WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.510 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:05.200 align:middle line:84% Why did you title it Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story? 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:06.063 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:00:06.063 --> 00:00:07.480 align:middle line:84% Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story. 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:09.430 align:middle line:90% I mean, that is-- 00:00:09.430 --> 00:00:11.950 align:middle line:84% I titled it that way for a couple of reasons. 00:00:11.950 --> 00:00:14.860 align:middle line:84% And it's a phrase that David used. 00:00:14.860 --> 00:00:17.915 align:middle line:90% And the weird thing is he-- 00:00:17.915 --> 00:00:20.290 align:middle line:84% there are these letters he wrote to Richard Elman who-- 00:00:20.290 --> 00:00:23.900 align:middle line:84% these are-- it's funny to have these names preserved who were 00:00:23.900 --> 00:00:24.400 align:middle line:90% only here-- 00:00:24.400 --> 00:00:26.150 align:middle line:84% I think Richard Elman may have been here 00:00:26.150 --> 00:00:30.760 align:middle line:84% for one semester in 1986 or '85, actually. 00:00:30.760 --> 00:00:33.070 align:middle line:84% But he was here for the right semester for me. 00:00:33.070 --> 00:00:38.080 align:middle line:84% So Richard Elman, who was a kind of a critic and a novelist 00:00:38.080 --> 00:00:40.600 align:middle line:84% and a little bit of a kind of literary man, 00:00:40.600 --> 00:00:41.642 align:middle line:90% I think he wrote a book-- 00:00:41.642 --> 00:00:43.558 align:middle line:84% if I remember right, he published a book later 00:00:43.558 --> 00:00:45.610 align:middle line:84% on called Conversations With Writers I've Had. 00:00:45.610 --> 00:00:46.520 align:middle line:90% It was a very-- 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:47.770 align:middle line:90% he's a guy who knew everybody. 00:00:47.770 --> 00:00:51.640 align:middle line:84% Anyway, so he and David had a kind of playful correspondence. 00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:54.640 align:middle line:84% And in this correspondence, David 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:57.790 align:middle line:84% would write at the bottom of a letter, an ordinary letter, 00:00:57.790 --> 00:01:00.400 align:middle line:84% catching him up on this or that, "every love story 00:01:00.400 --> 00:01:01.240 align:middle line:90% is a ghost story." 00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:04.900 align:middle line:84% And then he would give it to Virginia Woolf. 00:01:04.900 --> 00:01:07.150 align:middle line:84% So it'd be every love story is a ghost story, Virginia 00:01:07.150 --> 00:01:08.890 align:middle line:90% Woolf to Merv Griffin-- 00:01:08.890 --> 00:01:11.950 align:middle line:84% sorry, Virginia Woolf on the Merv Griffin Show. 00:01:11.950 --> 00:01:14.230 align:middle line:84% All right, so on the one hand, what's 00:01:14.230 --> 00:01:16.480 align:middle line:84% clear is that this is around the time David is writing 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:20.244 align:middle line:84% the stories in Girl With Curious Hair, in which he's using 00:01:20.244 --> 00:01:24.610 align:middle line:84% postmodern-- sorry, postmodern tropes like TV shows 00:01:24.610 --> 00:01:26.350 align:middle line:84% is real life, there's a wonderful story 00:01:26.350 --> 00:01:28.588 align:middle line:84% set on the Jeopardy-- the set of Jeopardy 00:01:28.588 --> 00:01:30.130 align:middle line:84% called Little Expressionless Animals. 00:01:30.130 --> 00:01:36.683 align:middle line:84% And there's the title story, Girl With Curious Hair. 00:01:36.683 --> 00:01:38.350 align:middle line:84% So that's where it's coming from, right? 00:01:38.350 --> 00:01:40.392 align:middle line:84% And there's another letter where he attributes it 00:01:40.392 --> 00:01:43.330 align:middle line:84% to Virginia Woolf on the Johnny Carson show. 00:01:43.330 --> 00:01:45.610 align:middle line:84% But I don't really know why the phrase interested him. 00:01:45.610 --> 00:01:47.920 align:middle line:84% But it pops up throughout his later writings. 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:50.470 align:middle line:84% If you look at The Pale King, and it's a little tricky, 00:01:50.470 --> 00:01:53.440 align:middle line:84% because we have this chronology of David's published writings. 00:01:53.440 --> 00:01:55.180 align:middle line:84% But actually, when he began The Pale King 00:01:55.180 --> 00:01:58.000 align:middle line:84% is almost immediately after Infinite Jest. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:00.240 align:middle line:84% It just goes on for a long time without him 00:02:00.240 --> 00:02:01.240 align:middle line:90% being able to finish it. 00:02:01.240 --> 00:02:03.790 align:middle line:90% So it pops up. 00:02:03.790 --> 00:02:06.863 align:middle line:84% If you look at the book, there's a moment, a very daring moment, 00:02:06.863 --> 00:02:08.530 align:middle line:84% actually, I think the most daring moment 00:02:08.530 --> 00:02:11.410 align:middle line:84% in the book, where it's just the list of a lot of IRS tax 00:02:11.410 --> 00:02:13.060 align:middle line:90% examiners turning pages. 00:02:13.060 --> 00:02:16.120 align:middle line:84% And in the middle of that page, one of those pages, 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:18.820 align:middle line:84% pops up the phrase "every love story is a ghost story." 00:02:18.820 --> 00:02:21.280 align:middle line:84% It also appears in Brief Interviews 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:22.930 align:middle line:84% with Hideous Men in one of the stories. 00:02:22.930 --> 00:02:25.180 align:middle line:84% I don't really know what David meant by it. 00:02:25.180 --> 00:02:26.972 align:middle line:84% [SIRENS AND TIRES SQUEALING IN BACKGROUND] 00:02:26.972 --> 00:02:28.650 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:02:28.650 --> 00:02:30.630 align:middle line:90% Not the old Adobe Poetry Center. 00:02:30.630 --> 00:02:32.770 align:middle line:84% We're kind of a little open air thing here. 00:02:32.770 --> 00:02:34.770 align:middle line:84% I said, I don't really know what he meant by it. 00:02:34.770 --> 00:02:35.820 align:middle line:90% And I actually like that. 00:02:35.820 --> 00:02:38.340 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think I know why it caught his eye. 00:02:38.340 --> 00:02:39.840 align:middle line:84% But it's really, purely speculative. 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:41.310 align:middle line:90% I mean, to me-- 00:02:41.310 --> 00:02:43.080 align:middle line:84% to me, in some ways, it sort of captures 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:46.050 align:middle line:84% the act of writing, the love story of writing. 00:02:46.050 --> 00:02:48.450 align:middle line:84% But the chasing-- the chasing of the thing you 00:02:48.450 --> 00:02:49.410 align:middle line:90% can never quite get. 00:02:49.410 --> 00:02:51.210 align:middle line:84% But I mean, that's speculation on my part. 00:02:51.210 --> 00:02:53.460 align:middle line:84% He may have just thought it was a funny little phrase. 00:02:53.460 --> 00:02:56.130 align:middle line:84% The really weird thing is, where does the phrase come from? 00:02:56.130 --> 00:02:57.690 align:middle line:84% And I did a New Yorker blog on this. 00:02:57.690 --> 00:03:00.060 align:middle line:84% Because it's not unreasonable to want to know where 00:03:00.060 --> 00:03:01.380 align:middle line:90% your title comes from, right? 00:03:01.380 --> 00:03:03.900 align:middle line:84% I mean, if you put 100 authors in a room, 00:03:03.900 --> 00:03:06.120 align:middle line:84% 99 will know the source of their title. 00:03:06.120 --> 00:03:07.470 align:middle line:90% And I'll be the 100th. 00:03:07.470 --> 00:03:10.710 align:middle line:84% Because it turns out that the writer Christina Stead, 00:03:10.710 --> 00:03:15.120 align:middle line:84% a wonderful novelist who wrote The Man Who Loved Children, 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:19.680 align:middle line:84% a book you should race to your library and pull out and read, 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:22.320 align:middle line:84% it's in an unpublished story of hers. 00:03:22.320 --> 00:03:24.985 align:middle line:84% But I don't know how David would have read an unpublished story 00:03:24.985 --> 00:03:25.860 align:middle line:90% of Christina Stead's. 00:03:25.860 --> 00:03:27.210 align:middle line:84% I have no reason to think he particularly cared 00:03:27.210 --> 00:03:28.470 align:middle line:90% about Christina Stead. 00:03:28.470 --> 00:03:30.623 align:middle line:84% And possible, Richard Elman, who knew everybody, 00:03:30.623 --> 00:03:32.040 align:middle line:84% was a friend of Christina Stead's. 00:03:32.040 --> 00:03:36.840 align:middle line:84% And then it also appears in a Tim O'Brien story. 00:03:36.840 --> 00:03:39.390 align:middle line:90% I learned this just recently. 00:03:39.390 --> 00:03:41.640 align:middle line:84% It's in one of the stories in The Things They Carried. 00:03:41.640 --> 00:03:42.720 align:middle line:84% This may be more than you want to know. 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:44.520 align:middle line:84% But it's in The Things They Carried. 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:46.830 align:middle line:84% But the story was published after the letters 00:03:46.830 --> 00:03:49.740 align:middle line:84% that David wrote by about six months. 00:03:49.740 --> 00:03:52.170 align:middle line:84% Now, there may be a perfectly ordinary explanation. 00:03:52.170 --> 00:03:56.970 align:middle line:84% But I continue to love that there's really no clear path. 00:03:56.970 --> 00:03:59.610 align:middle line:84% I mean, is it a Borgesian thing where 00:03:59.610 --> 00:04:01.260 align:middle line:84% two writers or three writers came up 00:04:01.260 --> 00:04:03.215 align:middle line:90% with the phrase independently? 00:04:03.215 --> 00:04:04.590 align:middle line:84% And then, for me as a biographer, 00:04:04.590 --> 00:04:06.900 align:middle line:84% I mean, sort of obvious, so obvious 00:04:06.900 --> 00:04:09.960 align:middle line:84% as this seems sort of trite, that you 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:11.233 align:middle line:90% fall in love with a writer. 00:04:11.233 --> 00:04:12.900 align:middle line:84% And you want to write about that writer, 00:04:12.900 --> 00:04:15.442 align:middle line:84% as I did fall in love with David and want to write about him. 00:04:15.442 --> 00:04:17.820 align:middle line:84% And I mean, biography typically takes place 00:04:17.820 --> 00:04:18.899 align:middle line:90% after a writer has died. 00:04:18.899 --> 00:04:23.160 align:middle line:84% So it's effectively a kind of a love story chasing a ghost 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:23.670 align:middle line:90% story. 00:04:23.670 --> 00:04:26.100 align:middle line:84% All I know is it's not in Virginia Woolf. 00:04:26.100 --> 00:04:28.962 align:middle line:84% At least, no less an authority than the biographer Hermione 00:04:28.962 --> 00:04:31.170 align:middle line:84% Lee wrote me back and said it's not in Virginia Woolf 00:04:31.170 --> 00:04:32.730 align:middle line:84% and it doesn't even sound like her. 00:04:32.730 --> 00:04:35.440 align:middle line:90% 00:04:35.440 --> 00:04:36.130 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:04:36.130 --> 00:04:36.630 align:middle line:90% I think-- 00:04:36.630 --> 00:04:39.680 align:middle line:90% 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:40.180 align:middle line:90% Yes. 00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:41.090 align:middle line:90% Thanks for coming. 00:04:41.090 --> 00:04:43.150 align:middle line:84% Hope you enjoy your vacation and your tour. 00:04:43.150 --> 00:04:44.590 align:middle line:90% That's right. 00:04:44.590 --> 00:04:45.880 align:middle line:90% Travel with kids. 00:04:45.880 --> 00:04:49.600 align:middle line:84% I'd like to know if the family had-- what kind of impact 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:53.540 align:middle line:84% the family had on the biography and what kind of reception 00:04:53.540 --> 00:04:56.530 align:middle line:90% they had to it. 00:04:56.530 --> 00:05:01.810 align:middle line:84% I think that the relationship of any family 00:05:01.810 --> 00:05:04.205 align:middle line:84% with a biography that's written so recently 00:05:04.205 --> 00:05:05.330 align:middle line:90% is going to be complicated. 00:05:05.330 --> 00:05:08.110 align:middle line:84% And it would be kind of unfair to summarize it 00:05:08.110 --> 00:05:12.370 align:middle line:90% as a family's response. 00:05:12.370 --> 00:05:17.302 align:middle line:84% I think that everybody who knew David, 00:05:17.302 --> 00:05:18.760 align:middle line:84% and it's not just the family, but I 00:05:18.760 --> 00:05:23.680 align:middle line:84% mean his close friends, you know, felt an enormous loss. 00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:25.540 align:middle line:84% I don't think I'm a good enough biographer 00:05:25.540 --> 00:05:28.060 align:middle line:90% to fill that loss in any way. 00:05:28.060 --> 00:05:29.950 align:middle line:84% I think that in a lot of ways, a biography 00:05:29.950 --> 00:05:32.172 align:middle line:90% is for two groups of people. 00:05:32.172 --> 00:05:33.880 align:middle line:84% Because it's not going to be their David. 00:05:33.880 --> 00:05:36.450 align:middle line:84% And to try and make it their David, I think, 00:05:36.450 --> 00:05:40.560 align:middle line:84% would one be impossible and presumptuous. 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:42.880 align:middle line:84% But it would also be, I think, in a funny way, 00:05:42.880 --> 00:05:44.990 align:middle line:90% a second taking from them. 00:05:44.990 --> 00:05:48.760 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think the process by which extraordinary rapid, 00:05:48.760 --> 00:05:52.710 align:middle line:84% and I'm not the only one who's published a book on David, 00:05:52.710 --> 00:06:00.040 align:middle line:84% even in these few years, the process by which a person goes 00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:03.910 align:middle line:84% from being a private person held lovingly and with knowledge 00:06:03.910 --> 00:06:07.550 align:middle line:84% by their family to a public person is a very weird process. 00:06:07.550 --> 00:06:09.190 align:middle line:84% And I think to some extent as writers, 00:06:09.190 --> 00:06:11.530 align:middle line:84% we begin that process while we're alive. 00:06:11.530 --> 00:06:14.320 align:middle line:84% So that, for instance, there are people 00:06:14.320 --> 00:06:17.950 align:middle line:84% who think they know you as a writer. 00:06:17.950 --> 00:06:21.460 align:middle line:84% But your family knows that's not the you they know. 00:06:21.460 --> 00:06:25.000 align:middle line:84% So it doesn't really begin with death and the biography. 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:27.640 align:middle line:84% I really wanted the book for two groups. 00:06:27.640 --> 00:06:30.340 align:middle line:84% Obviously strangers, that's easy enough. 00:06:30.340 --> 00:06:34.510 align:middle line:84% But I also felt that for a lot of the people 00:06:34.510 --> 00:06:37.780 align:middle line:84% around him, the second tier, really, 00:06:37.780 --> 00:06:40.090 align:middle line:84% that they had only seen bits of him. 00:06:40.090 --> 00:06:44.830 align:middle line:84% And I think for them, there was something 00:06:44.830 --> 00:06:47.980 align:middle line:84% to be said for almost a kind of group meeting 00:06:47.980 --> 00:06:50.020 align:middle line:90% to put all the bits together. 00:06:50.020 --> 00:06:51.340 align:middle line:90% And I think and I hope-- 00:06:51.340 --> 00:06:53.050 align:middle line:90% I mean I've gotten-- 00:06:53.050 --> 00:06:55.930 align:middle line:84% I mean, as a writer, you tend to get disproportionately 00:06:55.930 --> 00:06:59.860 align:middle line:84% positive responses from the people who know you. 00:06:59.860 --> 00:07:01.630 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's just one of the facts 00:07:01.630 --> 00:07:05.410 align:middle line:84% you have to sort of adjust for a kind of statistical skew. 00:07:05.410 --> 00:07:07.510 align:middle line:84% But I do think some people would have told me 00:07:07.510 --> 00:07:10.210 align:middle line:90% if I had fucked up. 00:07:10.210 --> 00:07:12.760 align:middle line:90% And that's not what I've heard. 00:07:12.760 --> 00:07:15.010 align:middle line:84% But again, my goals were pretty-- 00:07:15.010 --> 00:07:18.280 align:middle line:84% my goals were, I thought, about trying 00:07:18.280 --> 00:07:22.540 align:middle line:84% to create a story about a person rather than to try and do 00:07:22.540 --> 00:07:24.380 align:middle line:90% a photograph of that person. 00:07:24.380 --> 00:07:26.140 align:middle line:90% I mean, there are biographies. 00:07:26.140 --> 00:07:27.070 align:middle line:90% Mine's short. 00:07:27.070 --> 00:07:29.620 align:middle line:90% This is a short book. 00:07:29.620 --> 00:07:31.750 align:middle line:84% If you put this with a pile of biographies, 00:07:31.750 --> 00:07:33.910 align:middle line:84% it won't look like the other ones. 00:07:33.910 --> 00:07:36.160 align:middle line:84% I mean, it won't look like Hermione Lee's biographies. 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:39.215 align:middle line:84% It won't look like Atlas' biography of Bellow. 00:07:39.215 --> 00:07:40.090 align:middle line:90% I mean, that wasn't-- 00:07:40.090 --> 00:07:42.520 align:middle line:84% I was trying to do something a little bit more 00:07:42.520 --> 00:07:47.650 align:middle line:90% maybe delicate and specialized. 00:07:47.650 --> 00:07:52.120 align:middle line:84% And I think, on that sense, I was really 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:54.430 align:middle line:90% leaving a person to the-- 00:07:54.430 --> 00:07:57.070 align:middle line:84% still leaving a person that people who had known him 00:07:57.070 --> 00:08:02.080 align:middle line:84% and loved him most intimately and trying 00:08:02.080 --> 00:08:03.770 align:middle line:84% to give him to another group of people, 00:08:03.770 --> 00:08:05.520 align:middle line:84% including people who knew him fairly well, 00:08:05.520 --> 00:08:08.350 align:middle line:84% not just talking about strangers or people who only knew David 00:08:08.350 --> 00:08:09.880 align:middle line:90% by reputation. 00:08:09.880 --> 00:08:14.025 align:middle line:90% 00:08:14.025 --> 00:08:14.900 align:middle line:90% Where are the others? 00:08:14.900 --> 00:08:15.820 align:middle line:90% Anyone else? 00:08:15.820 --> 00:08:18.740 align:middle line:90% Microphone. 00:08:18.740 --> 00:08:19.240 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:08:19.240 --> 00:08:19.740 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:22.957 align:middle line:90% 00:08:22.957 --> 00:08:25.290 align:middle line:84% I was just wondering, we talked about this a little bit, 00:08:25.290 --> 00:08:30.720 align:middle line:84% but if you had any thoughts after the book was 00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:33.780 align:middle line:90% published about it, I guess? 00:08:33.780 --> 00:08:37.330 align:middle line:84% Just anything new, any new ways of thinking after-- 00:08:37.330 --> 00:08:37.830 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:08:37.830 --> 00:08:38.340 align:middle line:90% Publishing? 00:08:38.340 --> 00:08:39.990 align:middle line:84% Well, I mean, one of the funny things 00:08:39.990 --> 00:08:43.020 align:middle line:84% about coming to a place like Arizona is I learn new things. 00:08:43.020 --> 00:08:44.520 align:middle line:84% I mean, I didn't know everything. 00:08:44.520 --> 00:08:46.890 align:middle line:90% I was in Cambridge. 00:08:46.890 --> 00:08:52.320 align:middle line:84% A fellow came up to me who had been David's roommate 00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:54.960 align:middle line:90% in this house in Arlington. 00:08:54.960 --> 00:08:56.700 align:middle line:84% I had no way to find that person. 00:08:56.700 --> 00:09:01.570 align:middle line:84% You can't advertise these things. 00:09:01.570 --> 00:09:03.780 align:middle line:84% And if-- I mean, the chapter on Arizona 00:09:03.780 --> 00:09:05.540 align:middle line:84% is easier, because academics tend 00:09:05.540 --> 00:09:08.160 align:middle line:84% to stay in touch with one another. 00:09:08.160 --> 00:09:11.640 align:middle line:90% In a bigger way-- 00:09:11.640 --> 00:09:15.210 align:middle line:84% I think in some ways, I sort of wish 00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:17.490 align:middle line:84% that the book had been a little bit more compendious. 00:09:17.490 --> 00:09:19.980 align:middle line:84% I was very, very deliberate in the decisions I made. 00:09:19.980 --> 00:09:22.470 align:middle line:90% But time goes on. 00:09:22.470 --> 00:09:25.867 align:middle line:90% You think harder about things. 00:09:25.867 --> 00:09:27.450 align:middle line:84% And in some ways, I think that there's 00:09:27.450 --> 00:09:29.670 align:middle line:84% a certain kind of reader who might 00:09:29.670 --> 00:09:35.190 align:middle line:84% have wished more about-- from certain parts of David's life. 00:09:35.190 --> 00:09:37.230 align:middle line:84% As far as thinking about David, I 00:09:37.230 --> 00:09:38.790 align:middle line:84% don't think that's changed hugely. 00:09:38.790 --> 00:09:40.103 align:middle line:90% I mean, I went into it-- 00:09:40.103 --> 00:09:41.520 align:middle line:84% one thing I should say upfront is, 00:09:41.520 --> 00:09:47.340 align:middle line:84% I didn't go into this as a David Foster Wallace expert at all. 00:09:47.340 --> 00:09:51.390 align:middle line:84% And in fact, I was, I think much to the amusement of people 00:09:51.390 --> 00:09:55.080 align:middle line:84% who were David Foster Wallace experts, 00:09:55.080 --> 00:09:57.690 align:middle line:84% I was in love with The Broom of the System. 00:09:57.690 --> 00:09:59.490 align:middle line:84% I have a fetish for first novels. 00:09:59.490 --> 00:10:00.990 align:middle line:90% I should say that up front. 00:10:00.990 --> 00:10:03.830 align:middle line:84% And so I was in love with Broom of the System, 00:10:03.830 --> 00:10:06.720 align:middle line:84% and a re-reader of Broom of the System. 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:10.020 align:middle line:84% And it was really early on that I came upon a letter 00:10:10.020 --> 00:10:13.200 align:middle line:84% that David wrote to Jonathan Franzen. 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:17.130 align:middle line:84% And in this letter, he says, this isn't-- 00:10:17.130 --> 00:10:19.320 align:middle line:84% it's around the time of the section I'm reading, 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:20.040 align:middle line:90% or that I read. 00:10:20.040 --> 00:10:24.080 align:middle line:84% He says, I no longer have any liking for Broom of the System. 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:25.830 align:middle line:84% It seems to me a book that could have been 00:10:25.830 --> 00:10:28.570 align:middle line:90% written by a smart 14-year-old. 00:10:28.570 --> 00:10:31.110 align:middle line:84% So that was kind of humiliating and bruising. 00:10:31.110 --> 00:10:33.810 align:middle line:84% But what was the positive side for me, I like to-- 00:10:33.810 --> 00:10:36.850 align:middle line:84% I really like my projects to be learning experiences. 00:10:36.850 --> 00:10:39.990 align:middle line:84% And so it was very purposeful on my part, 00:10:39.990 --> 00:10:43.080 align:middle line:84% to the extent anything I do is purposeful at that level, 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:44.970 align:middle line:84% that the writer I would write a biography of 00:10:44.970 --> 00:10:49.320 align:middle line:84% would not be somebody who I knew every word of. 00:10:49.320 --> 00:10:54.657 align:middle line:84% I mean, I wanted to experience him as freshly 00:10:54.657 --> 00:10:56.990 align:middle line:84% as a reader who was just coming to him would experience. 00:10:56.990 --> 00:10:59.160 align:middle line:90% Now, that's not really possible. 00:10:59.160 --> 00:11:01.200 align:middle line:84% But in even as to the facts of David's life, 00:11:01.200 --> 00:11:02.910 align:middle line:84% I knew I could not have known less. 00:11:02.910 --> 00:11:06.210 align:middle line:90% I mean, I had never met him. 00:11:06.210 --> 00:11:08.830 align:middle line:84% And I'd been in the room once with him 00:11:08.830 --> 00:11:10.830 align:middle line:84% for the publication part of Infinite Jest, which 00:11:10.830 --> 00:11:13.500 align:middle line:84% I describe in Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story. 00:11:13.500 --> 00:11:14.400 align:middle line:90% We weren't friends. 00:11:14.400 --> 00:11:15.480 align:middle line:90% We weren't acquaintances. 00:11:15.480 --> 00:11:18.540 align:middle line:84% We certainly had many people in common. 00:11:18.540 --> 00:11:21.150 align:middle line:84% But I thought that distance was something 00:11:21.150 --> 00:11:22.770 align:middle line:90% that I very much wanted. 00:11:22.770 --> 00:11:24.270 align:middle line:84% I don't think I would have known how 00:11:24.270 --> 00:11:25.728 align:middle line:84% to write a biography of someone who 00:11:25.728 --> 00:11:28.590 align:middle line:84% I had an actual, personal connection with. 00:11:28.590 --> 00:11:31.000 align:middle line:84% I don't think I would have wanted to do that. 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:33.743 align:middle line:84% But in terms of thinking about David, I don't think-- 00:11:33.743 --> 00:11:35.160 align:middle line:84% I think what I've told you tonight 00:11:35.160 --> 00:11:37.120 align:middle line:84% is really pretty much what I still think, 00:11:37.120 --> 00:11:40.290 align:middle line:84% which is that he needs to be taken 00:11:40.290 --> 00:11:41.790 align:middle line:84% not just as an extraordinary writer, 00:11:41.790 --> 00:11:43.707 align:middle line:84% although certainly as an extraordinary writer. 00:11:43.707 --> 00:11:46.630 align:middle line:84% But also as somebody who just, by a combination of his genius 00:11:46.630 --> 00:11:48.810 align:middle line:84% and the luck of the culture, really 00:11:48.810 --> 00:11:52.830 align:middle line:84% is just the most interesting person, 00:11:52.830 --> 00:11:55.260 align:middle line:84% I think, of my generation to read about 00:11:55.260 --> 00:11:57.600 align:middle line:90% and to read and to think about. 00:11:57.600 --> 00:12:01.140 align:middle line:84% And I think there's a reason This Is Water, the Kenyon 00:12:01.140 --> 00:12:03.330 align:middle line:84% College speech, which was later published as a book, 00:12:03.330 --> 00:12:06.030 align:middle line:84% there was a sort of odd video movie that 00:12:06.030 --> 00:12:09.030 align:middle line:84% got put up on YouTube for about two 00:12:09.030 --> 00:12:12.185 align:middle line:84% or three weeks before the estate asked for it to be taken down. 00:12:12.185 --> 00:12:13.560 align:middle line:84% It's a very literal minded movie. 00:12:13.560 --> 00:12:15.660 align:middle line:84% It takes This Is Water, and there's 00:12:15.660 --> 00:12:20.100 align:middle line:84% a moment in This Is Water where a man standing in a checkout 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:23.880 align:middle line:84% line at a supermarket, and David writes that he could either 00:12:23.880 --> 00:12:25.770 align:middle line:84% think about what an asshole the cashier is 00:12:25.770 --> 00:12:27.820 align:middle line:84% or dream of the glory of the universe. 00:12:27.820 --> 00:12:30.120 align:middle line:84% And so in this little video, there's 00:12:30.120 --> 00:12:32.130 align:middle line:84% a guy standing at a checkout counter. 00:12:32.130 --> 00:12:34.080 align:middle line:90% And you see him looking up. 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:37.170 align:middle line:84% So very basically, no real, huge, value added by the video. 00:12:37.170 --> 00:12:40.500 align:middle line:84% And there were four million views in two or three weeks. 00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:44.100 align:middle line:84% My point is that there is an enormous interest 00:12:44.100 --> 00:12:45.445 align:middle line:90% and need for David. 00:12:45.445 --> 00:12:47.070 align:middle line:84% I think you can certainly argue that it 00:12:47.070 --> 00:12:50.200 align:middle line:84% comes from other parts of our culture that are receding. 00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:52.950 align:middle line:84% I don't think that actually matters so much. 00:12:52.950 --> 00:12:56.490 align:middle line:84% I think the connection was there when David was alive. 00:12:56.490 --> 00:13:00.120 align:middle line:84% I was just speaking to somebody who was at the Kenyon College 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:02.400 align:middle line:84% speech and told me something which I hadn't really 00:13:02.400 --> 00:13:03.150 align:middle line:90% quite understood. 00:13:03.150 --> 00:13:05.400 align:middle line:84% Because you do, you learn, you learn, you learn. 00:13:05.400 --> 00:13:08.970 align:middle line:84% And he had said that quite a few people at Kenyon College 00:13:08.970 --> 00:13:10.950 align:middle line:90% had read Infinite Jest. 00:13:10.950 --> 00:13:13.080 align:middle line:90% So that's really interesting. 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:15.990 align:middle line:84% I knew in an abstract way that Infinite Jest, which 00:13:15.990 --> 00:13:20.900 align:middle line:84% was published in 1996 to great acclaim and applause, 00:13:20.900 --> 00:13:23.480 align:middle line:84% never went out of print, which is impressive on its own. 00:13:23.480 --> 00:13:25.220 align:middle line:84% But it's really interesting that it was 00:13:25.220 --> 00:13:26.545 align:middle line:90% being read by college students. 00:13:26.545 --> 00:13:27.920 align:middle line:84% Because a lot of people go, well, 00:13:27.920 --> 00:13:29.960 align:middle line:84% would you write the biography if he's still alive, 00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:30.620 align:middle line:90% and all this stuff. 00:13:30.620 --> 00:13:32.130 align:middle line:84% Well I think the obvious answer is, 00:13:32.130 --> 00:13:34.000 align:middle line:84% you wouldn't write about if he was still alive. 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:35.708 align:middle line:84% It would be too soon, among other things. 00:13:35.708 --> 00:13:42.265 align:middle line:84% But that he was so specially connecting to young readers-- 00:13:42.265 --> 00:13:43.640 align:middle line:84% it's one thing to publish a book. 00:13:43.640 --> 00:13:44.810 align:middle line:84% You publish a book and everyone's 00:13:44.810 --> 00:13:46.185 align:middle line:84% interested for those three weeks. 00:13:46.185 --> 00:13:49.790 align:middle line:84% And then the next book comes popping along and your book-- 00:13:49.790 --> 00:13:53.630 align:middle line:84% your book winds up, basically, it's available on Amazon. 00:13:53.630 --> 00:13:55.968 align:middle line:84% But it's not like people demand it. 00:13:55.968 --> 00:13:58.010 align:middle line:84% And I think what's really fascinating on Infinite 00:13:58.010 --> 00:13:59.810 align:middle line:84% Jest is that I don't think that ever quite happened. 00:13:59.810 --> 00:14:01.100 align:middle line:90% I mean, of course, it receded. 00:14:01.100 --> 00:14:03.020 align:middle line:84% The famous business about Infinite Jest 00:14:03.020 --> 00:14:05.210 align:middle line:90% is everybody got to page 70. 00:14:05.210 --> 00:14:06.260 align:middle line:90% But that's not true. 00:14:06.260 --> 00:14:07.280 align:middle line:84% I mean, that's what's interesting, 00:14:07.280 --> 00:14:09.697 align:middle line:84% is that all the people who bought it in 1996, many of them 00:14:09.697 --> 00:14:10.948 align:middle line:90% got to page 70. 00:14:10.948 --> 00:14:12.740 align:middle line:84% But some people got all the way through it. 00:14:12.740 --> 00:14:14.760 align:middle line:84% And they told their friends about it. 00:14:14.760 --> 00:14:18.750 align:middle line:84% And so even in the early 2000s, right up to David's death, 00:14:18.750 --> 00:14:21.000 align:middle line:84% it's a book that's making its way through the culture. 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:23.510 align:middle line:84% And I think if you read Infinite Jest, you know why. 00:14:23.510 --> 00:14:28.220 align:middle line:84% And if you haven't, it's too hard to explain briefly here. 00:14:28.220 --> 00:14:31.970 align:middle line:84% And you may have passed the age when this book can 00:14:31.970 --> 00:14:34.040 align:middle line:90% kind of maximally affect you. 00:14:34.040 --> 00:14:37.040 align:middle line:90% I have a niece. 00:14:37.040 --> 00:14:40.010 align:middle line:84% And I gave her a copy of This Is Water for her graduation. 00:14:40.010 --> 00:14:42.440 align:middle line:84% It's absolutely beautiful book to give. 00:14:42.440 --> 00:14:46.070 align:middle line:84% And she went off for her year abroad with her copy 00:14:46.070 --> 00:14:50.060 align:middle line:84% of Infinite Jest in her knapsack and met other people 00:14:50.060 --> 00:14:52.340 align:middle line:84% with copies of Infinite Jest in their knapsacks. 00:14:52.340 --> 00:14:55.880 align:middle line:84% It's also shorthand, a cultural communication, 00:14:55.880 --> 00:15:00.470 align:middle line:84% for a certain kind of reader abroad. 00:15:00.470 --> 00:15:01.640 align:middle line:90% Do you have one more? 00:15:01.640 --> 00:15:02.735 align:middle line:90% Or have we tapped out? 00:15:02.735 --> 00:15:04.860 align:middle line:84% There's someone-- someone asked me a good question. 00:15:04.860 --> 00:15:06.875 align:middle line:90% I said, save it for the talk. 00:15:06.875 --> 00:15:10.340 align:middle line:90% 00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:11.330 align:middle line:90% Where'd you go? 00:15:11.330 --> 00:15:14.610 align:middle line:90% 00:15:14.610 --> 00:15:15.720 align:middle line:90% You. 00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:17.298 align:middle line:84% You had a question you wanted to say. 00:15:17.298 --> 00:15:18.340 align:middle line:90% I don't know what it was. 00:15:18.340 --> 00:15:19.382 align:middle line:90% Well, I know what it was. 00:15:19.382 --> 00:15:20.970 align:middle line:90% What was it? 00:15:20.970 --> 00:15:23.280 align:middle line:90% I don't-- Anyone remember? 00:15:23.280 --> 00:15:23.980 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:15:23.980 --> 00:15:24.480 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:24.980 align:middle line:90% Well-- 00:15:24.980 --> 00:15:25.667 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:15:25.667 --> 00:15:27.750 align:middle line:84% That was probably as good a note to end on as any. 00:15:27.750 --> 00:15:29.250 align:middle line:84% Thank you guys very much for coming. 00:15:29.250 --> 00:15:32.480 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE]