A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
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Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#2The ending of the interview is really disturbing:
Is there a lifetime ahead for a 34 year old writer who’s just delivered a thousand page bomb on us?
David Foster Wallace:
I think assuming I drive carefully, sure.
Christopher Lydon:
Please do.
Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#3One of my favorite David Foster Wallace essays is this Esquire piece on an obscure but top 100 tennis player named Michael Joyce (who later coached Sharapova for a while) http://www.esquire.com/features/sports/the-string-theory-079...
Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#4Pleasantly surprised to see this on HN. I've read all of DFW's work and he's such an interesting writer/human being. The biography "Every Love Story is a Ghost Story" is a must-read for anyone who's interested. My favorite lines he wrote are in IJ: "you'll worry a lot less about what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do."
Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#5I am profoundly scandalized that they edited 500 pages out of this monument.
Give them to me.
Now.
I need them.
Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#6The ending of the interview is really disturbing: Is there a lifetime ahead for a 34 year old writer who’s just delivered a thousand page bomb on us? David Foster Wallace: I think assuming I drive carefully, sure. Christopher Lydon: Please do.
Listen to the end of the Charlie Rose interview. Last words something about not jumping off a building any time soon.
Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#7Really happy to have seen this pop up. I'm a huge DFW fan. This is a stellar listen.
Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#8I guess what makes me sad is that I would like my generation to realize that it would be way better for us, like inside, in our stomachs, to be willing to pay higher taxes to be able to shelter and feed poor people, not for their sake but for ours, so that we would be the sort of culture that doesn’t let people die. And instead we’re all so worried about an extra 4% off our monthly paycheck that we get all exercised about it. And I see you looking at me… I know this sounds all pious and weird and it’s got nothing to do with the book, but doing this book was hard for me because it was about why exactly are we so sad and how have we become so unbelievably selfish, like lethally selfish and self-indulgent.
I love David Foster Wallace because he is one of those people who have a knack for summarizing and articulating huge concepts that have great relevancy to me. This quote stood out to me especially as a source of personal sadness and a sadly still-relevant commentary on our culture.
Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#9I guess what makes me sad is that I would like my generation to realize that it would be way better for us, like inside, in our stomachs, to be willing to pay higher taxes to be able to shelter and feed poor people, not for their sake but for ours, so that we would be the sort of culture that doesn’t let people die. And instead we’re all so worried about an extra 4% off our monthly paycheck that we get all exercised…
What a hypocrite. He wishes so dearly that everyone have the same opinion he does so as to willingly work more to pay for other people's shelter and food. He can be the change he wants to see - all he has to do is take care that the poor people around him have shelter and food. Aren't we seeing something similar in India, with neighborhoods getting together without help from any organization and fixing their death traps and beautifying their pissing corners and walls? DFW could have done that, but instead he was an armchair idealist who one day wished some centralized power would take a lot more money from a lot more willing people so that they alone could solve the problems of the world. How convenient.
That quote that stood out to you is the myopic and uneducated opinion of a depressed person. At least with my depression I don't go around like a lunatic defending there must be a power giant to steal more of people's money and give it to the poor, as if that ever worked. A true Utopia that this planet has never seen. I have seen pictures and videos of those citizen movements in India and that is not Utopia but real life. Alas, not good enough for DFW. It seems every depressed person hates this world and wishes for a better one, but with all his reading and writing, his opinion never matured beyond that of current high-schoolers.
Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace
#10The ending of the interview is really disturbing: Is there a lifetime ahead for a 34 year old writer who’s just delivered a thousand page bomb on us? David Foster Wallace: I think assuming I drive carefully, sure. Christopher Lydon: Please do.
Listen to the end of the Charlie Rose interview. Last words something about not jumping off a building any time soon.
Nothing disturbing about these things. Depressed people think about that a lot and blurt it out on occasion.