Brief Interviews With Hideous Men

Reading this collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace was much like being a told a series of long really intelligent jokes. When 'I got them' they were excellent but some of them right over my head leaving me with thinking what on earth was all that about. It didn't help matters that Wallace is a bit infamous for his use of obscure synonyms of recognizable words which makes the whole reading process unnecessarily difficult in parts. After the trouble that one hundred years of solitude caused me I should have probably went for a book a bit lighter on challenging vocabulary but this was certainly not that, it was to be entirely honest on a whole other level of taxing. The little Oxford dictionary didn't even cut it half the time, the next time I attempt a DFW book I am going to have to haul a bad-ass massive dictionary along for the ride. Yes despite the trouble I had with these short stories I would certainly try other books by him because when it was good it was some of the best, most different, uncategorizable writing I have ever read. He's worth the battle but it was a bit of a struggle, 3 stars overall.