The foolish political analysts of the late aughts thought they were on the cusp of a precipitous descent into hell itself. (Whereas it's exactly this moment that is the cusp. No, rather this moment. Actually it's this moment...) In fact, the political briefs on the Iraq war (there are four of them) are all quite good, if at times alarmist(: 'if Bush is enthusiastic about the use of torture, which is in violation of the Geneva conventions, then we can expect his enthusiastic use of nuclear weapons which are not in violation of these conventions...' ) The disguised fiction/prose pieces aren't terrible either, but the mediocre essays outnumber the good, and none of them produce lasting insight.



Instead we have a collage of DFW's worst impulses, which point backward to his despair. It's one thing to 'lament the horrors of the modern age' while recognizing modern bane/boon are dialectical i.e. 'there is also good'. It's another thing to 'lament the horrors of the modern age' as an unsmiling social reactionary. DFW's perspective on our great 'social degeneration' is more or less: 'These are problems that have never existed before and are currently a major threat to the integrity of our society. We could solve all these problems if everyone listened to me.' Ahistorical at best. Which problems merit this alarm? Late 90s 'Political Correctness' scares in The Freedom to Offend, 'Sexual Degeneracy' panics in Afternoon of the Sex Children, Late 90s 'Liberal Idiocy' screeds in Loaded and Dragon Slayers, 'My-philoosphy-and-political-ideas-are-correct-and-everyone-would-agree-with-me-if-they-just-heard-my-argument' in Out From Xanadu, Apocalypse Now, and others. ( )

I completely enjoyed this collection of essays. I started with the Robinson (Onward Christian Liberals), then cherry picked all the political/war essays, and finally started from the front and read all the remaining ones. My favorite essays were by Robinson, Scarry, Singer, Buruma, Danner, Gessert, and Grief. I also enjoyed the essay on the dog whisperer because I'm addicted to that show on t.v. (I had no idea he was an illegal immigrant). ( )

Deciderization: that's the way it's going to be from here out. Pick your authoritative filter (on any given topic), and follow. That's at least DFW's guest-editor opinion of how one can cope in today's info-saturated infinite info-scape. I agree with DFW. Awesome essays in here, too. This is also DFW's last thing that he created and published before his death last year. (Much, much more unpublished stuff will undoubtedly appear in the years to come. At least, I hope this stuff appears.) ( )

I read these sorts of things because most of the essays I am interested in, were written 20 years, 50 years, 100 years ago...? I think the Best American franchise fails often in their search for the best essays. I bought this particular edition, because I am a DFW fanboy. There a few really awesome essays. There's a really pretty narrative essay involving a building fire. ( )

The standard mixed bag for every sort of collection like this. Some good (mostly the Iraq conflict related "essays") and some that were instantly forgettable. Even DFW's introduction doesn't say all that much of worth. ( )