Finished reading: Oblivion: Stories by David Foster Wallace 📚.

Rolling Stone quotes him as wanting to write:

…stuff about what it feels like to live. Instead of being a relief from what it feels like to live.

and I think he certainly achieved that goal in this book. I found this an incredible collection of short stories that range from the absurd through to those that have an upsettingly familiar verbalisation of the unspoken pain of everyday existence.

Pretty much every story felt enriching and deep, with a weirdly enticing property of “are there more layers I’m not even beginning to understand?” upon completion.

“Incarnations of Burned Children” is both one of the shortest and one of the most intense and horrific stories I’ve ever read.