Author: Wallace, David Foster [Sven Birkerts]
Title: Letter from David Foster Wallace to the critic Sven Birkerts (with Birkert's copy of DFW's The Girl with Curious Hair)
Publication: 1993
Description: A handwritten letter (“quick note”) on white ruled notebook paper from Syracuse and dated “20-1-93.” About a half page. Wallace compliments Birkerts on his piece “Close Listening” in Harper’s, adding, “I personally think audio books are satanic, about as far away from narrative’s hunching-around-the-cavefire oral roots as ‘hypertexts,’ and about as salutary for the state of lit. in this country as Cliff Notes.” He also congratulates Birkerts on the book American Energies and applauds that in it “he is proffered as a crucifix against the prescriptions of Tom Zola, I mean Wolfe.” The friendship between Wallace and Birkerts began in “1989 or 1990,” per Birkert’s recollection, when Birkert’s reviewed Wallace’s story collection Girl with Curious Hair for the now-defunct little magazine Wigwam. In a piece reflecting on Updike and Wallace, Birkerts remembers that Wallace “had written a thank-you letter (very Wallace, that) in which he said he was living nearby in Cambridge, studying philosophy at Harvard; he proposed coffee.” They had an ongoing if sporadic correspondence from then on, and Wallace confided in Birkerts about his ambitions for Infinite Jest. As DFW’s biographer D.T. Max describes in The New Yorker, he wrote to Brikerts that he was trying for “a kind of contemporary Jamesian melodrama, real edge-of-sentimentality stuff.” Birkerts eventually reviewed Infinite Jest for The Atlantic. He also recallspublishing Wallace’s story “The Soul is Not a Smithy” in his first issue as the editor of AGNI, Boston University’s lit mag. Wallace gave back to Birkerts in that way and wrote that “Birkerts is the most interesting and persuasive critic in the U.S. today.” Among other honors, Birkerts is the recipient of a Guggenheim, the Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle, and the PEN Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the best book of essays. A fine letter; a shallow tear to the top left corner, but that likely original as it was removed from the notebook. Folded in thirds. Paired with Birkert’s copy of Girl with Curious Hair with his light marginal lines and ticks in the first story, “Little Expressionless Animals.” A near fine copy in like jacket. . Fine.
Seller ID: 1824
Subject: Association Copies