Title:: [[The Broom of the System]] Authors:: [[David Foster Wallace]] Tags:: #fiction Read:: [[2025-01-26]] Instagram :: https://www.instagram.com/p/DFTOHboP02d/ ## Editions - Edition:: [[Penguin Books]], Penguin Ink, 2010 - Original Copyright:: 1987 - Pages:: 467 ## Purchase * Bookshop.org:: https://bookshop.org/a/94437/9780143129448 ## Annotations Here’s a novel that embodies the Ortega y Gassett line about titles of books being like names of cities in which we’ve spent time; how they conjure smells and rhythms peculiar to that place. Wallace’s world is smart, funny, and off-kilter. I loved it.  I’d put Wallace in a bucket with Vonnegut, Pynchon, George Saunders, and Joy Williams (among writers I’ve read). Often the words used to describe them are satire, surreal, absurd, but for me it’s uncanny. The worlds they create are recognizable on the face of it but, like an AI generated image of a person with 7 fingers, there’s something off, hiding in plain sight. Maybe I’m drawn to these writers because that’s how I feel about the world these days.  Especially loved the characters and their names are wonderful (Judith Prietht, a personal favorite). The Great Ohio Desert should be the name of someone’s band.