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Oblivion: Stories

Oblivion: Stories
Oblivion Stories book cover.jpg
First edition hardcover
Author David Foster Wallace
Cover artist Mario J. Pulice
Country United States
Language English
Genre Literary fiction, postmodern literature
Publisher Little, Brown and Company
Publication date
June 8, 2004 (U.S.)
Media type Print (hardback, paperback)
Pages 329

Oblivion: Stories (2004) is a collection of short fiction by American author David Foster Wallace. Oblivion is Wallace's third and last short story collection and was listed as a 2004 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Throughout the stories, Wallace explores the nature of reality, dreams, trauma, and the "dynamics of consciousness." The story "Good Old Neon" was included in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002.

The collection's writing overlapped with Wallace's last novel, The Pale King, and many of the stories came from notebooks that he used to write the book and may have begun as sections of it.

Wallace first suggested a new collection of stories to his editor Michael Pietsch in October 2001. Much of the editing appears to have been completed by October 2003. Published in June 2004, the book sold eighteen thousand hardcover copies in its first year.

The book was met with a "familiar duality" in its reviews, receiving a mixture of both extremely positive and negative reviews. According to the review aggregator Metacritic, it received generally positive reviews from critics. Metacritic reported that the book had an average score of 68 out of 100, based on 22 reviews. Joel Stein, for Time wrote that the "breathtakingly smart" stories are "epic modernism," with "big plots, absurd Beckettian humor and science-fiction-height ideas portrayed vis-a-vis slow, realistic stream of consciousness." Jan Wildt for The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote that Oblivion argues convincingly "that the short story is the 42-year-old author's true fictional metier." He additionally states that Oblivion "puts [Wallace's] stylistic idiosyncrasy to better use than any of its predecessors." Laura Miller, for Salon, wrote that Wallace had "perfected a particularly subtle form of horror story," and that his "long arcs of prose and the narrative sidetracks are exposed not as tortuous strivings toward some hard-won truth but as an insulation that people spin between themselves and the sharp edges of their condition." Scott M. Morris for the Los Angeles Times wrote that with Oblivion, Wallace "has earned a place as one of America's most daring and talented young writers." Morris claimed that although some of the stories left the reader "more impressed with [Wallace's] intelligence than with the stories," with "'The Suffering Channel,' 'Mister Squishy' and 'The Soul Is Not a Smithy,' Wallace transcends mere dazzling displays and explores human emotions with sensitivity." Morris wrote additionally that in this collection "the high stakes of life have supplanted postmodern playfulness," and that "Wallace has laid down a marker that will be coveted by readers."


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