pages of the book, and I fought against the urge to hurl it across the room.

I absolutely love Wallace's amazing & rare gifts. But what 'Oblivion' shows is a 'writer's writer.' These stories are partial projects, not stories. They are, at best, extremely well fleshed-out beginnings.

It's a joy to read the words of someone with such innate talent, with such incredible gifts with the written word, but to me what we're left with is just one-half of a whole. Most of these stories end so abruptly, one can scarcely even call them a 'slice of life' because they consistently refer to past or future events that are never quite clear or explained. It's not that I'm left frustrated because 'I want to know what happened.' I'm frustrated because what could have been three or four great full-length novels were robbed.

I will always read Wallace because it is an incredibly intense & enjoyable experience. But I probably would not recommend this book to anyone I know because it is so unfulfilling and ultimately disappointing.

I guess 'Oblivion' can be classified as 'experimental' fiction or non-narrative storytelling, but Wallace is capable of so much more than that, as we have seen in the past, as we will hopefully see in the future, & as even 'Oblivion' attests.