Comments on: The Meme of Aesthetic Boredom http://lastbender.com/blogh/the-meme-of-aesthetic-boredom/ The Website of Author Jon Frankel Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:43:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: jonfrankel http://lastbender.com/blogh/the-meme-of-aesthetic-boredom/comment-page-1/#comment-609 jonfrankel Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:49:01 +0000 http://lastbender.com/?p=265#comment-609 No, I didn't mean to imply he was intellectually bored, or that he produced avant-garde, static, painful art (though those footnotes are enough to deter me from ever reading Infinite Jest). I read the commencement speech, and as always I had a mixed reaction. I think my hard line has to do with a gut level reaction to his degree of self-consciousness, on full display in the commencement speech. I'm fine with textual irony, but feeling ironic about what you're doing, whether it's fiction or a commencement speech, that uncertainty about the occasion and the need to constantly draw attention to your own neurotic situation, is numbing. But, I don't question his output or sincerity and acknowledge his importance to others. The last paragraph of the post was not so much in reference to DFW as to Josh's post where he trots out Robbe Grillet, whose works do bore me with their stasis, and which I would never inflict on anyone, my primary belief being that art must entertain if it will accomplish anything else. DFW did I believe do that. No, I didn’t mean to imply he was intellectually bored, or that he produced avant-garde, static, painful art (though those footnotes are enough to deter me from ever reading Infinite Jest). I read the commencement speech, and as always I had a mixed reaction. I think my hard line has to do with a gut level reaction to his degree of self-consciousness, on full display in the commencement speech. I’m fine with textual irony, but feeling ironic about what you’re doing, whether it’s fiction or a commencement speech, that uncertainty about the occasion and the need to constantly draw attention to your own neurotic situation, is numbing. But, I don’t question his output or sincerity and acknowledge his importance to others. The last paragraph of the post was not so much in reference to DFW as to Josh’s post where he trots out Robbe Grillet, whose works do bore me with their stasis, and which I would never inflict on anyone, my primary belief being that art must entertain if it will accomplish anything else. DFW did I believe do that.

]]> By: miette http://lastbender.com/blogh/the-meme-of-aesthetic-boredom/comment-page-1/#comment-608 miette Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:19:02 +0000 http://lastbender.com/?p=265#comment-608 "intellectual" "-ly" “intellectual” “-ly”

]]> By: miette http://lastbender.com/blogh/the-meme-of-aesthetic-boredom/comment-page-1/#comment-607 miette Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:18:43 +0000 http://lastbender.com/?p=265#comment-607 Wallace's Kenyon College Commencement speech says more about his approach to coping with the mundanity of everyday life, which is, I think, far closer to what he's trying to do with "boredom" than simply adopting it as a sensibility (I'd ignore any assumptions you might have based on the canonising New Yorker pap): http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html I think standing him up next to Josh Corey is a conflation: Corey suffers from the strain of obdurate indignation that I generally see in the resident five-year-old: This is HARD and takes a long TIME, ergo it's BORING. You have your own hard-line opinion about Wallace, but he didn't walk that line. The dude was impassioned by writing. Not enough to overcome the problems with his brain chemistry, perhaps, but he didn't glom on to the "intellectual bored." Wallace’s Kenyon College Commencement speech says more about his approach to coping with the mundanity of everyday life, which is, I think, far closer to what he’s trying to do with “boredom” than simply adopting it as a sensibility (I’d ignore any assumptions you might have based on the canonising New Yorker pap):

http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html

I think standing him up next to Josh Corey is a conflation: Corey suffers from the strain of obdurate indignation that I generally see in the resident five-year-old: This is HARD and takes a long TIME, ergo it’s BORING. You have your own hard-line opinion about Wallace, but he didn’t walk that line. The dude was impassioned by writing. Not enough to overcome the problems with his brain chemistry, perhaps, but he didn’t glom on to the “intellectual bored.”

]]>