A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

Essays and criticism

First published: 1997
Print length: 353 pagesLittle, Brown and Co., 1997

Description

Across this collection of nonfiction essays and arguments, David Foster Wallace turns close observation into a running inquiry about entertainment, self-consciousness, and American appetite. The title essay follows a week-long Caribbean cruise whose lavish service promises effortless pleasure but produces mounting discomfort and despair in its observer. At the Illinois State Fair, crudeness and excess become another lens on mass leisure and belonging. Elsewhere, Wallace considers television's influence on contemporary literature and the cultural power of irony. Footnotes open secondary paths through jokes, qualifications, and anxious self-correction, making digression part of the book's method. The collection moves between reportage and criticism while asking what happens when sophisticated awareness can diagnose manipulation without escaping it.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Dense · Essayistic · Witty

Pace

Variable

Tone

Cerebral · Humorous · Reflective · Wistful

Structure

Anthology · Argumentative

Focus

Argument · Ideas · Voice

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 4 / 5
Ideas: 4 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

Art and creativityBelongingIdentityIsolationKnowledge and truthTechnology and society

About David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace was an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and professor, best known for Infinite Jest. His work moves between dense, formally experimental fiction and nonfiction that can sound conversational even as it develops intricate arguments. Long, branching sentences, specialized or invented language, shifting voices, and disruptive footnotes are central to his method; he described the notes as a way to interrupt linear narrative while preserving readability and reflecting the texture of experience. Across fiction and essays, Wallace examined entertainment, appetite, self-consciousness, and the habits of irony in a media-saturated culture, returning to the difficulty of sincere communication and the fear of being alone. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Consider the Lobster turn cruises, fairs, politics, usage disputes, and public spectacles into comic, morally alert scrutiny. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men uses omissions, fragments, and compromised speakers to probe sexual power and self-deception. What distinguishes Wallace is the pressure he puts on form itself, making digression and excess serve sustained attention to other minds.