Washington Post Book Reviews
For You
Monday January 17, 2011
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FATE, TIME, AND LANGUAGE: An Essay on Free Will
David Foster Wallace. Edited by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert
Columbia Univ
ISBN 978-0231151573
252 pages
$19.95
Reviewed by Justin Moyer
Not every college student gets senioritis. Case in point: About a decade after he failed to become a professional tennis player and a decade before he published his novel "Infinite Jest," the late, great David Foster Wallace, then a 23-year-old English-philosophy double major at Amherst, took on the subject of fatalism in an undergraduate thesis. "The fatalist thinks of himself and his role in the world in a curious sort of metaphysical way," Wallace wrote in "Richard Taylor's 'Fatalism' and the Semantics of Physical Modality," now published for the first time with explanatory notes in the thoughtfully edited "Fate, Time and Language." "Everything that does and will happen must happen, and ... persons as agents can do nothing but go with the flow."
The particulars of Wallace's argument will elude lay readers unfamiliar with philosophy's "contingent future-tensed propositions" and "law of the excluded middle." Still, fiction lovers with even a minimal knowledge of Aristotle and Wittgenstein will understand that the core proposition of fatalism -- we have no say in what we do -- haunted Wallace's writing. "There was a palpable strain for Wallace between engagement with the world, in all its overwhelming fullness, and withdrawal to one's head, in all its loneliness," writes James Ryerson in his introduction. "The world was too much, the mind alone too little." For an author who devoted thousands of pages to dramatizing that crisis before he killed himself at 46, what could have been a dry intellectual exercise becomes an unexpectedly affecting obituary.
Justin Moyer can be reached at moyerj(at symbol)washpost.com.
Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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SUGAR AND ICE
Kate Messner
Walker
ISBN 978-0802720818
NA pages
$16.99
Reviewed by Mary Quattlebaum
While battling Beltway traffic to get to the soccer/piano/ballet activity du jour, do you fantasize about a simpler existence for your children? In a snow-dusted small town, perhaps, with cow-pond skating and pancake suppers? Well, in "Sugar and Ice," Claire Boucher, a 12-year-old skating star, hails from such a town -- and her life is far from Norman Rockwell rosy. When premier coach Andrei Groshev "discovers" her at a tiny local show, Claire suddenly finds herself "living a dream." She enjoys a prestigious scholarship, superior ice rinks and the chance to train with elite young skaters. If this were Hollywood, "Sugar and Ice" would end in a blaze of Olympic gold and sequined glory. But E.B. White Award winner Messner is too fine a writer for that sentimental trajectory. Messner creates believable tensions among characters and especially within the main character, who sees herself as "nice and predictable." In dealing with Groshev’s demanding regimen and a trio of sabotaging "Ice Queens," Claire grows in strength, skill and confidence. But she sometimes wonders if it’s all worth it. Her grueling practice schedule demands sacrifice -- friendships, leisure time, occasionally homework -- but she doesn’t want to let down her supportive family, her coach or herself. Contemporary kids, a-whirl in extracurriculars, will be able to relate to likable Claire. They will cheer her through double axels, difficult decisions and a number of surprising turns in the final chapters.
-- Mary Quattlebaum
Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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