“ David Foster Wallace is an excellent reporter. He’s a bit more uneven as a novelist. The best sections of the book — the sections with the most truth and texture and voice and immediacy — are the sections that Wallace has essentially reported out. That reporting didn’t always take the form of a plane ticket and a notepad. Sometimes, Wallace simply lived the experience. But it’s unmistakable: The descriptions of tennis, of the odd camaraderie of young male athletes, of addiction, of rehabilitation clinics, on sudden obsessions, and of Boston, all have a startling clarity to them. They are verbose and circular, like much of Wallace’s writing, but that’s only because Wallace understands these places well enough that he doesn’t just let you see what the character would see. He lets you think what the character would think. It’s a messier, but altogether more impressive, achievement.
The Importance of Reporting « A Supposedly Fun Blog (via peterwknox)
