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A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

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Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#11

Post by [deleted] »

innguest wrote: post #9
great_kraken wrote: post #8

I 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 tr…

[deleted]

Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#12

Post by stephencanon »

innguest wrote: post #9
great_kraken wrote: post #8

I 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 tr…

Accusing someone of hypocrisy is not a refutation of their idea. It's base rhetoric, used when one can't address the actual argument being put forward. The fact that someone does not devote their life to a goal they put forward in no way makes the goal wrong. If a smoker tells you to not to smoke, is he a hypocrite? Sure. Does that mean that he's wrong and you should smoke? No.

I'd like to think that HN can do better and actually examine ideas, and not dismiss them because of hypocrisy. Your second paragraph is much, much better in this regard.

Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#14

Post by johnloeber »

RV86 wrote: post #4

Pleasantly 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."

Interesting -- I've also read (nearly) all of DFW's work, but I've held out on ELSISAGS due to unflattering reviews. Why is ELSISAGS a must-read for you, and what do you say to reviewers who call it an insubstantial pop biography?

Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#15

Post by [deleted] »

innguest wrote: post #9
great_kraken wrote: post #8

I 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 tr…

[deleted]

Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#16

Post by maroonblazer »

What a great find! Like reading his work, listening to him talk is both entertaining and thought-provoking.

One bit I don't quite get is the sadness/lost/loneliness that he posits plagues Generation X (in response to the first caller at around the 19:00 mark).

At least among the people in my circles, everyone seems grateful for how good we have it compared to past generations. Are there problems and iniquities that need to be addressed? Of course. But from where we stand, looking back, we've come a long way.

I'll admit that's a bit of a truism, as DFW would say, but I certainly don't think "sadness" characterizes the zeitgeist of Gen X.

Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#17

Post by softdev12 »

johnloeber wrote: post #14
RV86 wrote: post #4

Pleasantly 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."

Interesting -- I've also read (nearly) all of DFW's work, but I've held out on ELSISAGS due to unflattering reviews. Why is ELSISAGS a must-read for you, and what do you say to reviewers who call it an insubstantial pop biography?

i've read all his work, too.

I enjoyed the biography because it gave context to his interviews. He would say things in interviews that were clearly misleading because of certain things he had gone through in his past. The book highlights the reasons for why he would say these things. And if you go back and listen to his interviews you get a new take on things. It's as if you are hearing a new interview (after reading Ghost Story).

I would say that while his biography is worthwhile, it's obviously less worthwhile than his writing. And, in the end, I preferred the "Although Of Course" bio-book a bit more than Ghost Story.

Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#18

Post by 21echoes »

innguest wrote: post #9
great_kraken wrote: post #8

I 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 tr…

It's amazing to me that you would accuse DFW of myopia and hypocrisy when your argument here is, well, hypocritically myopic (not to mention one might say that DFW's overarching thesis in all of his work was encouraging his readers to be less myopic e.g. [1][2])

To tackle a problem like world hunger and homelessness takes an incredible amount of effort across a huge number of domains by an enormous amount of people. DFW was obviously not someone best suited to go e.g. repair "pissing corners and walls", and we should not expect him to be. Instead, he did many things to inspire many people to lead more altruistic and less self-centered lives. This was his talent, and it's probably done more good for the world than any amount manual labor he could have done in his lifetime. Ignoring this aspect of helping the afflicted is the same strain of myopia that thinks charities should give 100% of their fundraising to researchers/etc, as if raising awareness and paying competitive salaries were not the lifeblood of said charities[3].

I'll leave your rant about how "power giants stealing money have never helped the poor" alone, as your rhetoric and ignorance of evidence to the contrary clearly imply you're not about to have a rational discussion about it.

[1] http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf

[2] http://observer.com/1997/10/john-updike-champion-literary-ph...

[3] http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about...

Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#19

Post by codingthebeach »

Grew up in Boston and spent more nights in the stacks at the BU bookstore than I can remember (third floor). I never met him and wouldn't have recognized him if I had but I stumbled across IJ years later.

I think people tend to focus too much on the "gen X" factor when they put on their DFW hats, as if he were a precocious but emotionally fragile teenager who missed some key lessons in life. I think there was more vigor to DFW's vision of the world than that. He called it an "extrapolation" but it's an extrapolation that carries a lot of insight about the thing it's extrapolating from. Also he had too much humor, wit, and insight to be "gen-X" in the sense it's used in this interview. DFW was a once-in-a-generation writer. Maybe once in a lifetime. I would've loved to have seen what he could've produced by the time he turned 50.

Re: A Lost 1996 Interview with David Foster Wallace

#20

Post by wldcordeiro »

maroonblazer wrote: post #16

What a great find! Like reading his work, listening to him talk is both entertaining and thought-provoking. One bit I don't quite get is the sadness/lost/loneliness that he posits plagues Generation X (in response to the first caller at around the 19:00 mark). At least among the people in my circles, everyone seems grateful for how good we have it compared to past generations. Are there problems and iniquities that n…

He was speaking in 1996 and characterizing Generation X at that time. What you're comparing to seems to be Generation X now.
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