Comments on: The Real Question

By: Fiction Writers Review » Blog Archive » First Looks, March 2012: Pretty Girl and Conversations with David Foster Wallace

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:36:42 +0000

[...] Scott F. Parker reads DFW’s “Good Old Neon” in light of the author’s suicide. [...]

By: Dave Willingham

Dave Willingham — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:50:53 +0000

(please forward this message to Scott Parker). I just received the latest on-line Rain Taxi update, and went immediately to your report on the DFW conference. Quite apart from the terribly vexed subject of that conference, your report, I thought, captured both the occasional flashes of briliance and the oceans of ennui and disconnect that characterize academic conferences. Bravo. And your modest appraisal of the presentations was wonderfully refreshing. Bravo again.

By: Public Library 20.1 | Lead Igloo | Stories, Philosophy, Opinion

Public Library 20.1 | Lead Igloo | Stories, Philosophy, Opinion — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:40:11 +0000

[...] The Real Question. Scott F. Parker discusses the inevitable comparisons between ‘Good Old Neon’ and its author, David Foster Wallace. Via Fiction Writers Review. [...]

By: Jes

Jes — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:57:09 +0000

What a really great essay. I haven’t read “Good Old Neon,” but you can be sure I will after reading this piece. Typically, authorial biography as relates to their work gives me the willies, but DFW seems to invite at least its contemplation by using his own name in the work (and writing a story that begs so many questions of its author’s ultimate decision). I’d say watching a stranger’s face on the train as she reads something you’ve loved is validation – at least for you, Scott, as a human being – of just those lofty goals of connection that you write about in the last paragraph.

By: dglen

dglen — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:22:42 +0000

Really good essay on a perplexing story. One question: you do mean “guileless” rather than “guiltless”, don’t you, ie not a typo?