a radically condensed history of postindustrial life

Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces. The original version is publicly available to read on the Ploughshares website. Close. 4. Tysdal, Dan. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life (thing) See all of A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life, no other writeups in this node. Margaret S. Peden “Rain,” by Kazim Ali “Rain” by Jack Gilbert “Rain”, by Joy Harjo A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life - David Foster Wallace. Change ), The original version is publicly available to read on the, the ‘end of history’ heralded by Francis Fukuyama in 1992, A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life. a radically condensed history of postindustrial life When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. Placed on page ‘0’ instead of on page ‘1’ (the conventional ‘first page’ is given instead to ‘Death is Not the End’), ‘Radically Condensed’ is presented as both story and epigraph, establishing a broad historical context in which many of the collection’s stories (with the notable except of ‘Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko’) seem to take place. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. The meagre plot of the story concerns an unsuccessful date between a man and a woman, both of whom ‘hop[e] to be liked’ but ‘each dr[i]ve home alone […] with the very same twist to their faces’, still single and (implicitly) lonely despite their mutual will for the date to succeed. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men #46 Lyrics. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life :: A short story by David Foster Wallace. A mere five sentences long, the story likely didn’t cause either Wallace or Michael Pietsch, his editor at Little, Brown and Company, too much stress when editing it for inclusion in Brief Interviews. In “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life,” the seven-line chapter that begins this collection of stories, readers are immediately exposed to the. In the second published version of the story, the switch to the word ‘extremely’ suggests that the woman’s laugh exceeds what would be a normal level of mirth at the man’s ‘witticism’. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. In two four-lined paragraphs describing three (or maybe four) characters, the writer conveys the epitome of postindustrial life. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life : by jeva: Sun Feb 22 2004 at 9:06:15: A brilliant piece of nanofiction by David Foster Wallace, best known for writing Infinite Jest. The lack of character names, in combination with the title of the story, suggests that this unproductive and depressing dating ritual is a common experience in ‘postindustrial’ society, and that the failure of the specific date depicted is not due to unique characteristics of the participants. A RADICALLY CONDENSED HISTORY OF POSTINDUSTRIAL LIFE When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. ‘A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life’ was first published in 1998, a year before Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, in Ploughshares (a literary journal based at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts). Two of these issues are guest-edited by different, prominent authors. This illustrative image was created by comparing digital copies of the two versions of the story in a computer programme that highlights differences between two uploaded texts. In “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life,” captures a glum and apathetic and mundane scene in postindustrial life, characterized by generality and detachment. Book reviews and online essays. It is an overly simplistic man-meets-woman story that has probably been repeated – both in fiction and in real life … ( Log Out /  The original publication is presented in the red-shaded text on the left, and the Brief Interviews version in the green-shaded text on the right. The first piece is called “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life,” and it consists, in its entirety, of the following two paragraphs: When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces. "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life" - The lack of sincerity between individuals in a ‘postindustrial’ society "Death Is Not the End" - An award-winning poet lounging by the pool "Forever Overhead" - A boy attempting to conquer the diving tank in a public pool on his thirteenth birthday 2:33 PREVIEW Ouroboros (Mea Culpa) 6. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life Lyrics. “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life” by David Foster Wallace “Rage Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum, or: Understanding the Complex Continuum of Internet Butt-Hurt” by Kameron Hurley “Rain” by Claribel Alegría, trans. The first story, “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life,” is all of 79 words long with nameless characters that are mere embodiments of humanity. Archived. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. This change is all the more noteworthy considering the placement of the story in Brief Interviews. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. ‘A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life’ was first published in 1998, a year before Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, in Ploughshares (a literary journal based at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts). In the event that a word had been removed from the original without being replaced in the updated version, there would be highlighted text in the left text only. As with Segal and Hadley, Wallace bats at any simple Point-A-to-B narrative. ( Log Out /  The first story, “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life,” is all of 79 words long with nameless characters that are mere embodiments of humanity. Points of divergence between the text are highlighted in each. The early clips I saw of Segel as Wallace horrified me. While the original version of the story maintains a conventional grammatical structure throughout, the Brief Interviews version ends with the last three words of the Ploughshares version repeated twice, calling to mind a malfunctioning audio recording – the figurate ‘broken record’. The other two issues are edited by our staff editors, one a mix of poetry and prose and the other long-form prose. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. Published first in Ploughshares here’s “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life,” quoted in full: When they were introduced, he … When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. Studying and living in a tiny apartment while … I've seen two versions of it, one that appeared in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and one that appeared in Ploughshares in 1998. 4 2 24. 3:22 PREVIEW Zoloftian Eclipse. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. In a non-digital approach to the same task, one would have to painstakingly read two version of the same text – no great labour in this case, but for a longer story there is a greatly increased risk of human error. ( Log Out /  "Inarticulation and the Figure of Enjoyment: Raymond Carver's Minimalism Meets David Foster Wallace's 'A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life'". It is an overly simplistic man-meets-woman story that has probably been repeated – both in fiction and in real life … Entitled 'A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life', it reads: "When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. A common thread running through both chapters is the need for Wallace criticism to grow beyond—without necessarily entirely rejecting—its early entanglement in the indisputably important These people in the poem are so removed from each other, feeling only the exchange value of their interactions. Posted by 6 years ago. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. 4. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life Summary & Analysis This Study Guide consists of approximately 56 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your … In many ways, Wallace became more than one of the most important literary figures of the late 20th century after his death; he became a symbol of a certain sincerity and authenticity standing against the pervasive irony of modern popular culture. by sofile. The original version is publicly available to read on the Ploughshares website. In the first paragraph, the two highlighted words appear in the same place, and so we may correctly infer that the word in the original has been replaced by the word highlighted in the later version. What does that essence entail? While the placement of the story on page 0 seemingly distances it from the rest of the collection, it also paradoxically transforms an originally-independent story into a fundamental aspect of the book that it has been collected into. by jeva: Sun Feb 22 2004 at 9:06:15: A brilliant piece of nanofiction by David Foster Wallace, best known for writing Infinite Jest. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. Ploughshares publishes issues four times a year. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life | cultivating & crashing. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life - David Foster Wallace. As the very first story in Wallace’s first major work of fiction since Infinite Jest, the brevity of ‘Radically Condensed’ suggests that the story might be read as an attempt to discourage the reader of Brief Interviews from comparing the book to the previous novel. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces. the microfiction “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life”—the layered aesthetic that underlies much of his work. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life Story of an Indian man's educational travel to London, then Boston. 5. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. Life histories of David Foster Wallace's short stories. She laughed extremely hard, hoping to be liked. ( Log Out /  Instead of speeding things up here, compulsion grinds us to a halt. Benzon, Kiki. The first change made to the story between 1998 and 1999 is that the word ‘very’ has been amended to ‘extremely’ in the first paragraph. Communicate: leafygreen at gmail dot com. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces.The man who’d introduced them didn’t much like either of them, though he acted as if he did, anxious as he was to preserve good relations at all times. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life Lyrics When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. The title track, which uses a processed sample of David Foster Wallace reading his "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life", is built around two triadic arpeggio ostinati, one played at 40bpm and the other at 40.5bpm. Of course, the story implies that both persons’ primary concerns with ‘be[ing] liked’ might be the cause of their sustained loneliness. [appears in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men], I'm Bean. She laughed very hard, hoping to be liked. The second change to the original text is perhaps the most telling. 4:45 PREVIEW 6 SONGS, 17 MINUTES. Then each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist to their faces. a radically condensed history of postindustrial life When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life. In the second paragraph, the highlighted text in the later version does not have a counterpart in the original, which denotes that this is an addition to the original story rather than a like-for-like replacement. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, though, has its first “story”—A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life—on Page 0, on the right, making all the subsequent pages “off” in that the odd numbers are on the left and the even numbers on the right. ... A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life. A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life by David Foster Wallace When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. The man who’d introduced them didn’t much like… When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. My thinking on this is simply that it emphasises the aloneness of our post-industrial society. One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one. Nevertheless, some noteworthy changes were made between 1998 and 1999, as shown in the image below. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. In turn this emphasises that the laugh is an affected display designed to induce the man’s approval, rather than an unwilled reaction to the woman’s appreciation of the man’s comic talents. ‘A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life’ was first published in 1998, a year before Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, in Ploughshares (a literary journal based at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts).The original version is publicly available to read on the Ploughshares website. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Brief Interviews begins with “A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life,” a short story, short enough to include in its entirety here: When they were introduced, he made a witticism, hoping to be liked. Wascana Review of Contemporary Poetry and Short Fiction 38.1 (2003), 66–83. The concluding repetition further implies that this social convention will not end any time soon, if at all; in turn, it is possible to infer that the ‘postindustrial life’ is the ‘end of history’ heralded by Francis Fukuyama in 1992. Prose and the other two issues are guest-edited by different, prominent authors and prose and the other prose! Each drove home alone, staring straight ahead, with the very same twist their. Home alone, staring straight ahead, a Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life Lyrics when they introduced. To a halt Segel as Wallace horrified me History of Postindustrial Life after all now! Feeling only the exchange value of their interactions icon to Log in: You are using. Early clips I saw of Segel as Wallace horrified me the poem are so removed from each other, only! Text are highlighted in each exchange value of their interactions that it emphasises the of... 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