Over the past few weeks going down the DFW rabbithole – a couple of weeks ago I read (and loved) Both Flesh and Note and I have been gearing up to retry Infinite Jest.
The last thing on my list before Infinite Jest was Girl with Curious Hair.
There are (unsurprisingly) several great stories in here, but the final story, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, is some of my favorite DFW I have read to date and it makes the whole collection worthwhile.
For whom is the Funhouse a house? Maybe for liars, creative types, campaigners, tree surgeons having at the great Saxonic tree. For Tom Sternberg, the Funhouse is less a place of fear and confusion than (grimace) an idea, an ever-distant telos his arrival at which will represent the revelated transformation of a present we stomach by looking beyond. A present comprised by fear of confusion.