Oblivion

Stories

By: David Foster Wallace

Narrated by: Robert Petkoff

In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness -- a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his.

These are worlds undreamt of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown (The Soul Is Not a Smithy). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity by delineating the office politics surrounding a magazine profile of an artist who produces miniature sculptures in an anatomically inconceivable way (The Suffering Channel). Or capture the ache of love's breakdown in the painfully polite apologies of a man who believes his wife is hallucinating the sound of his snoring (Oblivion).

Each of these stories is a complete world, as fully imagined as most entire novels, at once preposterously surreal and painfully immediate.

Weird, Wild, and Wonderful

If you could sum up Oblivion in three words, what would they be?

I think I just did.

What did you like best about this story?

Nothing was predictable.

Have you listened to any of Robert Petkoff’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not.

If you could take any character from Oblivion out to dinner, who would it be and why?

David Foster Wallace (since he appears in one of the stories), because it would mean he would still be alive.

Any additional comments?

The imaginative and creative power displayed in these stories is awe-inspiring.

This narrator has the wrong tone

..throughout. There is a snobby, hyper articulated, stiff, thing, sure, but the big issue is the reader sounds like the author is making a value judgement or a joke at a character's expense in every sentence. I think it's a misreading..

Poop, Cancer, Murder.... DFW has it all

I loved this book. Meandering and seemingly stream of consciousness, but intricate and intelligent. Funny and irreverent.

Guys if you've ever been in business or market research you will especially love its meetings and Byzantine intrigue.

The first story "Mister Squishy" is kinda verbose.

The first story "Mister Squishy" is kinda verbose. This story collection gets better after that.

Master Class In Writing

There is no other like David Foster Wallace. Thank Go we had him among us as long as we did.