WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.940 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.940 --> 00:00:07.600 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:07.600 --> 00:00:09.190 align:middle line:84% I think we're ready to start again 00:00:09.190 --> 00:00:12.130 align:middle line:84% and we figured, this time, it'd be a little bit more informal 00:00:12.130 --> 00:00:14.280 align:middle line:84% and allow you guys to ask questions. 00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:16.780 align:middle line:84% Jamison Crabtree, who is the other editor-in-chief of Sonora 00:00:16.780 --> 00:00:19.840 align:middle line:84% Review, is going to be bringing around a microphone 00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:23.165 align:middle line:84% whenever you raise your hand with your questions. 00:00:23.165 --> 00:00:25.790 align:middle line:84% Without any further ado from me, I think you guys can probably, 00:00:25.790 --> 00:00:27.983 align:middle line:90% if you have a question-- 00:00:27.983 --> 00:00:29.650 align:middle line:84% oh, yeah, to really quickly reintroduce, 00:00:29.650 --> 00:00:32.140 align:middle line:84% for anyone who's new to the panel, 00:00:32.140 --> 00:00:35.950 align:middle line:84% this is Bonnie Nadell from the Frederick Hill Bonnie Nadell 00:00:35.950 --> 00:00:38.890 align:middle line:84% literary agency, who represented Wallace for 23 years. 00:00:38.890 --> 00:00:41.380 align:middle line:84% This is Greg Carlisle, author of Elegant Complexity-- 00:00:41.380 --> 00:00:42.700 align:middle line:90% A Study of Infinite Jest. 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:46.360 align:middle line:84% Glenn Kenny, who is a former film critic for Premier. 00:00:46.360 --> 00:00:47.740 align:middle line:90% What is the name of your blog? 00:00:47.740 --> 00:00:48.720 align:middle line:90% Oh right, I blog too. 00:00:48.720 --> 00:00:51.295 align:middle line:84% It's Some Came Running at Typepad, 00:00:51.295 --> 00:00:55.240 align:middle line:84% it's somecamerunning.typepad.com. 00:00:55.240 --> 00:00:57.850 align:middle line:84% And Glenn also edited a couple of pieces-- three pieces, 00:00:57.850 --> 00:00:59.077 align:middle line:90% total-- 00:00:59.077 --> 00:01:00.160 align:middle line:90% of David Foster Wallace's. 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:01.700 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:01:01.700 --> 00:01:03.705 align:middle line:90% 00:01:03.705 --> 00:01:05.080 align:middle line:84% And then Marshall Boswell, author 00:01:05.080 --> 00:01:06.880 align:middle line:84% of Understanding David Foster Wallace; 00:01:06.880 --> 00:01:09.400 align:middle line:84% Charles Bock, author of Beautiful Children; 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.400 align:middle line:84% and Ken Kalfus at the far end, author of Thirst, 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:16.438 align:middle line:84% and most recently, A Disorder Peculiar to the Country. 00:01:16.438 --> 00:01:18.730 align:middle line:84% If anyone has a question, you can just raise your hand. 00:01:18.730 --> 00:01:25.780 align:middle line:90% 00:01:25.780 --> 00:01:28.165 align:middle line:84% Or should we just start talking amongst ourselves 00:01:28.165 --> 00:01:29.480 align:middle line:90% and then you all can answer--? 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:31.083 align:middle line:90% We could-- 00:01:31.083 --> 00:01:33.500 align:middle line:84% Well, the question that I had, I was thinking a little bit 00:01:33.500 --> 00:01:36.650 align:middle line:84% about voice-- and I don't have a very articulate question 00:01:36.650 --> 00:01:39.410 align:middle line:90% about this, necessarily. 00:01:39.410 --> 00:01:41.270 align:middle line:84% But if you-- just throwing out another sort 00:01:41.270 --> 00:01:44.552 align:middle line:84% of amorphous question, and whoever wants to field it. 00:01:44.552 --> 00:01:46.760 align:middle line:84% What would you say about Wallace's concern for voice, 00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:49.670 align:middle line:84% or the way in which he developed voice in his work? 00:01:49.670 --> 00:01:58.930 align:middle line:90% 00:01:58.930 --> 00:02:02.530 align:middle line:84% Glenn talked about the erudition that you encounter 00:02:02.530 --> 00:02:03.448 align:middle line:90% when you read Wallace. 00:02:03.448 --> 00:02:04.990 align:middle line:84% And I think that's an important thing 00:02:04.990 --> 00:02:07.060 align:middle line:84% to tap into, because I think it's 00:02:07.060 --> 00:02:10.600 align:middle line:84% the source of the voice, for me, in a lot of ways. 00:02:10.600 --> 00:02:15.790 align:middle line:84% That emergence of Wallace's fiction in the mid-'80s happens 00:02:15.790 --> 00:02:19.870 align:middle line:84% amid the flowering of critical theory and post-structuralism. 00:02:19.870 --> 00:02:23.320 align:middle line:84% And one of the things about Wallace's writerly identity 00:02:23.320 --> 00:02:25.480 align:middle line:84% is that he's very well-versed in that material. 00:02:25.480 --> 00:02:27.460 align:middle line:90% He knows deconstruction. 00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:29.230 align:middle line:84% He knows Foucault. He's written about it. 00:02:29.230 --> 00:02:30.670 align:middle line:90% You can see it in the work. 00:02:30.670 --> 00:02:33.400 align:middle line:84% He's informed by it, but he was suspicious of it. 00:02:33.400 --> 00:02:36.205 align:middle line:84% And I think what he found, in that sort 00:02:36.205 --> 00:02:38.080 align:middle line:84% of deconstructionist model, is that it leaves 00:02:38.080 --> 00:02:39.970 align:middle line:90% texts alienated from the world. 00:02:39.970 --> 00:02:43.630 align:middle line:84% I think he understood how you get there, the idea in Derrida 00:02:43.630 --> 00:02:45.490 align:middle line:90% of language being play. 00:02:45.490 --> 00:02:47.390 align:middle line:84% And when you have that, there's no place 00:02:47.390 --> 00:02:48.640 align:middle line:90% for the reader to do anything. 00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:51.010 align:middle line:84% The language-- the play is the text, 00:02:51.010 --> 00:02:55.730 align:middle line:84% and the world has been deferred out of the text. 00:02:55.730 --> 00:02:58.175 align:middle line:84% And I think Wallace's intervention 00:02:58.175 --> 00:03:00.550 align:middle line:84% into that argument, by way of Wittgenstein, is important. 00:03:00.550 --> 00:03:02.750 align:middle line:84% Because Wittgenstein's counterargument, 00:03:02.750 --> 00:03:05.800 align:middle line:84% which precedes Derrida, is to conceive 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:09.910 align:middle line:84% of language not as words in a chain of signifiers, 00:03:09.910 --> 00:03:11.020 align:middle line:90% but as a game-- 00:03:11.020 --> 00:03:13.390 align:middle line:84% as a language game played by players, 00:03:13.390 --> 00:03:17.170 align:middle line:84% and that meaning is a product of agreement on the set of rules. 00:03:17.170 --> 00:03:21.640 align:middle line:84% You can see that in Broom of the System, 00:03:21.640 --> 00:03:24.910 align:middle line:84% where character-- they call telephones 00:03:24.910 --> 00:03:26.050 align:middle line:90% magazines or something. 00:03:26.050 --> 00:03:29.050 align:middle line:84% They come up with the other words 00:03:29.050 --> 00:03:32.230 align:middle line:84% for natural objects as an experiment in Wittgenstein. 00:03:32.230 --> 00:03:34.563 align:middle line:84% If everyone decides that this is called a cat, 00:03:34.563 --> 00:03:35.980 align:middle line:84% and I say I read a cat last night, 00:03:35.980 --> 00:03:38.410 align:middle line:90% we all know what that means. 00:03:38.410 --> 00:03:40.018 align:middle line:90% That's how you get the word. 00:03:40.018 --> 00:03:41.560 align:middle line:84% For Wallace, that's the intervention. 00:03:41.560 --> 00:03:45.820 align:middle line:84% Because if language is really about a communal understanding, 00:03:45.820 --> 00:03:51.100 align:middle line:84% a community of users, then I think 00:03:51.100 --> 00:03:54.550 align:middle line:84% books can become directly communicative, again, 00:03:54.550 --> 00:03:57.850 align:middle line:84% in a way that I think postmodernism had let go of. 00:03:57.850 --> 00:04:01.210 align:middle line:84% The text becomes so involuted and self-reflexive 00:04:01.210 --> 00:04:04.240 align:middle line:84% that the reader is left standing outside that fun house looking 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:07.030 align:middle line:84% at this giant edifice that you're supposed to admire, 00:04:07.030 --> 00:04:08.680 align:middle line:84% but you don't feel anything for it. 00:04:08.680 --> 00:04:10.750 align:middle line:84% So that intimacy of that voice comes out 00:04:10.750 --> 00:04:13.270 align:middle line:84% of a philosophical grounding in language 00:04:13.270 --> 00:04:14.950 align:middle line:84% as a communication between two people. 00:04:14.950 --> 00:04:18.519 align:middle line:84% He's not there in these texts, but that language, that voice, 00:04:18.519 --> 00:04:20.920 align:middle line:84% is the voice of Wallace in your head. 00:04:20.920 --> 00:04:23.170 align:middle line:84% If you notice, at the end of Infinite Jest, 00:04:23.170 --> 00:04:25.870 align:middle line:84% this wraith appears to Gately while he's 00:04:25.870 --> 00:04:27.700 align:middle line:90% splayed out in the hospital. 00:04:27.700 --> 00:04:30.157 align:middle line:84% And it talks to Gately in Gately's own voice. 00:04:30.157 --> 00:04:31.990 align:middle line:84% And if you're paying attention, that wraith, 00:04:31.990 --> 00:04:34.780 align:middle line:84% that ghost at the end of that book, 00:04:34.780 --> 00:04:37.810 align:middle line:84% is ultimately Jim Incandenza's ghost. 00:04:37.810 --> 00:04:39.130 align:middle line:90% But also, it's Wallace. 00:04:39.130 --> 00:04:41.723 align:middle line:84% At one point, the wraith will push his glasses up. 00:04:41.723 --> 00:04:43.390 align:middle line:84% There's the little details that suggests 00:04:43.390 --> 00:04:45.220 align:middle line:90% that's Wallace in Gately's head. 00:04:45.220 --> 00:04:48.353 align:middle line:84% But it's Wallace in your head when you're reading Wallace. 00:04:48.353 --> 00:04:50.020 align:middle line:84% And that intimacy, I think, is something 00:04:50.020 --> 00:04:57.490 align:middle line:84% he achieves deliberately through a kind of adaptation 00:04:57.490 --> 00:05:00.400 align:middle line:84% of a Wittgensteinian model of communication. 00:05:00.400 --> 00:05:01.922 align:middle line:84% I don't want to sound too erudite, 00:05:01.922 --> 00:05:03.130 align:middle line:90% but I think that's important. 00:05:03.130 --> 00:05:04.870 align:middle line:84% And in that respect, what you're talking 00:05:04.870 --> 00:05:06.740 align:middle line:84% about with the wraith in Infinite Jest, 00:05:06.740 --> 00:05:11.350 align:middle line:84% he kind of out-Nabokovs Nabokov, who used a similar device 00:05:11.350 --> 00:05:15.580 align:middle line:84% at the end of Bend Sinister, where Nabokov, the author, 00:05:15.580 --> 00:05:18.520 align:middle line:84% reveals himself to the lead character, who 00:05:18.520 --> 00:05:21.610 align:middle line:84% goes mad as a result, but is therefore sort of put out 00:05:21.610 --> 00:05:22.610 align:middle line:90% of his misery in a way. 00:05:22.610 --> 00:05:26.170 align:middle line:84% And I think what Dave does, actually-- 00:05:26.170 --> 00:05:28.000 align:middle line:84% it's almost sacrilegious to say this-- 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:31.420 align:middle line:84% is, on a philosophical level, more sophisticated than what 00:05:31.420 --> 00:05:32.800 align:middle line:90% Nabokov did. 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:35.380 align:middle line:84% He raises the game just a little bit, 00:05:35.380 --> 00:05:39.160 align:middle line:84% just as with talking about what happens in the Eschaton thing. 00:05:39.160 --> 00:05:40.660 align:middle line:84% It's not three-dimensional chess. 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:43.660 align:middle line:84% It's about 20-dimensional chess that's going on. 00:05:43.660 --> 00:05:46.990 align:middle line:84% And one thing-- it was interesting 00:05:46.990 --> 00:05:49.600 align:middle line:84% when Dave's book Everything and More came 00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:50.890 align:middle line:90% out, his study of infinity. 00:05:50.890 --> 00:05:53.530 align:middle line:84% And I think it's one of his most misunderstood books, 00:05:53.530 --> 00:05:54.880 align:middle line:90% because all of the-- 00:05:54.880 --> 00:05:57.220 align:middle line:90% I'm not going to say the F-word. 00:05:57.220 --> 00:06:03.160 align:middle line:84% No, no, but the Book Review editors all 00:06:03.160 --> 00:06:05.470 align:middle line:84% gave it to, like, math experts, who said, well, 00:06:05.470 --> 00:06:11.050 align:middle line:84% he's wrong here, which misses almost the entire point of what 00:06:11.050 --> 00:06:15.220 align:middle line:84% he's doing in the book in relating math problems 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:20.620 align:middle line:84% and the Fermat's theorem to a philosophical perspective-- 00:06:20.620 --> 00:06:22.630 align:middle line:84% a Wittgensteinian philosophical perspective. 00:06:22.630 --> 00:06:24.490 align:middle line:90% It's not strictly a math book. 00:06:24.490 --> 00:06:27.490 align:middle line:90% And it was decided, I guess-- 00:06:27.490 --> 00:06:30.220 align:middle line:84% it wasn't really a conspiracy, but it was almost like, oh, 00:06:30.220 --> 00:06:31.030 align:middle line:90% Dave Wallace is-- 00:06:31.030 --> 00:06:32.863 align:middle line:84% David Foster Wallace is writing a math book, 00:06:32.863 --> 00:06:33.910 align:middle line:90% but we'll show him. 00:06:33.910 --> 00:06:36.300 align:middle line:84% And everybody just did not get it. 00:06:36.300 --> 00:06:38.800 align:middle line:84% I mean, beyond the point of not getting it just technically, 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:41.495 align:middle line:90% but not getting it, you know? 00:06:41.495 --> 00:06:41.995 align:middle line:90% But-- 00:06:41.995 --> 00:06:44.920 align:middle line:84% I'm just saying, in that book, there's a reason-- 00:06:44.920 --> 00:06:46.930 align:middle line:84% there's a reason they don't get it. 00:06:46.930 --> 00:06:50.122 align:middle line:90% Because that book is-- 00:06:50.122 --> 00:06:51.850 align:middle line:90% that book is a hard book. 00:06:51.850 --> 00:06:54.670 align:middle line:84% That is not a-- because you can read it. 00:06:54.670 --> 00:06:57.510 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] I never got past page [INAUDIBLE].. 00:06:57.510 --> 00:06:58.470 align:middle line:90% Look, that's-- 00:06:58.470 --> 00:07:00.290 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:07:00.290 --> 00:07:01.740 align:middle line:90% Hey, we took high school math. 00:07:01.740 --> 00:07:03.850 align:middle line:84% We don't understand what you're talking about. 00:07:03.850 --> 00:07:06.810 align:middle line:84% And he said-- he says, in the first 10, 20 pages, 00:07:06.810 --> 00:07:08.430 align:middle line:90% you only need high school math. 00:07:08.430 --> 00:07:10.410 align:middle line:90% But he doesn't say-- 00:07:10.410 --> 00:07:11.760 align:middle line:90% he doesn't say that-- 00:07:11.760 --> 00:07:14.460 align:middle line:84% yeah, he doesn't say that the high school is the fucking-- 00:07:14.460 --> 00:07:16.230 align:middle line:90% you know? 00:07:16.230 --> 00:07:22.020 align:middle line:84% Yeah, at the MIT, the children of the brains of whatever. 00:07:22.020 --> 00:07:23.400 align:middle line:90% It's crazy. 00:07:23.400 --> 00:07:25.628 align:middle line:90% But that's not fair. 00:07:25.628 --> 00:07:27.420 align:middle line:84% Oh, blah, blah, blah, it was misunderstood. 00:07:27.420 --> 00:07:29.730 align:middle line:90% Well, you know what? 00:07:29.730 --> 00:07:30.870 align:middle line:90% Who can get through it? 00:07:30.870 --> 00:07:33.300 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] math professor [INAUDIBLE].. 00:07:33.300 --> 00:07:35.970 align:middle line:90% Whatever it is, it's unreadable. 00:07:35.970 --> 00:07:38.050 align:middle line:90% No, it's not. 00:07:38.050 --> 00:07:40.410 align:middle line:84% Well, you're smarter than I am, so good for you. 00:07:40.410 --> 00:07:41.670 align:middle line:90% No, I'm not. 00:07:41.670 --> 00:07:45.300 align:middle line:84% I would say this, just to go somewhere else with voice, 00:07:45.300 --> 00:07:53.040 align:middle line:84% is, I think his big influence with a lot-- 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:55.350 align:middle line:90% his magazine work. 00:07:55.350 --> 00:07:58.020 align:middle line:84% People read his magazine work, and people 00:07:58.020 --> 00:07:59.460 align:middle line:90% love his magazine work. 00:07:59.460 --> 00:08:01.440 align:middle line:90% And it's deservedly so. 00:08:01.440 --> 00:08:08.790 align:middle line:84% It's just the best candy ever, and it's also nourishing. 00:08:08.790 --> 00:08:12.270 align:middle line:84% His fiction, he pulled no punches at anything. 00:08:12.270 --> 00:08:13.380 align:middle line:90% And he did it-- 00:08:13.380 --> 00:08:19.890 align:middle line:84% I think he was in a contest with himself, to entertain himself 00:08:19.890 --> 00:08:21.600 align:middle line:90% and to move himself. 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:23.190 align:middle line:90% And he raised the bar. 00:08:23.190 --> 00:08:26.680 align:middle line:84% And it's much harder for people to follow along. 00:08:26.680 --> 00:08:29.730 align:middle line:84% And I think the last 10 years, especially 00:08:29.730 --> 00:08:36.210 align:middle line:84% with the rise of one particular critic, a lot of his fiction-- 00:08:36.210 --> 00:08:39.909 align:middle line:84% and because he hadn't published another novel, 00:08:39.909 --> 00:08:43.330 align:middle line:84% and he concentrated on short, the short fiction. 00:08:43.330 --> 00:08:47.220 align:middle line:84% His fictional reputation, it didn't stay where it was. 00:08:47.220 --> 00:08:49.680 align:middle line:84% I think everyone knows he's a genius, 00:08:49.680 --> 00:08:53.140 align:middle line:84% and everyone looked for-- each book was an event. 00:08:53.140 --> 00:08:58.410 align:middle line:84% But there's readers I know who are in tribute to David Foster 00:08:58.410 --> 00:09:03.630 align:middle line:84% Wallace, and who were very vocal about what the loss was, 00:09:03.630 --> 00:09:07.680 align:middle line:84% who didn't read his short fiction of the last book. 00:09:07.680 --> 00:09:12.930 align:middle line:84% And I just-- I want to throw that out there. 00:09:12.930 --> 00:09:15.000 align:middle line:84% Because I think that that's part of the legacy, 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:22.890 align:middle line:84% is that you have someone who's uncompromising at the work that 00:09:22.890 --> 00:09:24.780 align:middle line:90% meant the most to him. 00:09:24.780 --> 00:09:27.690 align:middle line:84% And I think he wanted to be read. 00:09:27.690 --> 00:09:29.355 align:middle line:90% He very much wanted to be read. 00:09:29.355 --> 00:09:33.120 align:middle line:90% 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:35.880 align:middle line:84% And he will be read, now, because he's going 00:09:35.880 --> 00:09:38.430 align:middle line:90% to be a cult legend forever. 00:09:38.430 --> 00:09:47.223 align:middle line:84% But I don't think that it was the same, the last five years. 00:09:47.223 --> 00:09:47.890 align:middle line:90% That's just my-- 00:09:47.890 --> 00:09:49.985 align:middle line:90% Wasn't one critic [INAUDIBLE]? 00:09:49.985 --> 00:09:53.550 align:middle line:84% One particular critic who spent years and years, in every essay 00:09:53.550 --> 00:09:55.740 align:middle line:84% he wrote, taking a shot at David Foster Wallace. 00:09:55.740 --> 00:09:57.510 align:middle line:90% It was James Woods. 00:09:57.510 --> 00:09:58.230 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:09:58.230 --> 00:10:01.070 align:middle line:90% I loved him in Casino. 00:10:01.070 --> 00:10:04.620 align:middle line:84% That's why I mentioned his name [INAUDIBLE].. 00:10:04.620 --> 00:10:06.180 align:middle line:90% He was great in Cop. 00:10:06.180 --> 00:10:08.940 align:middle line:90% That was fantastic work. 00:10:08.940 --> 00:10:10.410 align:middle line:90% Don't confuse them. 00:10:10.410 --> 00:10:12.210 align:middle line:90% I kid, I kid. 00:10:12.210 --> 00:10:16.110 align:middle line:84% Well, it's funny, because when I read Brief Interviews 00:10:16.110 --> 00:10:18.600 align:middle line:84% with Hideous Men for the first time-- 00:10:18.600 --> 00:10:22.260 align:middle line:84% and then this gets into some of the stuff that's part 00:10:22.260 --> 00:10:23.770 align:middle line:90% of the tragedy, why we're here. 00:10:23.770 --> 00:10:25.770 align:middle line:84% When I read Brief Interviews for the first time, 00:10:25.770 --> 00:10:27.570 align:middle line:90% I was actually worried about it. 00:10:27.570 --> 00:10:28.950 align:middle line:90% Because I was like, whoa. 00:10:28.950 --> 00:10:33.690 align:middle line:84% Because it was such an immersion into this place 00:10:33.690 --> 00:10:35.415 align:middle line:90% of dark anxiety. 00:10:35.415 --> 00:10:37.290 align:middle line:84% And then he came to New York to read from it. 00:10:37.290 --> 00:10:40.440 align:middle line:84% And he read what I thought were some of the-- 00:10:40.440 --> 00:10:42.600 align:middle line:84% was one of the most harrowing portions 00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:47.100 align:middle line:84% of the book, the part about the amputee who called-- 00:10:47.100 --> 00:10:49.080 align:middle line:84% not the amputee, the thalidomide guy 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:52.530 align:middle line:84% who calls his shriveled up arm "the asset," then segueing 00:10:52.530 --> 00:10:57.480 align:middle line:84% into the guy who cleans bathrooms in this long, almost 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:01.510 align:middle line:84% unbearable treatment of the olfactory sensations of doing 00:11:01.510 --> 00:11:02.010 align:middle line:90% this. 00:11:02.010 --> 00:11:04.860 align:middle line:84% And he read it in such a way that, all of a sudden, 00:11:04.860 --> 00:11:07.680 align:middle line:84% you realize this was some of the funniest stuff in the book. 00:11:07.680 --> 00:11:10.320 align:middle line:84% And then I thought, oh, OK, it's fine. 00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:18.690 align:middle line:84% But that ability to be both absolutely hellishly 00:11:18.690 --> 00:11:24.690 align:middle line:84% harrowing and hysterically funny at the same exact time-- not, 00:11:24.690 --> 00:11:26.730 align:middle line:90% like, an alternating thing. 00:11:26.730 --> 00:11:30.180 align:middle line:84% Not like, this is dark, and now I'm going to give you a joke 00:11:30.180 --> 00:11:31.360 align:middle line:90% and lighten it with humor. 00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:33.540 align:middle line:84% The humor was just as dark, but the humor 00:11:33.540 --> 00:11:38.340 align:middle line:84% was still so funny, so laugh out loud funny. 00:11:38.340 --> 00:11:42.060 align:middle line:90% And he had this shyness to him. 00:11:42.060 --> 00:11:46.410 align:middle line:84% And with sometimes, this lack of-- 00:11:46.410 --> 00:11:48.960 align:middle line:84% very, very low comfort level with crowds. 00:11:48.960 --> 00:11:52.530 align:middle line:84% But by the same token, anybody who saw him read 00:11:52.530 --> 00:11:55.383 align:middle line:84% knew that when he got in the zone, 00:11:55.383 --> 00:11:57.800 align:middle line:84% and he knew exactly what he was doing in terms of reading, 00:11:57.800 --> 00:11:59.960 align:middle line:84% he was the best reader of his own work, 00:11:59.960 --> 00:12:03.530 align:middle line:84% because he put that forward in such a way. 00:12:03.530 --> 00:12:04.943 align:middle line:90% And people are sitting-- 00:12:04.943 --> 00:12:06.110 align:middle line:90% like, rolling in the aisles. 00:12:06.110 --> 00:12:07.730 align:middle line:84% And he's not even breaking a smile, 00:12:07.730 --> 00:12:12.350 align:middle line:84% but he knows how he's getting across. 00:12:12.350 --> 00:12:14.842 align:middle line:84% Well, that was the thing about Broom of the System, 00:12:14.842 --> 00:12:15.800 align:middle line:90% also, when it came out. 00:12:15.800 --> 00:12:19.340 align:middle line:84% It had all of these-- it was a clear announcement of that he 00:12:19.340 --> 00:12:21.215 align:middle line:84% was the new kid on the block, but it was also 00:12:21.215 --> 00:12:22.715 align:middle line:84% an announcement of what neighborhood 00:12:22.715 --> 00:12:23.990 align:middle line:90% he wanted to live in. 00:12:23.990 --> 00:12:26.960 align:middle line:84% And it was a neighborhood, as I say, in disrepute. 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:28.363 align:middle line:90% I mean, there was the Pynchon. 00:12:28.363 --> 00:12:29.030 align:middle line:90% There was Barth. 00:12:29.030 --> 00:12:29.905 align:middle line:90% There was the Gaddis. 00:12:29.905 --> 00:12:31.940 align:middle line:84% There was even the character there in that novel 00:12:31.940 --> 00:12:33.560 align:middle line:90% from Shillington, Pennsylvania. 00:12:33.560 --> 00:12:35.990 align:middle line:84% And the only reason anyone knows about Shillington, 00:12:35.990 --> 00:12:39.170 align:middle line:84% Pennsylvania, is John Updike's from there. 00:12:39.170 --> 00:12:42.230 align:middle line:84% But these weren't clumsy attempts not to-- 00:12:42.230 --> 00:12:44.182 align:middle line:84% this wasn't a failure to hide his influence. 00:12:44.182 --> 00:12:45.890 align:middle line:84% They were announcements of his influence. 00:12:45.890 --> 00:12:49.460 align:middle line:84% But what was different about his use of those modes 00:12:49.460 --> 00:12:50.840 align:middle line:90% was how fun the book was. 00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:52.160 align:middle line:90% The book was a blast. 00:12:52.160 --> 00:12:55.400 align:middle line:84% And one of the things that you read, 00:12:55.400 --> 00:12:57.380 align:middle line:84% through all of his criticism, is a fascination 00:12:57.380 --> 00:12:58.850 align:middle line:90% with entertainment. 00:12:58.850 --> 00:13:01.190 align:middle line:90% Fun is one of his themes. 00:13:01.190 --> 00:13:03.890 align:middle line:84% And I think he began to think about-- this is maybe 00:13:03.890 --> 00:13:07.100 align:middle line:90% his function as a Gen X writer. 00:13:07.100 --> 00:13:10.550 align:middle line:84% He began to think about the idea of text as entertainment. 00:13:10.550 --> 00:13:15.440 align:middle line:84% He felt like it was a job of books to give pleasure, again, 00:13:15.440 --> 00:13:16.970 align:middle line:90% in the way that TV does. 00:13:16.970 --> 00:13:19.010 align:middle line:84% I don't think that's a crass thing to say. 00:13:19.010 --> 00:13:21.950 align:middle line:84% But he's very-- if you chart this-- 00:13:21.950 --> 00:13:23.300 align:middle line:90% and I'll pass the microphone on. 00:13:23.300 --> 00:13:24.320 align:middle line:90% But if you chart-- 00:13:24.320 --> 00:13:27.230 align:middle line:84% I can show you this in the book, Understanding David Foster 00:13:27.230 --> 00:13:30.140 align:middle line:84% Wallace, out in paperback coming out. 00:13:30.140 --> 00:13:34.340 align:middle line:84% But there's three different formulations of the same idea. 00:13:34.340 --> 00:13:36.200 align:middle line:90% It's in E Unibus Pluram. 00:13:36.200 --> 00:13:38.685 align:middle line:84% It's in Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way. 00:13:38.685 --> 00:13:39.560 align:middle line:90% And he says it again. 00:13:39.560 --> 00:13:42.950 align:middle line:84% Hal says it somewhere in the deep grottoes of Infinite Jest. 00:13:42.950 --> 00:13:45.770 align:middle line:84% The formulation is that cynicism and naivete are not 00:13:45.770 --> 00:13:47.600 align:middle line:90% mutually exclusive. 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:50.390 align:middle line:84% This was his intervention, more than anything else. 00:13:50.390 --> 00:13:54.080 align:middle line:84% Cynicism I consider the kind of self-consciousness, 00:13:54.080 --> 00:13:56.545 align:middle line:84% the self-awareness, the understanding of conventions 00:13:56.545 --> 00:13:58.670 align:middle line:84% and hollowness of various kinds of fictional forms, 00:13:58.670 --> 00:14:00.200 align:middle line:90% which his book exemplifies. 00:14:00.200 --> 00:14:03.680 align:middle line:84% But he's trying to do that while also reintroducing 00:14:03.680 --> 00:14:06.020 align:middle line:84% a kind of naivete and openness to what he calls 00:14:06.020 --> 00:14:08.630 align:middle line:90% single entendre in principles-- 00:14:08.630 --> 00:14:11.810 align:middle line:84% honor, goodness, empathy, these things 00:14:11.810 --> 00:14:14.060 align:middle line:84% that he wants to remove the quotation marks around 00:14:14.060 --> 00:14:15.470 align:middle line:90% and reaffirm. 00:14:15.470 --> 00:14:17.120 align:middle line:84% The difficulty of the fiction also, 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:19.280 align:middle line:84% often, is that he doesn't want to do it directly. 00:14:19.280 --> 00:14:23.110 align:middle line:84% The affirmation happens sort of off the page. 00:14:23.110 --> 00:14:24.860 align:middle line:84% And I think that's what people respond to, 00:14:24.860 --> 00:14:27.230 align:middle line:84% that sense that something ethical is going on 00:14:27.230 --> 00:14:28.430 align:middle line:90% in these texts. 00:14:28.430 --> 00:14:31.040 align:middle line:84% But it's something that the texts produce in the reader. 00:14:31.040 --> 00:14:33.710 align:middle line:84% And I mean, I can talk for hours about how they do that. 00:14:33.710 --> 00:14:35.870 align:middle line:84% But they do do that in a way that, I think, 00:14:35.870 --> 00:14:37.640 align:middle line:84% his imitators have been trying to get. 00:14:37.640 --> 00:14:39.860 align:middle line:84% And it's that tone of cynicism and naivete 00:14:39.860 --> 00:14:42.830 align:middle line:84% that Wallace invents, and that I think 00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:45.290 align:middle line:84% his followers have tried, with varying degrees of success, 00:14:45.290 --> 00:14:47.730 align:middle line:90% to manage. 00:14:47.730 --> 00:14:50.420 align:middle line:84% I was going to say, both Adam Gopnik 00:14:50.420 --> 00:14:53.990 align:middle line:84% and A.O. Scott have separately said 00:14:53.990 --> 00:14:56.300 align:middle line:84% that when they read Infinite Jest, 00:14:56.300 --> 00:14:59.660 align:middle line:84% they heard the voice inside their own head. 00:14:59.660 --> 00:15:05.390 align:middle line:84% And I've always thought, yeah, in your dreams. 00:15:05.390 --> 00:15:08.090 align:middle line:84% Like, they're flattering themselves 00:15:08.090 --> 00:15:10.790 align:middle line:84% by thinking that that's the voice inside their own head. 00:15:10.790 --> 00:15:15.890 align:middle line:84% But for 10 years, there have been writers like-- 00:15:15.890 --> 00:15:17.840 align:middle line:90% Tom Bissell is not here. 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:20.810 align:middle line:84% Heidi Julavits isn't here, Colson Whitehead. 00:15:20.810 --> 00:15:24.290 align:middle line:84% You can read parts of these people's books 00:15:24.290 --> 00:15:27.410 align:middle line:84% and know what books of Dave's they were reading. 00:15:27.410 --> 00:15:29.330 align:middle line:84% And I'm not saying that to rip on them. 00:15:29.330 --> 00:15:31.100 align:middle line:84% You could do that with parts of-- 00:15:31.100 --> 00:15:34.730 align:middle line:84% Chapter 2.1 of Beautiful Children. 00:15:34.730 --> 00:15:38.120 align:middle line:84% You could see-- it's just there-- 00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:44.870 align:middle line:84% that he set the pace for a lot of us. 00:15:44.870 --> 00:15:52.130 align:middle line:84% And at the same time, both n+1 and McSweeney's are separate 00:15:52.130 --> 00:15:55.175 align:middle line:84% outgrowths of the work of David Foster Wallace. 00:15:55.175 --> 00:15:56.550 align:middle line:90% Well, Dave Eggers. 00:15:56.550 --> 00:16:02.720 align:middle line:84% Dave Eggers, who had not heard of him until he 00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:04.340 align:middle line:90% asked him to submit something. 00:16:04.340 --> 00:16:09.350 align:middle line:90% And then his whole extreme-- 00:16:09.350 --> 00:16:13.400 align:middle line:84% whatever-- Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. 00:16:13.400 --> 00:16:14.750 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:16:14.750 --> 00:16:16.320 align:middle line:90% That's Wallace lite. 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:22.400 align:middle line:84% And I'm not saying anything shocking or revelatory here, 00:16:22.400 --> 00:16:25.070 align:middle line:90% I don't think, for a lot of us. 00:16:25.070 --> 00:16:28.730 align:middle line:90% And the same thing with Kunkel-- 00:16:28.730 --> 00:16:32.555 align:middle line:84% Ben Kunkel and the little one, Gessen. 00:16:32.555 --> 00:16:35.420 align:middle line:90% 00:16:35.420 --> 00:16:39.050 align:middle line:84% They're both, in different directions, 00:16:39.050 --> 00:16:40.880 align:middle line:84% taking different parts of his work. 00:16:40.880 --> 00:16:44.010 align:middle line:84% And one deals with a certain kind of sincerity 00:16:44.010 --> 00:16:45.890 align:middle line:84% that you're talking about, and the other one 00:16:45.890 --> 00:16:50.360 align:middle line:84% deals with critical faculty, and being doubting, and casting 00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:52.490 align:middle line:90% a certain kind of eye. 00:16:52.490 --> 00:16:58.625 align:middle line:84% So you have just this shadow that the man's cast, I think. 00:16:58.625 --> 00:17:01.130 align:middle line:90% 00:17:01.130 --> 00:17:03.350 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:17:03.350 --> 00:17:07.369 align:middle line:84% It's funny you mention A.O. Scott, 00:17:07.369 --> 00:17:11.180 align:middle line:84% because I happened to read that last night on a plane. 00:17:11.180 --> 00:17:16.400 align:middle line:84% And it's actually-- it's one of The New York Review of Books. 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:23.510 align:middle line:84% And I suspect, when people say that, the way I take 00:17:23.510 --> 00:17:27.650 align:middle line:84% it is that you read a really great writer 00:17:27.650 --> 00:17:30.290 align:middle line:84% with a great voice, and it becomes part of your brain, 00:17:30.290 --> 00:17:32.660 align:middle line:90% that you start thinking-- 00:17:32.660 --> 00:17:36.170 align:middle line:84% this is definitely a feeling I get reading Wallace. 00:17:36.170 --> 00:17:39.440 align:middle line:84% For the next couple of days, I'm going to think like him. 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:43.340 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to have that kind of-- 00:17:43.340 --> 00:17:45.470 align:middle line:90% the language gives you all-- 00:17:45.470 --> 00:17:47.190 align:middle line:84% unfortunately, it doesn't last very long. 00:17:47.190 --> 00:17:48.800 align:middle line:90% But you have that acuity. 00:17:48.800 --> 00:17:51.620 align:middle line:84% And you develop-- and a great writer will do that. 00:17:51.620 --> 00:17:53.870 align:middle line:90% And I didn't read the-- 00:17:53.870 --> 00:17:55.250 align:middle line:90% who's the other critic? 00:17:55.250 --> 00:17:55.850 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:17:55.850 --> 00:17:56.990 align:middle line:90% Adam Gopnik. 00:17:56.990 --> 00:17:58.320 align:middle line:90% Well, I didn't read-- 00:17:58.320 --> 00:18:00.350 align:middle line:84% I'd already met-- but I suspect-- 00:18:00.350 --> 00:18:01.580 align:middle line:90% I've had that feeling too. 00:18:01.580 --> 00:18:04.220 align:middle line:84% And it's not that I can write like that, 00:18:04.220 --> 00:18:07.640 align:middle line:84% but I do feel I've been sort of given the gift of this acuity 00:18:07.640 --> 00:18:09.146 align:middle line:90% for a couple of days, at least. 00:18:09.146 --> 00:18:09.646 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:18:09.646 --> 00:18:11.550 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] what you all were saying-- 00:18:11.550 --> 00:18:14.330 align:middle line:90% Here, pass her the microphone. 00:18:14.330 --> 00:18:17.300 align:middle line:84% It is true that, for David, writing the nonfiction 00:18:17.300 --> 00:18:19.700 align:middle line:84% was way easier than writing fiction. 00:18:19.700 --> 00:18:22.370 align:middle line:90% And the fiction came hard. 00:18:22.370 --> 00:18:27.480 align:middle line:84% And the nonfiction, for him, it was sort of like, look, Ma, 00:18:27.480 --> 00:18:27.980 align:middle line:90% no hands! 00:18:27.980 --> 00:18:31.100 align:middle line:90% Like any kid on a bicycle. 00:18:31.100 --> 00:18:32.480 align:middle line:84% And those were the easiest things 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:34.022 align:middle line:84% to sell and there was a point where-- 00:18:34.022 --> 00:18:36.920 align:middle line:84% I mean, David started doing magazine work for money, 00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:38.240 align:middle line:90% the way most writers do. 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:41.390 align:middle line:84% Because it was a long time between books, and he 00:18:41.390 --> 00:18:42.950 align:middle line:90% was working on Infinite Jest. 00:18:42.950 --> 00:18:45.170 align:middle line:84% And the advance for Infinite Jest 00:18:45.170 --> 00:18:49.710 align:middle line:84% was not large, and certainly small increments. 00:18:49.710 --> 00:18:53.360 align:middle line:84% And so it was a matter of, how can I make $5,000? 00:18:53.360 --> 00:18:57.530 align:middle line:84% And Glenn will tell you that buying David-- well, paying 00:18:57.530 --> 00:19:00.200 align:middle line:84% $5,000 for David Wallace, you're essentially paying a penny 00:19:00.200 --> 00:19:01.718 align:middle line:90% a word at a certain point. 00:19:01.718 --> 00:19:03.260 align:middle line:84% I mean, because I was like, could you 00:19:03.260 --> 00:19:05.688 align:middle line:84% not make it 15,000 words so they have to cut down? 00:19:05.688 --> 00:19:07.105 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] had this conversation. 00:19:07.105 --> 00:19:08.800 align:middle line:84% [? Apparently ?] knew how to make it work against him. 00:19:08.800 --> 00:19:09.300 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:19:09.300 --> 00:19:12.630 align:middle line:84% And I mean, he'd be like, you're going to be mad at me again, 00:19:12.630 --> 00:19:13.130 align:middle line:90% aren't you? 00:19:13.130 --> 00:19:15.250 align:middle line:84% And I was just like, why did you-- you know. 00:19:15.250 --> 00:19:16.880 align:middle line:90% But it's true-- 00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:17.645 align:middle line:90% And at the time-- 00:19:17.645 --> 00:19:19.460 align:middle line:84% I don't mean to interrupt, but just 00:19:19.460 --> 00:19:24.830 align:middle line:84% to demonstrate that, we were in Las Vegas January 8, he left. 00:19:24.830 --> 00:19:27.680 align:middle line:84% The Big Red Son manuscript showed up at my office 00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:29.510 align:middle line:90% around Valentine's Day. 00:19:29.510 --> 00:19:31.940 align:middle line:90% So it's pretty fast. 00:19:31.940 --> 00:19:34.160 align:middle line:84% In answer-- in what Charles was saying, 00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:36.950 align:middle line:84% about sort of a fiction versus the nonfiction, 00:19:36.950 --> 00:19:39.350 align:middle line:84% I mean, as one of the two people who 00:19:39.350 --> 00:19:44.180 align:middle line:84% has read this unfinished novel, it's about boredom. 00:19:44.180 --> 00:19:48.410 align:middle line:84% I mean, who writes a book about IRS agents and boredom, 00:19:48.410 --> 00:19:50.700 align:middle line:84% and how bored you can get looking at numbers? 00:19:50.700 --> 00:19:54.500 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's like taking the hardest thing you can possibly 00:19:54.500 --> 00:19:57.680 align:middle line:90% ever do and then doing it. 00:19:57.680 --> 00:20:02.140 align:middle line:90% And it's amazing. 00:20:02.140 --> 00:20:03.700 align:middle line:90% I mean, it sounds-- 00:20:03.700 --> 00:20:07.030 align:middle line:84% as trite as it sounds, but it really is an amazing book. 00:20:07.030 --> 00:20:07.530 align:middle line:90% And he-- 00:20:07.530 --> 00:20:10.190 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:20:10.190 --> 00:20:11.030 align:middle line:90% In its way. 00:20:11.030 --> 00:20:12.170 align:middle line:90% And I mean, he also-- 00:20:12.170 --> 00:20:16.370 align:middle line:84% he took tax courses for, like, three years so 00:20:16.370 --> 00:20:18.410 align:middle line:84% that he could learn all of the tax things. 00:20:18.410 --> 00:20:20.420 align:middle line:84% And I have tax books that, you were like, 00:20:20.420 --> 00:20:22.850 align:middle line:84% who has sent away for tax books so that you 00:20:22.850 --> 00:20:24.470 align:middle line:84% can learn all about taxes in order 00:20:24.470 --> 00:20:28.870 align:middle line:84% to write a book about IRS agents and taxes? 00:20:28.870 --> 00:20:31.217 align:middle line:84% And it's funny, and it's smart, and it's heartbreaking, 00:20:31.217 --> 00:20:32.425 align:middle line:90% and it's all of those things. 00:20:32.425 --> 00:20:33.260 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:20:33.260 --> 00:20:33.760 align:middle line:90% What? 00:20:33.760 --> 00:20:36.490 align:middle line:90% What kind of shape is it in? 00:20:36.490 --> 00:20:39.160 align:middle line:84% Parts of it are near-- are perfect. 00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:43.368 align:middle line:84% I mean, the first parts are incredibly clean. 00:20:43.368 --> 00:20:45.160 align:middle line:84% I mean, the parts-- there were two sections 00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:47.285 align:middle line:84% that were in The New Yorker, one small section that 00:20:47.285 --> 00:20:51.940 align:middle line:84% was in Harper's, which are just a few 00:20:51.940 --> 00:20:54.130 align:middle line:84% of the characters who are in this book. 00:20:54.130 --> 00:20:56.500 align:middle line:84% I mean, because it's a whole group of IRS agents 00:20:56.500 --> 00:20:57.640 align:middle line:90% who live in the Midwest. 00:20:57.640 --> 00:21:01.938 align:middle line:84% Since, for David-- I mean, every writer has sort of their place 00:21:01.938 --> 00:21:03.730 align:middle line:84% which is their place that they write about. 00:21:03.730 --> 00:21:06.432 align:middle line:84% I mean, he was a Midwest boy through and through, 00:21:06.432 --> 00:21:08.140 align:middle line:84% that no matter where he lived, whether it 00:21:08.140 --> 00:21:12.218 align:middle line:84% was Tucson or Boston, the Midwest is 00:21:12.218 --> 00:21:13.510 align:middle line:90% what had the resonance for him. 00:21:13.510 --> 00:21:15.820 align:middle line:90% And he kept going back to it. 00:21:15.820 --> 00:21:19.360 align:middle line:84% It's the Midwest in the mid-'80s, which wasn't pretty 00:21:19.360 --> 00:21:20.260 align:middle line:90% for anybody. 00:21:20.260 --> 00:21:22.372 align:middle line:90% I mean, it's driving Pintos. 00:21:22.372 --> 00:21:23.830 align:middle line:84% Do you remember Pintos, any of you? 00:21:23.830 --> 00:21:24.390 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:21:24.390 --> 00:21:24.910 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:21:24.910 --> 00:21:26.320 align:middle line:90% Not a good car. 00:21:26.320 --> 00:21:28.360 align:middle line:84% And when he wanted to write about something, 00:21:28.360 --> 00:21:30.140 align:middle line:84% he wanted to know everything about it. 00:21:30.140 --> 00:21:34.570 align:middle line:84% So when he did the AVN piece-- this was brilliant. 00:21:34.570 --> 00:21:37.000 align:middle line:84% The AVN, the Adult Video News awards, 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:40.810 align:middle line:84% they nominate literally hundreds of films every year. 00:21:40.810 --> 00:21:42.760 align:middle line:90% And he watched most of them. 00:21:42.760 --> 00:21:43.820 align:middle line:90% And they nominate-- 00:21:43.820 --> 00:21:44.320 align:middle line:90% So did I. 00:21:44.320 --> 00:21:46.840 align:middle line:84% --in different categories-- best facial, best 00:21:46.840 --> 00:21:49.660 align:middle line:84% oral sex scene, best threesome, best group sex. 00:21:49.660 --> 00:21:50.870 align:middle line:90% And he had this idea. 00:21:50.870 --> 00:21:52.870 align:middle line:84% He wanted to see everything that was nominated. 00:21:52.870 --> 00:21:55.047 align:middle line:84% And then he figured out that it was mathematically 00:21:55.047 --> 00:21:57.130 align:middle line:84% impossible for one person to watch everything that 00:21:57.130 --> 00:21:59.800 align:middle line:84% was nominated, so we figured we would 00:21:59.800 --> 00:22:02.427 align:middle line:84% go with just a cross-section of nominees. 00:22:02.427 --> 00:22:04.510 align:middle line:84% The thing is, he was living in Normal at the time. 00:22:04.510 --> 00:22:06.620 align:middle line:84% He was living in a town called Normal, Indiana. 00:22:06.620 --> 00:22:07.120 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:22:07.120 --> 00:22:07.900 align:middle line:90% Illinois. 00:22:07.900 --> 00:22:08.790 align:middle line:90% Illinois, sorry. 00:22:08.790 --> 00:22:11.680 align:middle line:84% I always get those two states mixed up. 00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:14.050 align:middle line:90% And not a lot of access to porn. 00:22:14.050 --> 00:22:16.240 align:middle line:84% So our thing would be, at Premiere, 00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:19.810 align:middle line:84% me and a couple of my buddies who were fact-checkers there-- 00:22:19.810 --> 00:22:20.560 align:middle line:90% lunch breaks. 00:22:20.560 --> 00:22:23.470 align:middle line:84% Random lunch breaks, we'd go-- this was around the time 00:22:23.470 --> 00:22:27.490 align:middle line:84% where 8th Avenue was still a great place to buy porno. 00:22:27.490 --> 00:22:30.250 align:middle line:84% And we'd go on our Q for P, quest for porn. 00:22:30.250 --> 00:22:33.010 align:middle line:84% And we'd go and stock up on a bunch of videotapes-- 00:22:33.010 --> 00:22:36.610 align:middle line:84% Stephanie Swift, gangbang angel, da, da, da. 00:22:36.610 --> 00:22:39.910 align:middle line:84% That's the one where she gets spit in the face 13 times 00:22:39.910 --> 00:22:41.530 align:middle line:90% by 13 guys-- 00:22:41.530 --> 00:22:42.550 align:middle line:90% Jasmin St. Clair. 00:22:42.550 --> 00:22:45.040 align:middle line:90% And we'd send them to Dave. 00:22:45.040 --> 00:22:47.320 align:middle line:90% He would watch and take notes. 00:22:47.320 --> 00:22:49.510 align:middle line:84% Then he'd send them back to the office, 00:22:49.510 --> 00:22:52.300 align:middle line:84% because he didn't want-- having watched them and taken notes, 00:22:52.300 --> 00:22:54.580 align:middle line:84% he did not want them in this house anymore. 00:22:54.580 --> 00:22:59.680 align:middle line:84% And we ended up getting so many videotapes-- porn videotapes. 00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:03.310 align:middle line:84% I left my office in a fairly quick manner 00:23:03.310 --> 00:23:04.930 align:middle line:90% when I left premiere.com. 00:23:04.930 --> 00:23:06.940 align:middle line:84% And I can only imagine the riches 00:23:06.940 --> 00:23:10.540 align:middle line:84% that some of the facilities guys yielded in terms of what 00:23:10.540 --> 00:23:14.055 align:middle line:90% is now vintage pornography. 00:23:14.055 --> 00:23:15.680 align:middle line:84% But yeah, he wanted to know everything. 00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:18.040 align:middle line:84% And if he could have watched all of those nominees, 00:23:18.040 --> 00:23:18.910 align:middle line:90% he would have. 00:23:18.910 --> 00:23:19.430 align:middle line:90% Absolutely. 00:23:19.430 --> 00:23:19.930 align:middle line:90% Yuck. 00:23:19.930 --> 00:23:23.200 align:middle line:90% 00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:25.170 align:middle line:84% Yeah, we have a question, finally-- 00:23:25.170 --> 00:23:25.670 align:middle line:90% yay! 00:23:25.670 --> 00:23:29.680 align:middle line:90% 00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:33.450 align:middle line:84% I had a question for the academics. 00:23:33.450 --> 00:23:37.650 align:middle line:84% Well, it's a rare thing, right, that writing about someone-- 00:23:37.650 --> 00:23:40.740 align:middle line:84% an academic work about someone who's still living, 00:23:40.740 --> 00:23:42.090 align:middle line:90% which he was at the time. 00:23:42.090 --> 00:23:44.220 align:middle line:84% And I was just wondering about whether you 00:23:44.220 --> 00:23:49.840 align:middle line:84% had gleaned any sort of reaction to that work, or-- 00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:50.340 align:middle line:90% Glean. 00:23:50.340 --> 00:23:51.420 align:middle line:90% Do you mean-- 00:23:51.420 --> 00:23:53.790 align:middle line:84% Like, whether or not, directly or indirectly, 00:23:53.790 --> 00:23:56.670 align:middle line:84% you heard anything about sort of Wallace's reaction 00:23:56.670 --> 00:24:00.090 align:middle line:84% to your work, or reaction of his acolytes or whatever. 00:24:00.090 --> 00:24:01.200 align:middle line:90% Never did. 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:03.125 align:middle line:84% The one story I came prepared to tell was-- 00:24:03.125 --> 00:24:04.500 align:middle line:84% I never met David Foster Wallace. 00:24:04.500 --> 00:24:05.917 align:middle line:84% But when I was writing the book, I 00:24:05.917 --> 00:24:09.280 align:middle line:84% had reached a point where I had a load of unanswered questions, 00:24:09.280 --> 00:24:11.250 align:middle line:84% including questions about his biography, 00:24:11.250 --> 00:24:14.460 align:middle line:84% but also questions about details in Infinite Jest. 00:24:14.460 --> 00:24:16.895 align:middle line:90% What happens, how, at the end? 00:24:16.895 --> 00:24:18.270 align:middle line:84% What happens to Madame Psychosis? 00:24:18.270 --> 00:24:20.812 align:middle line:84% I mean just questions that just seemed impossible to resolve. 00:24:20.812 --> 00:24:21.907 align:middle line:90% And I thought I'd ask him. 00:24:21.907 --> 00:24:22.740 align:middle line:90% So I sent an email-- 00:24:22.740 --> 00:24:26.040 align:middle line:84% I sent a letter to him saying, I'm Marshall Boswell. 00:24:26.040 --> 00:24:26.983 align:middle line:90% I'm writing this book. 00:24:26.983 --> 00:24:27.900 align:middle line:90% I have some questions. 00:24:27.900 --> 00:24:29.460 align:middle line:84% Would you be willing to answer them? 00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:31.200 align:middle line:84% Months passed without any response, 00:24:31.200 --> 00:24:32.710 align:middle line:90% because he was moving to Pomona. 00:24:32.710 --> 00:24:33.960 align:middle line:90% The letter finally came back. 00:24:33.960 --> 00:24:36.810 align:middle line:84% What he did was, he sent my letter back to me, 00:24:36.810 --> 00:24:41.340 align:middle line:84% with his answers in red felt tip footnotes on the letter-- 00:24:41.340 --> 00:24:42.870 align:middle line:84% which, when my house burns down, I'm 00:24:42.870 --> 00:24:45.685 align:middle line:84% grabbing my kids and that letter. 00:24:45.685 --> 00:24:46.560 align:middle line:90% Hi, Marshall Boswell. 00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:47.130 align:middle line:90% There's a 1. 00:24:47.130 --> 00:24:49.630 align:middle line:84% You flip it over, and he just writes "hi" and a smiley face. 00:24:49.630 --> 00:24:51.770 align:middle line:90% You flip it back. 00:24:51.770 --> 00:24:52.950 align:middle line:90% It's just a cherished thing. 00:24:52.950 --> 00:24:56.640 align:middle line:84% And so I wrote him a list of these questions, 00:24:56.640 --> 00:24:58.500 align:middle line:90% and he responded. 00:24:58.500 --> 00:24:59.070 align:middle line:90% He responded. 00:24:59.070 --> 00:25:00.120 align:middle line:84% He said I could never tell anyone 00:25:00.120 --> 00:25:01.587 align:middle line:84% that he did this, because he didn't 00:25:01.587 --> 00:25:02.670 align:middle line:90% want people bothering him. 00:25:02.670 --> 00:25:04.590 align:middle line:84% That was-- but I think I can tell you now. 00:25:04.590 --> 00:25:09.000 align:middle line:84% And he wrote back eight pages of single-spaced, legal pad, 00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:10.440 align:middle line:90% handwritten responses. 00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:11.660 align:middle line:90% And they're just fascinating. 00:25:11.660 --> 00:25:14.320 align:middle line:84% He didn't answer a lot of the questions I asked. 00:25:14.320 --> 00:25:15.270 align:middle line:90% He was very slippery. 00:25:15.270 --> 00:25:16.312 align:middle line:90% But some of them, he did. 00:25:16.312 --> 00:25:18.210 align:middle line:84% And then I sent him the book when 00:25:18.210 --> 00:25:20.280 align:middle line:84% it was over, and waited and waited and waited, 00:25:20.280 --> 00:25:24.700 align:middle line:84% and I never heard back from him, which is just as well. 00:25:24.700 --> 00:25:27.630 align:middle line:84% I knew, from posts on the internet, 00:25:27.630 --> 00:25:30.150 align:middle line:84% that when a student at Pomona would bring it up, 00:25:30.150 --> 00:25:32.070 align:middle line:90% he would get angry. 00:25:32.070 --> 00:25:33.540 align:middle line:90% And so I've never even thought-- 00:25:33.540 --> 00:25:35.880 align:middle line:84% I just assumed it would never be on his radar, 00:25:35.880 --> 00:25:38.130 align:middle line:84% a book about Infinite Jest, because he didn't 00:25:38.130 --> 00:25:39.340 align:middle line:90% like to talk about that work. 00:25:39.340 --> 00:25:42.540 align:middle line:84% So I never even thought to try to-- 00:25:42.540 --> 00:25:43.380 align:middle line:90% just from what I'd-- 00:25:43.380 --> 00:25:45.450 align:middle line:90% I didn't want to make him angry. 00:25:45.450 --> 00:25:46.140 align:middle line:90% So that was-- 00:25:46.140 --> 00:25:50.910 align:middle line:84% Why did he get angry [INAUDIBLE]?? 00:25:50.910 --> 00:25:55.020 align:middle line:90% I assume it-- well, any other-- 00:25:55.020 --> 00:25:58.170 align:middle line:84% I know some writers that don't like to talk about that. 00:25:58.170 --> 00:26:02.910 align:middle line:84% You talk about-- an academic talking to a writer, it's like, 00:26:02.910 --> 00:26:05.040 align:middle line:90% don't try to piece out my work. 00:26:05.040 --> 00:26:06.720 align:middle line:84% It's like, that's the academic's job, 00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:11.910 align:middle line:84% to comment, to comment, to comment on it. 00:26:11.910 --> 00:26:17.452 align:middle line:84% And it's not-- it's just two different things. 00:26:17.452 --> 00:26:18.160 align:middle line:90% I think in that-- 00:26:18.160 --> 00:26:18.270 align:middle line:90% I actually think it's because-- 00:26:18.270 --> 00:26:19.125 align:middle line:90% --particular context-- 00:26:19.125 --> 00:26:19.530 align:middle line:90% --he was shy. 00:26:19.530 --> 00:26:19.950 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:26:19.950 --> 00:26:20.935 align:middle line:90% I think it actually is-- 00:26:20.935 --> 00:26:21.330 align:middle line:84% And he also didn't want his classes-- 00:26:21.330 --> 00:26:22.290 align:middle line:90% --he was really shy. 00:26:22.290 --> 00:26:23.260 align:middle line:90% --to be about him. 00:26:23.260 --> 00:26:23.760 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:26:23.760 --> 00:26:27.450 align:middle line:84% I mean, he was a really shy person. 00:26:27.450 --> 00:26:30.660 align:middle line:84% And he's not somebody who lived in the middle of New 00:26:30.660 --> 00:26:33.270 align:middle line:90% York, or LA, or any big city. 00:26:33.270 --> 00:26:37.320 align:middle line:84% He lived in Normal, Illinois, and Pomona and Claremont, 00:26:37.320 --> 00:26:37.860 align:middle line:90% California. 00:26:37.860 --> 00:26:40.920 align:middle line:84% These are not the red-hot center of anything, 00:26:40.920 --> 00:26:43.080 align:middle line:90% though they're very nice places. 00:26:43.080 --> 00:26:45.330 align:middle line:84% Actually, I'm not sure Normal is a nice place. 00:26:45.330 --> 00:26:50.580 align:middle line:84% But I think it actually has to do with, his classes were 00:26:50.580 --> 00:26:51.820 align:middle line:90% really for his students. 00:26:51.820 --> 00:26:53.730 align:middle line:90% And I think he just-- 00:26:53.730 --> 00:26:56.970 align:middle line:84% he didn't want to appear to be a star or a celebrity, 00:26:56.970 --> 00:26:59.400 align:middle line:84% or be, like, the star writer who came in. 00:26:59.400 --> 00:27:02.503 align:middle line:84% So I don't actually think it was, oh, 00:27:02.503 --> 00:27:04.170 align:middle line:84% I'm not going to comment to an academic. 00:27:04.170 --> 00:27:06.167 align:middle line:90% He's the child of academics. 00:27:06.167 --> 00:27:07.500 align:middle line:90% His parents were both academics. 00:27:07.500 --> 00:27:08.500 align:middle line:90% I don't think it's that. 00:27:08.500 --> 00:27:11.610 align:middle line:84% I think it really was like, read the book. 00:27:11.610 --> 00:27:14.790 align:middle line:84% Figure it out for yourselves, for his students. 00:27:14.790 --> 00:27:17.292 align:middle line:84% I don't think was meant as anything more than that. 00:27:17.292 --> 00:27:18.000 align:middle line:90% Two other things. 00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:19.583 align:middle line:84% In Westward the Course of Empire Takes 00:27:19.583 --> 00:27:21.480 align:middle line:84% its Way, this character Mark Nechtr, 00:27:21.480 --> 00:27:22.998 align:middle line:90% who was David Foster Wallace-- 00:27:22.998 --> 00:27:25.290 align:middle line:84% I think we're supposed to understand that-- is anxious, 00:27:25.290 --> 00:27:26.790 align:middle line:90% in that novel-- 00:27:26.790 --> 00:27:30.330 align:middle line:84% novella-- about inheriting the languages, inheriting 00:27:30.330 --> 00:27:33.570 align:middle line:84% Dr. Ambrose's scepter, as an academic writer. 00:27:33.570 --> 00:27:35.250 align:middle line:90% And he's worried about it. 00:27:35.250 --> 00:27:38.400 align:middle line:84% Because John Barth is the Ambrose figure in that story. 00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:43.410 align:middle line:84% And Barth is a dissertationist's dream. 00:27:43.410 --> 00:27:45.690 align:middle line:90% They're made for academics. 00:27:45.690 --> 00:27:47.290 align:middle line:84% And I think he was anxious about that. 00:27:47.290 --> 00:27:50.520 align:middle line:84% But I also think it's like the scene in Annie Hall, when 00:27:50.520 --> 00:27:52.590 align:middle line:84% the guy's going on about Marshall McLuhan. 00:27:52.590 --> 00:27:54.360 align:middle line:84% And Marshall McLuhan walks up and says, 00:27:54.360 --> 00:27:55.780 align:middle line:84% you have no idea what you're talking about. 00:27:55.780 --> 00:27:57.030 align:middle line:90% And the guy says, who are you? 00:27:57.030 --> 00:27:58.180 align:middle line:90% I'm Marshall McLuhan. 00:27:58.180 --> 00:27:59.680 align:middle line:84% And the critic still doesn't get it. 00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:02.250 align:middle line:84% He still thinks he knows what he's talking about. 00:28:02.250 --> 00:28:04.430 align:middle line:90% And Dave's shyness was genuine. 00:28:04.430 --> 00:28:09.000 align:middle line:84% And when I was at Premiere, I obviously 00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:11.520 align:middle line:84% met and dealt with a lot of people who are celebrities, 00:28:11.520 --> 00:28:13.170 align:middle line:84% and who relish being celebrities. 00:28:13.170 --> 00:28:15.690 align:middle line:84% And there's some of them who will put on this air of, 00:28:15.690 --> 00:28:18.900 align:middle line:84% well, that's all well and good, but I'm not really 00:28:18.900 --> 00:28:19.680 align:middle line:90% such a big deal. 00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:21.180 align:middle line:90% But no, Dave-- 00:28:21.180 --> 00:28:22.770 align:middle line:90% I mean, Dave, it's strange. 00:28:22.770 --> 00:28:25.410 align:middle line:84% Because there were these two things that co-existed in his 00:28:25.410 --> 00:28:28.175 align:middle line:84% mind, the sort of negative capability, where he knew-- 00:28:28.175 --> 00:28:30.300 align:middle line:84% there was a certain level, he knew he was the shit. 00:28:30.300 --> 00:28:33.840 align:middle line:84% But on a personal kind of level of interacting with people, 00:28:33.840 --> 00:28:35.850 align:middle line:84% he never wanted to give anybody the impression 00:28:35.850 --> 00:28:37.890 align:middle line:84% that he was better than them or that he 00:28:37.890 --> 00:28:39.175 align:middle line:90% felt he was better than them. 00:28:39.175 --> 00:28:41.550 align:middle line:84% As I'd write-- in, I think, the first three conversations 00:28:41.550 --> 00:28:43.575 align:middle line:90% we had, he called me Mr. Kenny. 00:28:43.575 --> 00:28:45.450 align:middle line:84% I actually had to talk him out of doing that. 00:28:45.450 --> 00:28:49.650 align:middle line:84% And he wasn't doing it out of affectation or anything 00:28:49.650 --> 00:28:53.340 align:middle line:84% other than having what he thought were good manners. 00:28:53.340 --> 00:28:56.790 align:middle line:84% And for him, manners were absolutely 00:28:56.790 --> 00:29:00.330 align:middle line:84% inextricable from a much larger moral and ethical perspective 00:29:00.330 --> 00:29:03.900 align:middle line:84% that he tried very, very hard, all through his life, 00:29:03.900 --> 00:29:06.720 align:middle line:84% to maintain, because it was the right thing to do. 00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:09.380 align:middle line:90% 00:29:09.380 --> 00:29:10.960 align:middle line:90% I'm just going to-- 00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:14.410 align:middle line:84% however shy he may have been, there is also a part of him 00:29:14.410 --> 00:29:15.400 align:middle line:90% that-- 00:29:15.400 --> 00:29:19.660 align:middle line:84% you don't write like that and be a complete, utter wallflower. 00:29:19.660 --> 00:29:20.930 align:middle line:90% It's just impossible. 00:29:20.930 --> 00:29:21.430 align:middle line:90% You can't. 00:29:21.430 --> 00:29:26.000 align:middle line:84% I mean, socially and however, his interactions with people, 00:29:26.000 --> 00:29:28.130 align:middle line:90% there was also something there. 00:29:28.130 --> 00:29:32.410 align:middle line:84% And this is in this is in E Pluribus Unum about the US 00:29:32.410 --> 00:29:33.775 align:middle line:90% American fiction writer. 00:29:33.775 --> 00:29:35.650 align:middle line:84% And I think it's in another interview he did, 00:29:35.650 --> 00:29:38.192 align:middle line:84% where he talks about that you're divided, because part of you 00:29:38.192 --> 00:29:41.140 align:middle line:84% wants to sit in the library and write your fiction, 00:29:41.140 --> 00:29:42.790 align:middle line:84% and then another part of you wants 00:29:42.790 --> 00:29:48.480 align:middle line:84% to dance on top of the table and say, look at me, look at me. 00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:52.980 align:middle line:84% The stylistic virtuosity of that early work 00:29:52.980 --> 00:29:58.440 align:middle line:84% and what it coalesces into, he knew it. 00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:02.110 align:middle line:90% I mean, he knew what he had. 00:30:02.110 --> 00:30:05.130 align:middle line:84% But he also wanted other people to know what he had. 00:30:05.130 --> 00:30:12.180 align:middle line:84% And I don't think that's the same thing as being a Hollywood 00:30:12.180 --> 00:30:19.320 align:middle line:84% star with an, oh, I'm not such a-- false humility. 00:30:19.320 --> 00:30:22.110 align:middle line:84% I think-- you were talking about something separate. 00:30:22.110 --> 00:30:26.830 align:middle line:90% 00:30:26.830 --> 00:30:28.320 align:middle line:90% And it is. 00:30:28.320 --> 00:30:29.910 align:middle line:84% And maybe part of it is a reaction 00:30:29.910 --> 00:30:33.390 align:middle line:84% to the stripped-down Carver stuff. 00:30:33.390 --> 00:30:37.140 align:middle line:84% And part of it also is that you have this bursting mind that's 00:30:37.140 --> 00:30:41.400 align:middle line:84% processing everything, and that's creating everything, 00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:42.810 align:middle line:84% and that's in love with language, 00:30:42.810 --> 00:30:44.400 align:middle line:90% and it's in love with form. 00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:50.970 align:middle line:90% And I think that's pretty cool. 00:30:50.970 --> 00:30:56.340 align:middle line:84% I think our culture is the better for having those people, 00:30:56.340 --> 00:31:03.042 align:middle line:84% and that ambition, and that desire to take it all on. 00:31:03.042 --> 00:31:05.472 align:middle line:84% Are there any questions from the audience? 00:31:05.472 --> 00:31:11.320 align:middle line:90% 00:31:11.320 --> 00:31:13.810 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:31:13.810 --> 00:31:15.730 align:middle line:90% 00:31:15.730 --> 00:31:16.540 align:middle line:90% My question. 00:31:16.540 --> 00:31:19.690 align:middle line:84% Goes a little bit off of what's been talked about already. 00:31:19.690 --> 00:31:23.350 align:middle line:84% But the trend in his recent work, 00:31:23.350 --> 00:31:28.000 align:middle line:84% away from what the persona of David Foster Wallace 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:31.895 align:middle line:84% became with earlier work, as in, the writing 00:31:31.895 --> 00:31:35.710 align:middle line:84% seems to have changed a little bit with what was in Oblivion. 00:31:35.710 --> 00:31:38.290 align:middle line:84% And certainly, with the two excerpts, 00:31:38.290 --> 00:31:40.990 align:middle line:84% that as much as we saw the sincerity of the things before, 00:31:40.990 --> 00:31:43.660 align:middle line:84% it just felt a little more apparent and a little more 00:31:43.660 --> 00:31:49.360 align:middle line:84% on the page, at least in "Good People," and things 00:31:49.360 --> 00:31:50.292 align:middle line:90% in Oblivion. 00:31:50.292 --> 00:31:51.500 align:middle line:90% So I sort of talk about this. 00:31:51.500 --> 00:31:55.600 align:middle line:84% And you mentioned James Wood, or the man who will go unnamed. 00:31:55.600 --> 00:31:57.850 align:middle line:84% And Wood, afterwards, wrote a thing 00:31:57.850 --> 00:32:01.030 align:middle line:84% that he thought the place Wallace was going 00:32:01.030 --> 00:32:03.000 align:middle line:90% was interesting. 00:32:03.000 --> 00:32:03.750 align:middle line:90% Where he thought-- 00:32:03.750 --> 00:32:08.600 align:middle line:84% In 2007, James Wood, after his first novel came out-- or maybe 00:32:08.600 --> 00:32:10.600 align:middle line:84% a little earlier than that-- and he got creamed, 00:32:10.600 --> 00:32:14.860 align:middle line:84% and he finally learned what it was to have someone tear you 00:32:14.860 --> 00:32:18.160 align:middle line:84% apart, James Wood underwent a sea change as a reviewer, 00:32:18.160 --> 00:32:22.060 align:middle line:84% and I think, feels a certain level 00:32:22.060 --> 00:32:24.860 align:middle line:84% of remorse for some of the things he's written. 00:32:24.860 --> 00:32:28.780 align:middle line:84% And I think everything he's done since then, 00:32:28.780 --> 00:32:31.120 align:middle line:84% he goes out of his way to bend over 00:32:31.120 --> 00:32:35.740 align:middle line:84% backwards for all kinds of different books, some of which 00:32:35.740 --> 00:32:38.560 align:middle line:84% may or may not deserve bending over backwards for. 00:32:38.560 --> 00:32:41.470 align:middle line:84% Although his reconsideration certainly falls 00:32:41.470 --> 00:32:45.580 align:middle line:90% into the venerated [INAUDIBLE]. 00:32:45.580 --> 00:32:46.090 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:32:46.090 --> 00:32:47.560 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:32:47.560 --> 00:32:49.300 align:middle line:84% What I sort of mean to say is that what 00:32:49.300 --> 00:32:54.940 align:middle line:84% I think he's pointing at is, I feel, close to accurate 00:32:54.940 --> 00:33:00.050 align:middle line:84% with regards to Wallace's writing changing. 00:33:00.050 --> 00:33:02.550 align:middle line:84% So then I sort of want to know what people's opinions-- that 00:33:02.550 --> 00:33:05.628 align:middle line:84% would be mostly from Oblivion since, 00:33:05.628 --> 00:33:06.920 align:middle line:90% and what we've seen since then. 00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:12.900 align:middle line:84% I just want-- the title story of Oblivion is narrated-- 00:33:12.900 --> 00:33:14.730 align:middle line:90% it seems to be narrated by the-- 00:33:14.730 --> 00:33:16.200 align:middle line:90% I want to make sure-- 00:33:16.200 --> 00:33:17.430 align:middle line:90% by one character. 00:33:17.430 --> 00:33:19.260 align:middle line:84% And it's actually narrated by the partner, 00:33:19.260 --> 00:33:23.250 align:middle line:84% who is dreaming in the mind of another character. 00:33:23.250 --> 00:33:30.720 align:middle line:84% And the formalist tricks are deeper, 00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:34.140 align:middle line:84% and they're more sophisticated, and they're not as flashy, 00:33:34.140 --> 00:33:39.420 align:middle line:84% but the structure of that is quite something. 00:33:39.420 --> 00:33:42.270 align:middle line:84% I guess, with regards to this question, 00:33:42.270 --> 00:33:48.420 align:middle line:84% I thought that part of the philosophic math underpinning 00:33:48.420 --> 00:33:50.880 align:middle line:84% "Good Old Neon," which was the first thing I 00:33:50.880 --> 00:33:51.810 align:middle line:90% read of his where-- 00:33:51.810 --> 00:33:56.880 align:middle line:84% I mean, just to begin with, you have, holy shit, 00:33:56.880 --> 00:33:59.052 align:middle line:90% like, the guy-- 00:33:59.052 --> 00:34:00.510 align:middle line:84% for me personally, at least-- seems 00:34:00.510 --> 00:34:03.270 align:middle line:84% like he's been reading my psychic [INAUDIBLE].. 00:34:03.270 --> 00:34:05.310 align:middle line:90% That sense that it's almost-- 00:34:05.310 --> 00:34:06.900 align:middle line:84% at some point of intelligence, it's 00:34:06.900 --> 00:34:12.900 align:middle line:84% almost physically impossible to have just an original moment. 00:34:12.900 --> 00:34:14.460 align:middle line:84% Everything has to be kind of sifted 00:34:14.460 --> 00:34:17.620 align:middle line:84% out as to how it's going to be perceived, and all of that. 00:34:17.620 --> 00:34:20.280 align:middle line:84% And then below that, like the conversation 00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:23.850 align:middle line:84% with the psychologist, where he's like, well, 00:34:23.850 --> 00:34:28.800 align:middle line:84% if you know that you're a fraud, how can you actually 00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:29.370 align:middle line:90% be a fraud? 00:34:29.370 --> 00:34:30.840 align:middle line:90% And the way in which-- 00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:31.679 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:34:31.679 --> 00:34:33.500 align:middle line:84% If y'all could speak to that-- like, 00:34:33.500 --> 00:34:36.000 align:middle line:90% it's intelligence intensified. 00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:38.670 align:middle line:90% I read Infinite Jest after that. 00:34:38.670 --> 00:34:42.480 align:middle line:84% I found it unbelievably-- but there was this depth 00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:45.480 align:middle line:84% and subtlety to the stuff that was in Oblivion, 00:34:45.480 --> 00:34:47.587 align:middle line:90% where it was just-- 00:34:47.587 --> 00:34:49.170 align:middle line:84% I mean, all of his work is masterwork, 00:34:49.170 --> 00:34:53.239 align:middle line:84% but it was really interesting to watch how he [INAUDIBLE].. 00:34:53.239 --> 00:34:55.500 align:middle line:84% I've thought, since I read Oblivion, 00:34:55.500 --> 00:34:58.525 align:middle line:84% something is going on here that it's 00:34:58.525 --> 00:35:00.150 align:middle line:84% going to take us a while to figure out. 00:35:00.150 --> 00:35:06.870 align:middle line:84% You read it, and it's like, wow, how do you explain it? 00:35:06.870 --> 00:35:09.030 align:middle line:84% On my second reading, part of what I thought 00:35:09.030 --> 00:35:11.717 align:middle line:84% is, each of these stories seem to have some kind of nested-- 00:35:11.717 --> 00:35:13.050 align:middle line:90% you were just talking about one. 00:35:13.050 --> 00:35:17.610 align:middle line:84% And it happens, there's some kind of nested thing. 00:35:17.610 --> 00:35:21.864 align:middle line:84% There's that-- you also have the sense, if you're talking about, 00:35:21.864 --> 00:35:24.750 align:middle line:84% that compassion or humanity is on the page a little more. 00:35:24.750 --> 00:35:26.785 align:middle line:84% And I think-- I'm inspired by that. 00:35:26.785 --> 00:35:29.160 align:middle line:84% I started thinking, like you were again after that DT Max 00:35:29.160 --> 00:35:30.540 align:middle line:90% article came out. 00:35:30.540 --> 00:35:34.638 align:middle line:84% Like, OK, what is this thing that's going on? 00:35:34.638 --> 00:35:36.180 align:middle line:84% And I'm trying to formulate a theory. 00:35:36.180 --> 00:35:36.490 align:middle line:90% I don't know if it's right. 00:35:36.490 --> 00:35:38.282 align:middle line:84% We'll find out as I keep thinking about it. 00:35:38.282 --> 00:35:43.060 align:middle line:84% Infinite Jest showed us the American problem, 00:35:43.060 --> 00:35:46.540 align:middle line:84% and there's a picture of it, and we can identify with it. 00:35:46.540 --> 00:35:49.480 align:middle line:84% Oblivion, because it's short stories, 00:35:49.480 --> 00:35:53.110 align:middle line:84% takes a sharper look at that and tries 00:35:53.110 --> 00:35:58.480 align:middle line:84% to get underneath why we are that way. 00:35:58.480 --> 00:36:00.520 align:middle line:84% And according to what the people that 00:36:00.520 --> 00:36:02.020 align:middle line:84% have read-- what the DT Max article 00:36:02.020 --> 00:36:03.340 align:middle line:90% said about The Pale King. 00:36:03.340 --> 00:36:06.460 align:middle line:84% It's almost like that's going to try to help us get through it. 00:36:06.460 --> 00:36:08.020 align:middle line:84% Now, I'm not going to report about it 00:36:08.020 --> 00:36:09.460 align:middle line:90% or see what's underneath it. 00:36:09.460 --> 00:36:11.908 align:middle line:84% We're going to try to get through it with Pale King. 00:36:11.908 --> 00:36:12.700 align:middle line:90% And it seems like-- 00:36:12.700 --> 00:36:15.712 align:middle line:90% 00:36:15.712 --> 00:36:17.170 align:middle line:84% although when I read Infinite Jest, 00:36:17.170 --> 00:36:19.295 align:middle line:84% I think everybody's a tennis player, and an addict, 00:36:19.295 --> 00:36:22.090 align:middle line:84% and a spy, and it's like, everybody's like that. 00:36:22.090 --> 00:36:23.950 align:middle line:90% But apparently, it seemed-- 00:36:23.950 --> 00:36:25.970 align:middle line:84% I'm guessing he thought it was still too wild, 00:36:25.970 --> 00:36:27.667 align:middle line:90% and we're going to get-- 00:36:27.667 --> 00:36:29.500 align:middle line:84% these problems these people are experiencing 00:36:29.500 --> 00:36:32.770 align:middle line:84% are not just for tennis players at a high school 00:36:32.770 --> 00:36:35.140 align:middle line:90% or people in a halfway house. 00:36:35.140 --> 00:36:37.370 align:middle line:84% I need to write about the people in Oblivion, 00:36:37.370 --> 00:36:38.870 align:middle line:84% and it gets a little closer to home. 00:36:38.870 --> 00:36:41.680 align:middle line:84% And now, I need to write about these tax collectors, so 00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:45.730 align:middle line:84% your IRS people, so that this really is me and you. 00:36:45.730 --> 00:36:47.720 align:middle line:84% I thought that, reading Infinite Jest. 00:36:47.720 --> 00:36:49.580 align:middle line:84% I see this as a natural progression, too, 00:36:49.580 --> 00:36:50.455 align:middle line:90% of what he was doing. 00:36:50.455 --> 00:36:52.420 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think you can make the argument-- 00:36:52.420 --> 00:36:56.130 align:middle line:84% I do-- again, in Understanding David Foster Wallace. 00:36:56.130 --> 00:37:01.380 align:middle line:84% But it's a formulation I came up with, and I'm sticking with it. 00:37:01.380 --> 00:37:04.440 align:middle line:84% The early fiction, what it does to metafiction 00:37:04.440 --> 00:37:07.180 align:middle line:84% is, it performs a meta fictional critique of meta fiction. 00:37:07.180 --> 00:37:09.270 align:middle line:90% It's a double negative. 00:37:09.270 --> 00:37:12.210 align:middle line:84% The actual formulation of the cynicism and naivete 00:37:12.210 --> 00:37:13.650 align:middle line:90% is always-- couches a negative. 00:37:13.650 --> 00:37:17.190 align:middle line:84% He says he's under the delusion that they are incompatible. 00:37:17.190 --> 00:37:19.950 align:middle line:84% And you have to think about that, because it's-- 00:37:19.950 --> 00:37:23.280 align:middle line:84% so they are compatible, but he doesn't say they're compatible. 00:37:23.280 --> 00:37:25.680 align:middle line:84% He says it's a delusion to think they're incompatible. 00:37:25.680 --> 00:37:28.350 align:middle line:84% It's the same way, if you take two mirrors 00:37:28.350 --> 00:37:30.480 align:middle line:84% and you point them at each other, 00:37:30.480 --> 00:37:33.808 align:middle line:84% then you have a space between it, which is the world. 00:37:33.808 --> 00:37:35.850 align:middle line:84% And that's where his texts are trying to take us. 00:37:35.850 --> 00:37:37.683 align:middle line:84% That's why I think, if you read Greg's book, 00:37:37.683 --> 00:37:41.850 align:middle line:90% the narratives always point out. 00:37:41.850 --> 00:37:42.960 align:middle line:90% They don't resolve. 00:37:42.960 --> 00:37:46.830 align:middle line:84% They head into infinity, in a way, outside that text. 00:37:46.830 --> 00:37:48.870 align:middle line:84% I think if you read Oblivion, it's 00:37:48.870 --> 00:37:51.000 align:middle line:84% the natural progression of that, because it 00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:53.250 align:middle line:90% doubles the involution. 00:37:53.250 --> 00:37:57.722 align:middle line:84% You begin to see it in that story "Octet," which does this. 00:37:57.722 --> 00:37:59.430 align:middle line:84% "Octet" is about a writer trying to write 00:37:59.430 --> 00:38:01.320 align:middle line:90% a story called "Octet." 00:38:01.320 --> 00:38:03.000 align:middle line:84% And it's three levels of self-awareness. 00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:03.966 align:middle line:90% And then you get to the-- 00:38:03.966 --> 00:38:04.322 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:38:04.322 --> 00:38:05.280 align:middle line:90% That's the Brief Interviews. 00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:07.197 align:middle line:84% And then you see it in the press person, which 00:38:07.197 --> 00:38:08.640 align:middle line:90% I think is almost like the-- 00:38:08.640 --> 00:38:10.560 align:middle line:84% it's the orphan that belongs in Oblivion, 00:38:10.560 --> 00:38:14.070 align:middle line:84% in a way, because it anticipates that mode of, 00:38:14.070 --> 00:38:15.600 align:middle line:90% the soul is not a smithy. 00:38:15.600 --> 00:38:17.130 align:middle line:90% And I love your word "nesting." 00:38:17.130 --> 00:38:21.150 align:middle line:84% I mean, if the early fiction casts a self-reflection 00:38:21.150 --> 00:38:24.480 align:middle line:84% on self-reflection in order to sort of break out of irony, 00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:27.120 align:middle line:84% then these other texts are even more sophisticated in the way 00:38:27.120 --> 00:38:29.520 align:middle line:84% that they perform a triple involution. 00:38:29.520 --> 00:38:32.520 align:middle line:84% The Old Neon guy is self-aware about the fact 00:38:32.520 --> 00:38:34.950 align:middle line:84% that he's self-aware that he's a fraud. 00:38:34.950 --> 00:38:37.320 align:middle line:84% And he can't get to the place where 00:38:37.320 --> 00:38:40.650 align:middle line:84% he can feel a genuine emotion because every genuine emotion 00:38:40.650 --> 00:38:43.260 align:middle line:84% is couched in the awareness that it's a genuine emotion, 00:38:43.260 --> 00:38:44.460 align:middle line:90% and therefore, it's false. 00:38:44.460 --> 00:38:46.950 align:middle line:84% And this is a problem with textuality itself-- 00:38:46.950 --> 00:38:48.450 align:middle line:84% that as soon as you were writing it, 00:38:48.450 --> 00:38:50.242 align:middle line:84% you've taken it out of the world and you've 00:38:50.242 --> 00:38:52.140 align:middle line:84% made it into a self-conscious literary thing. 00:38:52.140 --> 00:38:54.590 align:middle line:84% And I think he was just pushing that beyond-- 00:38:54.590 --> 00:38:56.590 align:middle line:84% I don't know how far he could have gone with it. 00:38:56.590 --> 00:38:58.132 align:middle line:84% But even in Oblivion, it seems to me, 00:38:58.132 --> 00:39:00.540 align:middle line:84% it's three or four levels of involution 00:39:00.540 --> 00:39:02.160 align:middle line:84% that, I think it's where he had to go. 00:39:02.160 --> 00:39:03.660 align:middle line:84% And I think it's where he was taking us. 00:39:03.660 --> 00:39:04.440 align:middle line:90% And I think you're right. 00:39:04.440 --> 00:39:06.566 align:middle line:84% It's going to be a while before we can unpack it. 00:39:06.566 --> 00:39:09.090 align:middle line:84% Well, if you look at someone [INAUDIBLE],, 00:39:09.090 --> 00:39:12.540 align:middle line:84% one of the first things he wrote here. 00:39:12.540 --> 00:39:13.420 align:middle line:90% He's doing it there. 00:39:13.420 --> 00:39:13.920 align:middle line:90% Oh. 00:39:13.920 --> 00:39:14.510 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:39:14.510 --> 00:39:15.210 align:middle line:90% No, no, no. 00:39:15.210 --> 00:39:16.125 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:39:16.125 --> 00:39:18.180 align:middle line:90% We can record this [INAUDIBLE]. 00:39:18.180 --> 00:39:21.660 align:middle line:84% Oh, well, I'm not going to go on [INAUDIBLE].. 00:39:21.660 --> 00:39:22.950 align:middle line:90% Say too much. 00:39:22.950 --> 00:39:25.350 align:middle line:84% I was talking with a writer friend 00:39:25.350 --> 00:39:30.180 align:middle line:84% of his, one of his confidants, who 00:39:30.180 --> 00:39:32.850 align:middle line:84% was saying that he was really trying to reinvent himself 00:39:32.850 --> 00:39:34.230 align:middle line:90% stylistically. 00:39:34.230 --> 00:39:38.778 align:middle line:90% And I think these are all-- 00:39:38.778 --> 00:39:40.320 align:middle line:84% these fine gentlemen have all pointed 00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:44.250 align:middle line:84% that out, have shown how that's happening. 00:39:44.250 --> 00:39:48.720 align:middle line:90% And there's some-- 00:39:48.720 --> 00:39:52.830 align:middle line:84% I think there's a level of paralysis and fear 00:39:52.830 --> 00:39:54.750 align:middle line:84% that he's trying to work through. 00:39:54.750 --> 00:39:57.960 align:middle line:84% And it's something that he's not just identified, maybe, 00:39:57.960 --> 00:39:59.820 align:middle line:84% in the American condition, but also 00:39:59.820 --> 00:40:03.000 align:middle line:90% in how hard it is to write. 00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:08.160 align:middle line:84% That, when I read the opening pages, in The New Yorker, 00:40:08.160 --> 00:40:12.300 align:middle line:84% of the excerpt, I felt like it was about how hard it is 00:40:12.300 --> 00:40:15.930 align:middle line:90% to sit there and do your work. 00:40:15.930 --> 00:40:19.740 align:middle line:84% And that's not all it's about, and maybe 00:40:19.740 --> 00:40:25.470 align:middle line:84% that relates to how much I dislike some of the things 00:40:25.470 --> 00:40:29.130 align:middle line:90% I'm working on at the moment. 00:40:29.130 --> 00:40:33.630 align:middle line:90% But I, like, viscerally felt it. 00:40:33.630 --> 00:40:36.750 align:middle line:90% 00:40:36.750 --> 00:40:42.630 align:middle line:84% And when I was talking about how brave of a writer he is-- 00:40:42.630 --> 00:40:47.530 align:middle line:84% or was-- I just, it can't be overstated enough. 00:40:47.530 --> 00:40:50.100 align:middle line:84% And I think that that's one of the things that just separates 00:40:50.100 --> 00:40:56.550 align:middle line:84% him from everyone around him, is that he 00:40:56.550 --> 00:41:00.900 align:middle line:84% took on the mental challenges and the physical challenges 00:41:00.900 --> 00:41:05.820 align:middle line:84% of moral questions and questions of life that are just-- 00:41:05.820 --> 00:41:08.760 align:middle line:84% I mean, we all have to do it, but like, that are just 00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:09.660 align:middle line:90% the worst. 00:41:09.660 --> 00:41:11.700 align:middle line:90% They're just the hardest. 00:41:11.700 --> 00:41:18.300 align:middle line:84% And then he-- and he was and he was the best guy 00:41:18.300 --> 00:41:20.190 align:middle line:84% in the room, the smartest guy in the room, 00:41:20.190 --> 00:41:22.560 align:middle line:84% taking on the hardest fucking questions. 00:41:22.560 --> 00:41:23.610 align:middle line:90% When does that happen? 00:41:23.610 --> 00:41:26.220 align:middle line:90% 00:41:26.220 --> 00:41:27.360 align:middle line:90% Who can do that? 00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:29.880 align:middle line:90% Or-- you know. 00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:32.610 align:middle line:90% I've got to say something. 00:41:32.610 --> 00:41:33.750 align:middle line:90% I'm listening. 00:41:33.750 --> 00:41:35.460 align:middle line:90% Sorry. 00:41:35.460 --> 00:41:36.480 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:41:36.480 --> 00:41:39.080 align:middle line:90% No, no, no. 00:41:39.080 --> 00:41:40.133 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:41:40.133 --> 00:41:41.550 align:middle line:84% --just sort of in this vein, I was 00:41:41.550 --> 00:41:43.217 align:middle line:84% thinking it might be really interesting, 00:41:43.217 --> 00:41:45.570 align:middle line:84% Bonnie, to ask you, both as one of the two people who've 00:41:45.570 --> 00:41:48.168 align:middle line:84% read Pale King, and also the person who first found Broom 00:41:48.168 --> 00:41:50.460 align:middle line:84% of the System, and then read Wallace's work all the way 00:41:50.460 --> 00:41:54.378 align:middle line:84% from 1985 or whatever, when you first read it through. 00:41:54.378 --> 00:41:56.670 align:middle line:84% If you could speak a little bit to this idea of the way 00:41:56.670 --> 00:41:59.190 align:middle line:84% that he progressed is stylistic reinvention and sort 00:41:59.190 --> 00:42:03.150 align:middle line:84% of the maturation or deepening of his work. 00:42:03.150 --> 00:42:04.840 align:middle line:84% I think what you're all saying is true. 00:42:04.840 --> 00:42:09.570 align:middle line:84% I mean, when David started, he was a virtuoso. 00:42:09.570 --> 00:42:12.300 align:middle line:84% And it really was, I can do anything. 00:42:12.300 --> 00:42:14.577 align:middle line:84% And look, I can talk in a woman's voice. 00:42:14.577 --> 00:42:15.910 align:middle line:90% And I can talk in a man's voice. 00:42:15.910 --> 00:42:19.170 align:middle line:84% And I can-- it is, I can do everything, 00:42:19.170 --> 00:42:23.100 align:middle line:84% and I'm going to show you how I can do it. 00:42:23.100 --> 00:42:25.170 align:middle line:84% But that's what a 23-year-old does. 00:42:25.170 --> 00:42:28.380 align:middle line:84% It's like, if you're that good at anything, 00:42:28.380 --> 00:42:31.620 align:middle line:84% whether it's skateboarding or painting or music or anything, 00:42:31.620 --> 00:42:34.620 align:middle line:84% you're going to say, I'm going to show you everything. 00:42:34.620 --> 00:42:39.840 align:middle line:84% And as he got older and changed, as we all do, 00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:43.770 align:middle line:84% and got to middle age, the person he was at 46 00:42:43.770 --> 00:42:46.290 align:middle line:84% is not the person he was at 23 when I first met him. 00:42:46.290 --> 00:42:51.630 align:middle line:84% Because over the years, life hits everybody 00:42:51.630 --> 00:42:52.620 align:middle line:90% with hard knocks. 00:42:52.620 --> 00:42:56.580 align:middle line:84% And he got married, and he moved to the West Coast, 00:42:56.580 --> 00:42:59.730 align:middle line:84% and sort of had a different view of the world. 00:42:59.730 --> 00:43:04.020 align:middle line:84% And certainly, The Pale King and Oblivion-- 00:43:04.020 --> 00:43:08.070 align:middle line:84% because Oblivion really is the precursor to it-- 00:43:08.070 --> 00:43:09.900 align:middle line:90% is trying to go someplace else. 00:43:09.900 --> 00:43:12.900 align:middle line:84% And it's trying to be-- it's trying to get rid 00:43:12.900 --> 00:43:16.890 align:middle line:84% of the bells and whistles, and it was trying to reach people 00:43:16.890 --> 00:43:18.930 align:middle line:90% in a different way. 00:43:18.930 --> 00:43:21.000 align:middle line:90% And I think it does. 00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:24.960 align:middle line:84% Because he disliked himself wanting 00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:27.360 align:middle line:84% to do the bells and whistles more than any of you 00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:29.490 align:middle line:90% could ever possibly. 00:43:29.490 --> 00:43:31.290 align:middle line:84% And part of it is, in the nonfiction, 00:43:31.290 --> 00:43:34.140 align:middle line:90% it sort of became shtick. 00:43:34.140 --> 00:43:36.420 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's like anyone where-- you've got a comedian 00:43:36.420 --> 00:43:38.128 align:middle line:84% and you've got a great line, and you just 00:43:38.128 --> 00:43:40.450 align:middle line:84% keep using it over and over again. 00:43:40.450 --> 00:43:43.800 align:middle line:84% And he didn't-- he was too good to actually sort of want 00:43:43.800 --> 00:43:47.200 align:middle line:84% to rest on his laurels and do that over and over again, 00:43:47.200 --> 00:43:49.950 align:middle line:84% which of course, is why he stopped writing these essays, 00:43:49.950 --> 00:43:52.740 align:middle line:84% except for going to Wimbledon and writing about Federer-- 00:43:52.740 --> 00:43:54.400 align:middle line:84% which, to him, was like if I said, 00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:56.005 align:middle line:84% would you like to see the face of God? 00:43:56.005 --> 00:43:57.630 align:middle line:84% And The New York Times will pay for you 00:43:57.630 --> 00:43:58.990 align:middle line:90% to go see the face of God. 00:43:58.990 --> 00:43:59.490 align:middle line:90% You know? 00:43:59.490 --> 00:44:00.600 align:middle line:84% I mean, he would have done it for free. 00:44:00.600 --> 00:44:02.058 align:middle line:84% He would have done it for anything. 00:44:02.058 --> 00:44:02.795 align:middle line:90% And loved it. 00:44:02.795 --> 00:44:04.170 align:middle line:84% And I mean, it was the thing that 00:44:04.170 --> 00:44:07.560 align:middle line:84% made him happiest of the essays towards the end, 00:44:07.560 --> 00:44:09.270 align:middle line:90% because he loved tennis. 00:44:09.270 --> 00:44:13.170 align:middle line:84% And he wrote about Federer in a way that I even-- 00:44:13.170 --> 00:44:15.390 align:middle line:84% I was like, wow, I watched these tennis matches. 00:44:15.390 --> 00:44:17.970 align:middle line:84% I had no idea that this is what this guy is doing. 00:44:17.970 --> 00:44:20.430 align:middle line:90% And it's amazing. 00:44:20.430 --> 00:44:22.515 align:middle line:84% But he chose not to do nonfiction 00:44:22.515 --> 00:44:24.390 align:middle line:84% because he didn't want to rely on the shtick. 00:44:24.390 --> 00:44:27.810 align:middle line:84% And people would be like, why don't you go to the Amazon? 00:44:27.810 --> 00:44:28.740 align:middle line:90% Why don't you go here? 00:44:28.740 --> 00:44:30.365 align:middle line:84% Why don't you go to the Academy Awards? 00:44:30.365 --> 00:44:32.640 align:middle line:84% Why don't you go pretty much anywhere? 00:44:32.640 --> 00:44:34.800 align:middle line:84% And as someone who didn't have a passport until he 00:44:34.800 --> 00:44:38.280 align:middle line:84% was about 40 years old, he didn't want 00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:39.480 align:middle line:90% to go very much of anywhere. 00:44:39.480 --> 00:44:43.590 align:middle line:84% He could see everything in Normal, Illinois, 00:44:43.590 --> 00:44:47.220 align:middle line:84% that he needed to see-- or in Claremont. 00:44:47.220 --> 00:44:49.260 align:middle line:84% And I think it really was sort of looking 00:44:49.260 --> 00:44:54.090 align:middle line:84% for a bigger moral vision and sort 00:44:54.090 --> 00:44:56.550 align:middle line:90% of how we live in the world. 00:44:56.550 --> 00:44:59.090 align:middle line:84% He really was-- that was what the last one's about. 00:44:59.090 --> 00:45:00.550 align:middle line:84% That moral vision-- I mean, Charles 00:45:00.550 --> 00:45:03.360 align:middle line:84% is saying that questioning addiction is brave. 00:45:03.360 --> 00:45:05.025 align:middle line:84% I think the thing that's consistent 00:45:05.025 --> 00:45:08.210 align:middle line:84% about it, the answer to Wallace's [INAUDIBLE],, 00:45:08.210 --> 00:45:10.730 align:middle line:90% they're embarrassing. 00:45:10.730 --> 00:45:14.210 align:middle line:84% They are worried about how cynical they are. 00:45:14.210 --> 00:45:16.990 align:middle line:84% I think a great example of how this works is the AA 00:45:16.990 --> 00:45:19.150 align:middle line:90% sections in Infinite Jest. 00:45:19.150 --> 00:45:21.670 align:middle line:84% Because you have all of these characters who 00:45:21.670 --> 00:45:25.360 align:middle line:84% have lived inside their heads, and they 00:45:25.360 --> 00:45:27.400 align:middle line:84% can't believe that what's going to save 00:45:27.400 --> 00:45:29.200 align:middle line:90% them is a bunch of cliches. 00:45:29.200 --> 00:45:30.290 align:middle line:90% Over and over again. 00:45:30.290 --> 00:45:31.120 align:middle line:90% These are cliches. 00:45:31.120 --> 00:45:32.943 align:middle line:84% I'm too sophisticated for cliches. 00:45:32.943 --> 00:45:35.110 align:middle line:84% And the entire elaborate structure of Infinite Jest, 00:45:35.110 --> 00:45:39.857 align:middle line:84% in a way, is designed to recover those cliches. 00:45:39.857 --> 00:45:41.440 align:middle line:84% And you can't just send them in there, 00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:43.210 align:middle line:90% because they're Hallmark cards. 00:45:43.210 --> 00:45:47.780 align:middle line:84% It takes a lot of work to recover those simple ideas. 00:45:47.780 --> 00:45:49.120 align:middle line:90% And I think he's worked-- 00:45:49.120 --> 00:45:52.870 align:middle line:84% I think the fact that he's writing a novel about boredom, 00:45:52.870 --> 00:45:55.720 align:middle line:84% at the level of boredom, sitting still and affirming the moment 00:45:55.720 --> 00:45:58.120 align:middle line:90% you're in, is a cliche. 00:45:58.120 --> 00:46:00.430 align:middle line:84% And it's absolutely important to do. 00:46:00.430 --> 00:46:03.213 align:middle line:90% And I think that work is-- 00:46:03.213 --> 00:46:04.630 align:middle line:84% that's the brave attempt, I think, 00:46:04.630 --> 00:46:08.125 align:middle line:84% is to recover simple ideas like empathy, goodness, 00:46:08.125 --> 00:46:09.430 align:middle line:90% Grace. 00:46:09.430 --> 00:46:10.990 align:middle line:90% Grace, honor. 00:46:10.990 --> 00:46:12.490 align:middle line:84% Honor is a word that keeps coming up 00:46:12.490 --> 00:46:14.448 align:middle line:84% in Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way. 00:46:14.448 --> 00:46:15.280 align:middle line:90% Honor. 00:46:15.280 --> 00:46:18.160 align:middle line:84% And he knows that they'd have quotation marks. 00:46:18.160 --> 00:46:19.960 align:middle line:84% They've been discredited since Hemingway, 00:46:19.960 --> 00:46:22.863 align:middle line:90% if you read Farewell to Arms. 00:46:22.863 --> 00:46:24.405 align:middle line:84% But they're still there as important. 00:46:24.405 --> 00:46:25.270 align:middle line:90% Even John McCain-- 00:46:25.270 --> 00:46:26.230 align:middle line:90% McCain. 00:46:26.230 --> 00:46:27.007 align:middle line:90% And then McCain. 00:46:27.007 --> 00:46:28.090 align:middle line:90% Then McCain is about that. 00:46:28.090 --> 00:46:29.350 align:middle line:90% Something like duty. 00:46:29.350 --> 00:46:29.920 align:middle line:90% Duty. 00:46:29.920 --> 00:46:30.700 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:46:30.700 --> 00:46:32.117 align:middle line:84% That's what the whole McCain piece 00:46:32.117 --> 00:46:34.660 align:middle line:84% is about-- trying to figure out, if you peel it away, 00:46:34.660 --> 00:46:35.860 align:middle line:90% here's a guy who suffered. 00:46:35.860 --> 00:46:38.830 align:middle line:84% Can I affirm this at some level, or is he completely lost 00:46:38.830 --> 00:46:40.090 align:middle line:90% to the machinery of spin? 00:46:40.090 --> 00:46:42.188 align:middle line:84% And spin, of course, is a perfect example 00:46:42.188 --> 00:46:43.480 align:middle line:90% of what Wallace's fiction does. 00:46:43.480 --> 00:46:45.130 align:middle line:90% It spins. 00:46:45.130 --> 00:46:48.100 align:middle line:84% I would just-- I'd quickly point out that, like, 00:46:48.100 --> 00:46:50.590 align:middle line:84% the George Saunders a couple of years ago-- 00:46:50.590 --> 00:46:55.810 align:middle line:84% and it's in The Braindead Megaphone-- did an essay where 00:46:55.810 --> 00:46:57.010 align:middle line:90% he goes to India. 00:46:57.010 --> 00:47:00.760 align:middle line:84% And the Buddha Boy, the boy hasn't eaten or moved 00:47:00.760 --> 00:47:02.050 align:middle line:90% in seven months. 00:47:02.050 --> 00:47:04.330 align:middle line:84% And how hard-- and early, there's 00:47:04.330 --> 00:47:07.990 align:middle line:84% that question of how hard it is to just stay still. 00:47:07.990 --> 00:47:11.642 align:middle line:90% And there's someone who-- 00:47:11.642 --> 00:47:14.230 align:middle line:90% 00:47:14.230 --> 00:47:18.490 align:middle line:84% I think Saunders is one of the writers 00:47:18.490 --> 00:47:22.030 align:middle line:84% that David particularly liked, and thought 00:47:22.030 --> 00:47:25.430 align:middle line:84% was really good and funny, and vice versa. 00:47:25.430 --> 00:47:33.460 align:middle line:84% And I think that there's just a lot of wonderful good things 00:47:33.460 --> 00:47:36.460 align:middle line:84% that got spread into this world through his work, 00:47:36.460 --> 00:47:40.600 align:middle line:84% and through other really brilliant writers who 00:47:40.600 --> 00:47:44.770 align:middle line:84% have been able to take up the mantle and do good things. 00:47:44.770 --> 00:47:49.150 align:middle line:90% 00:47:49.150 --> 00:47:53.170 align:middle line:84% And I discovered Ken's work because of Dave's blurb. 00:47:53.170 --> 00:47:54.880 align:middle line:90% And 00:47:54.880 --> 00:47:56.800 align:middle line:90% Dave was very-- Dave was very-- 00:47:56.800 --> 00:48:02.250 align:middle line:84% Dave was very generous in his reading and with the writers. 00:48:02.250 --> 00:48:03.100 align:middle line:90% We all know that. 00:48:03.100 --> 00:48:07.773 align:middle line:84% And I actually visited him in Normal. 00:48:07.773 --> 00:48:09.190 align:middle line:84% First of all, I want to tell you-- 00:48:09.190 --> 00:48:15.400 align:middle line:84% I met him 15 years after he first 00:48:15.400 --> 00:48:17.660 align:middle line:84% started publishing me here-- here at Sonora Review. 00:48:17.660 --> 00:48:21.280 align:middle line:90% And I was old-- 00:48:21.280 --> 00:48:24.490 align:middle line:84% his involvement as a reader in contemporary fiction 00:48:24.490 --> 00:48:28.960 align:middle line:84% was almost hard to even-- he read everything. 00:48:28.960 --> 00:48:31.480 align:middle line:84% And he enjoyed so many different kinds 00:48:31.480 --> 00:48:34.070 align:middle line:84% of books that weren't anything like what he was writing. 00:48:34.070 --> 00:48:36.700 align:middle line:84% And he supported writers like that. 00:48:36.700 --> 00:48:38.410 align:middle line:84% And the whole-- I was very impressed 00:48:38.410 --> 00:48:41.170 align:middle line:84% with people at Normal-- the other writers there, too. 00:48:41.170 --> 00:48:44.260 align:middle line:84% They all looked up to him for that. 00:48:44.260 --> 00:48:47.200 align:middle line:90% And well, yeah. 00:48:47.200 --> 00:48:50.680 align:middle line:90% 00:48:50.680 --> 00:48:52.420 align:middle line:84% A funny story about the Federer piece. 00:48:52.420 --> 00:48:53.560 align:middle line:90% It's short. 00:48:53.560 --> 00:48:55.060 align:middle line:84% We had an art director at Premiere-- 00:48:55.060 --> 00:48:56.518 align:middle line:84% he won't mind me telling you this-- 00:48:56.518 --> 00:48:59.143 align:middle line:84% Dirk Barnett, who every now and then, when the subject came up, 00:48:59.143 --> 00:49:01.601 align:middle line:84% he says, well, I'm glad Wallace won't write for us anymore, 00:49:01.601 --> 00:49:03.220 align:middle line:84% because as an art director, I will not 00:49:03.220 --> 00:49:06.190 align:middle line:90% staunch those damn footnotes. 00:49:06.190 --> 00:49:09.190 align:middle line:90% He got a job at Play. 00:49:09.190 --> 00:49:14.590 align:middle line:84% And the first issue has the Federer piece in it. 00:49:14.590 --> 00:49:17.518 align:middle line:90% He staunched the footnotes. 00:49:17.518 --> 00:49:18.510 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE] 00:49:18.510 --> 00:49:21.558 align:middle line:84% Do we have one other [INAUDIBLE]?? 00:49:21.558 --> 00:49:23.600 align:middle line:84% I wasn't actually raising my hand for a question. 00:49:23.600 --> 00:49:25.600 align:middle line:84% We have time, maybe, for a couple more questions 00:49:25.600 --> 00:49:28.760 align:middle line:84% if people have them, and if we have the microphone still 00:49:28.760 --> 00:49:29.450 align:middle line:90% circulating. 00:49:29.450 --> 00:49:30.280 align:middle line:90% Did you have one? 00:49:30.280 --> 00:49:30.780 align:middle line:90% No. 00:49:30.780 --> 00:49:35.190 align:middle line:90% 00:49:35.190 --> 00:49:38.790 align:middle line:84% I was just going to ask, [INAUDIBLE] these levels 00:49:38.790 --> 00:49:42.130 align:middle line:90% of [INAUDIBLE]? 00:49:42.130 --> 00:49:43.230 align:middle line:90% [INAUDIBLE]? 00:49:43.230 --> 00:49:43.750 align:middle line:90% No. 00:49:43.750 --> 00:49:44.460 align:middle line:90% John McPhee. 00:49:44.460 --> 00:49:45.390 align:middle line:90% John McPhee 00:49:45.390 --> 00:49:46.800 align:middle line:90% Levels of the Game. 00:49:46.800 --> 00:49:49.890 align:middle line:84% It's about Clark Graebner and Arthur Ashe. 00:49:49.890 --> 00:49:53.985 align:middle line:84% It's a book-length description of one match. 00:49:53.985 --> 00:49:57.888 align:middle line:90% Dave was very [? interested. ?] 00:49:57.888 --> 00:49:59.180 align:middle line:90% I've read McPhee's [INAUDIBLE]. 00:49:59.180 --> 00:50:00.840 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:50:00.840 --> 00:50:09.850 align:middle line:90% 00:50:09.850 --> 00:50:12.923 align:middle line:84% Just from the tennis players' perspective. 00:50:12.923 --> 00:50:16.280 align:middle line:84% Well, McPhee's another one for the minutiae of every subject. 00:50:16.280 --> 00:50:17.628 align:middle line:90% He writes every aspect. 00:50:17.628 --> 00:50:18.295 align:middle line:90% Just incredible. 00:50:18.295 --> 00:50:19.225 align:middle line:90% Absolutely. 00:50:19.225 --> 00:50:21.880 align:middle line:90% 00:50:21.880 --> 00:50:24.700 align:middle line:90% I have a question for Bonnie. 00:50:24.700 --> 00:50:27.100 align:middle line:84% You read all of these things about how he's edited, 00:50:27.100 --> 00:50:31.120 align:middle line:84% or how big Infinite Jest was when it came, and this back 00:50:31.120 --> 00:50:32.380 align:middle line:90% and forth of pulling apart. 00:50:32.380 --> 00:50:34.900 align:middle line:84% And I just wanted to know what your perspective-- 00:50:34.900 --> 00:50:36.610 align:middle line:84% I mean, what really happened, or what 00:50:36.610 --> 00:50:37.990 align:middle line:90% your perspective is on that. 00:50:37.990 --> 00:50:43.600 align:middle line:84% And were you involved in any of this, or mediating, or-- 00:50:43.600 --> 00:50:45.310 align:middle line:84% how do you deal with something that 00:50:45.310 --> 00:50:50.140 align:middle line:84% obviously is brilliant, but maybe not publishable, or as-- 00:50:50.140 --> 00:50:55.180 align:middle line:90% Sure, of course. 00:50:55.180 --> 00:50:57.610 align:middle line:84% The book was sold to Little Brown 00:50:57.610 --> 00:50:59.560 align:middle line:84% and was supposed to be about, I think, 00:50:59.560 --> 00:51:03.850 align:middle line:84% 250,000 or 300,000 words-- certainly not the 600,000 00:51:03.850 --> 00:51:05.740 align:middle line:90% words it wound up being. 00:51:05.740 --> 00:51:12.150 align:middle line:84% And I mean, it came in at 1,600 pages. 00:51:12.150 --> 00:51:15.480 align:middle line:84% And I read all 1,600 pages, as did 00:51:15.480 --> 00:51:16.770 align:middle line:90% Michael Pietsch, his editor. 00:51:16.770 --> 00:51:21.660 align:middle line:84% And I mean, even David, there are sections where it'd 00:51:21.660 --> 00:51:23.010 align:middle line:90% be like, you don't need this. 00:51:23.010 --> 00:51:27.120 align:middle line:84% And I was sort of a merciless cutter. 00:51:27.120 --> 00:51:28.890 align:middle line:84% And I suppose, since I had been cutting 00:51:28.890 --> 00:51:32.340 align:middle line:84% his work since the beginning, I didn't feel like, oh, my god, 00:51:32.340 --> 00:51:33.210 align:middle line:90% I can't touch this. 00:51:33.210 --> 00:51:35.700 align:middle line:90% I'd be like, this is boring. 00:51:35.700 --> 00:51:38.430 align:middle line:84% You're like, I don't understand this. 00:51:38.430 --> 00:51:39.990 align:middle line:84% But he was so smart, at that point, 00:51:39.990 --> 00:51:42.930 align:middle line:84% he knew exactly what he was willing to cut and not. 00:51:42.930 --> 00:51:45.870 align:middle line:84% And there are these very funny back-and-forth letters 00:51:45.870 --> 00:51:49.380 align:middle line:84% between him and Michael Pietsch, where he got to the point 00:51:49.380 --> 00:51:52.890 align:middle line:84% where it's like, well, if I change this on page 542, 00:51:52.890 --> 00:51:56.910 align:middle line:84% then I have to change everything from page 800 on. 00:51:56.910 --> 00:51:59.340 align:middle line:90% And we'd be like, oh, OK. 00:51:59.340 --> 00:52:02.430 align:middle line:84% And he would-- one letter, he says, 00:52:02.430 --> 00:52:05.070 align:middle line:84% I had to erase everything from my hard drive, 00:52:05.070 --> 00:52:07.740 align:middle line:84% because otherwise, I go back and change it again. 00:52:07.740 --> 00:52:09.270 align:middle line:90% He was not against cutting. 00:52:09.270 --> 00:52:11.463 align:middle line:84% And he was not actually somebody who-- 00:52:11.463 --> 00:52:13.380 align:middle line:84% there are certainly writers who are like this. 00:52:13.380 --> 00:52:15.390 align:middle line:90% Every word I write is perfect. 00:52:15.390 --> 00:52:17.383 align:middle line:90% Don't change a single one. 00:52:17.383 --> 00:52:18.300 align:middle line:90% Don't change a period. 00:52:18.300 --> 00:52:19.320 align:middle line:90% He was never like that. 00:52:19.320 --> 00:52:22.620 align:middle line:84% I mean, for someone that smart-- he was happy to be edited, 00:52:22.620 --> 00:52:23.730 align:middle line:90% and happy to be cut. 00:52:23.730 --> 00:52:27.480 align:middle line:84% And certainly, every magazine editor could cut him, 00:52:27.480 --> 00:52:29.690 align:middle line:84% could change things, could edit him and say, 00:52:29.690 --> 00:52:31.440 align:middle line:84% we don't need this, or we don't need that, 00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:33.690 align:middle line:84% or this is too much, or whatever. 00:52:33.690 --> 00:52:35.640 align:middle line:84% As his sister would be the first to say, 00:52:35.640 --> 00:52:38.580 align:middle line:84% how much do you want to annoy the reader? 00:52:38.580 --> 00:52:40.570 align:middle line:84% What is the level of reader annoyance-- 00:52:40.570 --> 00:52:43.390 align:middle line:90% That you're going for here? 00:52:43.390 --> 00:52:46.560 align:middle line:84% So, yes, I mean, it was cut 400 pages? 00:52:46.560 --> 00:52:47.880 align:middle line:90% Maybe 500 pages. 00:52:47.880 --> 00:52:51.690 align:middle line:84% It's hard to know between the different drafts. 00:52:51.690 --> 00:52:54.090 align:middle line:84% And he was-- there are certain things where 00:52:54.090 --> 00:52:57.060 align:middle line:84% he was like, no, we can't ever possibly cut this. 00:52:57.060 --> 00:52:59.370 align:middle line:84% But we didn't feel like, oh, we'd 00:52:59.370 --> 00:53:03.080 align:middle line:84% better not cut a word of this because here's the great man. 00:53:03.080 --> 00:53:05.580 align:middle line:84% I mean, unfortunately, the thing is, when you kill yourself, 00:53:05.580 --> 00:53:07.290 align:middle line:84% then you become the great man and no one 00:53:07.290 --> 00:53:08.340 align:middle line:90% wants to change a word. 00:53:08.340 --> 00:53:10.757 align:middle line:84% That's what I was going to-- that was kind of my follow-up 00:53:10.757 --> 00:53:13.380 align:middle line:84% in terms of the one that you're working on now, 00:53:13.380 --> 00:53:16.270 align:middle line:84% and also This is Water, is that the-- 00:53:16.270 --> 00:53:17.000 align:middle line:90% This is Water. 00:53:17.000 --> 00:53:18.390 align:middle line:84% Well, that was the Kenyon commencement address? 00:53:18.390 --> 00:53:20.807 align:middle line:84% The Kenyon commencement address, which I haven't read yet, 00:53:20.807 --> 00:53:25.470 align:middle line:84% but I read that they cut the bit about suicide. 00:53:25.470 --> 00:53:27.390 align:middle line:90% No, this is the weird thing. 00:53:27.390 --> 00:53:28.500 align:middle line:90% They didn't do that. 00:53:28.500 --> 00:53:29.100 align:middle line:90% No. 00:53:29.100 --> 00:53:31.530 align:middle line:90% OK, phew. 00:53:31.530 --> 00:53:35.700 align:middle line:84% There was this bootleg version that was on the web 00:53:35.700 --> 00:53:38.520 align:middle line:84% that someone had recorded the commencement address 00:53:38.520 --> 00:53:39.720 align:middle line:90% and put on the web-- 00:53:39.720 --> 00:53:42.780 align:middle line:84% without our permission, without ever asking anything. 00:53:42.780 --> 00:53:45.360 align:middle line:84% And there were all sorts of things that had been added. 00:53:45.360 --> 00:53:49.090 align:middle line:84% And David had sent me a draft of this, because at one point, 00:53:49.090 --> 00:53:51.630 align:middle line:84% there was an op editor at The New York Times 00:53:51.630 --> 00:53:54.280 align:middle line:84% who wanted to try and do it the following years of graduation. 00:53:54.280 --> 00:53:55.560 align:middle line:90% So I had this. 00:53:55.560 --> 00:53:57.810 align:middle line:84% And we weren't going to do anything with it. 00:53:57.810 --> 00:54:01.200 align:middle line:84% And I didn't actually sort of do take-down letters on the web 00:54:01.200 --> 00:54:05.700 align:middle line:84% or do anything about stuff that appeared out there because it 00:54:05.700 --> 00:54:06.600 align:middle line:90% didn't seem to-- 00:54:06.600 --> 00:54:09.400 align:middle line:84% quite frankly, it didn't seem to matter that much at the time. 00:54:09.400 --> 00:54:16.090 align:middle line:84% And Tom Bissell's piece, he sort of 00:54:16.090 --> 00:54:17.770 align:middle line:90% had seen the bootleg version. 00:54:17.770 --> 00:54:19.600 align:middle line:84% And there are things in the bootleg version 00:54:19.600 --> 00:54:21.190 align:middle line:90% which were not David's words. 00:54:21.190 --> 00:54:23.740 align:middle line:84% And even Little Brown, when they first-- when 00:54:23.740 --> 00:54:26.920 align:middle line:84% they decided to do this, and to do this as a little book, 00:54:26.920 --> 00:54:28.300 align:middle line:84% they had a totally wrong version. 00:54:28.300 --> 00:54:30.320 align:middle line:84% I'm like, where did you get this? 00:54:30.320 --> 00:54:32.710 align:middle line:84% And someone had downloaded it off the web thinking it had 00:54:32.710 --> 00:54:34.840 align:middle line:84% been the final version, and it wasn't. 00:54:34.840 --> 00:54:39.940 align:middle line:84% And everything is, word for word, what was in the text. 00:54:39.940 --> 00:54:43.330 align:middle line:84% And so that's what it wound up being. 00:54:43.330 --> 00:54:44.470 align:middle line:90% I mean, we didn't change-- 00:54:44.470 --> 00:54:46.660 align:middle line:84% I think there's one comma that was added simply 00:54:46.660 --> 00:54:48.070 align:middle line:90% for editing purposes. 00:54:48.070 --> 00:54:52.570 align:middle line:84% But it was Michael, myself, and his long-time copy 00:54:52.570 --> 00:54:54.040 align:middle line:90% editor who went over this. 00:54:54.040 --> 00:54:56.440 align:middle line:84% And I mean, Michael, at this point, 00:54:56.440 --> 00:54:58.810 align:middle line:84% is like, every word should be exactly his word. 00:54:58.810 --> 00:55:00.205 align:middle line:90% We're not changing anything. 00:55:00.205 --> 00:55:02.080 align:middle line:84% And I'm still like, oh, we could change this. 00:55:02.080 --> 00:55:04.122 align:middle line:84% And it was like, no, we're not changing anything. 00:55:04.122 --> 00:55:07.490 align:middle line:90% And also, it's 14 pages long. 00:55:07.490 --> 00:55:09.490 align:middle line:90% You can go over word for word. 00:55:09.490 --> 00:55:11.440 align:middle line:84% I mean, we can't do that with Infinite Jest, 00:55:11.440 --> 00:55:14.030 align:middle line:84% but this you could say word for word for word. 00:55:14.030 --> 00:55:14.560 align:middle line:90% So no. 00:55:14.560 --> 00:55:15.893 align:middle line:90% I mean, that was what was weird. 00:55:15.893 --> 00:55:18.310 align:middle line:84% And then someone asked for corrections 00:55:18.310 --> 00:55:21.513 align:middle line:84% to the TBR, which was not Little Brown and not myself. 00:55:21.513 --> 00:55:22.930 align:middle line:84% But someone wrote in and said, you 00:55:22.930 --> 00:55:25.112 align:middle line:84% have this wrong, which is totally bizarre. 00:55:25.112 --> 00:55:27.070 align:middle line:84% I mean, that's the thing, is with the internet, 00:55:27.070 --> 00:55:30.730 align:middle line:84% there's all this, now, that's out there, which-- 00:55:30.730 --> 00:55:32.830 align:middle line:84% To clarify, did he say it in the speech 00:55:32.830 --> 00:55:34.900 align:middle line:84% but it wasn't in his prepared notes? 00:55:34.900 --> 00:55:36.020 align:middle line:90% We don't know. 00:55:36.020 --> 00:55:36.880 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:55:36.880 --> 00:55:38.698 align:middle line:90% I actually asked Kenyon-- 00:55:38.698 --> 00:55:40.990 align:middle line:84% I had done this thing with Kenyon where they were never 00:55:40.990 --> 00:55:43.600 align:middle line:84% supposed to release the video, because at one point, 00:55:43.600 --> 00:55:46.550 align:middle line:84% it had been on YouTube, and then I said, you can't do this. 00:55:46.550 --> 00:55:49.610 align:middle line:84% So now I have to go back and say, I know I said this before, 00:55:49.610 --> 00:55:51.250 align:middle line:90% but now give it to me. 00:55:51.250 --> 00:55:52.750 align:middle line:90% And so they're sending it to me. 00:55:52.750 --> 00:55:54.160 align:middle line:90% So I don't have it yet. 00:55:54.160 --> 00:55:56.830 align:middle line:84% I don't know if it was in the actual address, 00:55:56.830 --> 00:56:00.350 align:middle line:84% but it wasn't in the text that he had prepared. 00:56:00.350 --> 00:56:04.600 align:middle line:84% So This is Water, as a text, is exactly what he had sort 00:56:04.600 --> 00:56:05.793 align:middle line:90% of said it was going to be. 00:56:05.793 --> 00:56:07.210 align:middle line:84% I hope that answers your question. 00:56:07.210 --> 00:56:10.690 align:middle line:84% [INAUDIBLE] Infinite Jest starts-- 00:56:10.690 --> 00:56:12.040 align:middle line:90% when does it start [INAUDIBLE]? 00:56:12.040 --> 00:56:13.560 align:middle line:84% When would you first [INAUDIBLE]?? 00:56:13.560 --> 00:56:20.310 align:middle line:90% 00:56:20.310 --> 00:56:22.170 align:middle line:90% Do you remember when-- 00:56:22.170 --> 00:56:27.150 align:middle line:84% It started in-- no, because I was pretty clear with Dan 00:56:27.150 --> 00:56:27.760 align:middle line:90% on things. 00:56:27.760 --> 00:56:29.970 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think it was, like, '91. 00:56:29.970 --> 00:56:32.550 align:middle line:90% Because he wrote me. 00:56:32.550 --> 00:56:36.010 align:middle line:84% He said it started in '86, '87, '89 [INAUDIBLE].. 00:56:36.010 --> 00:56:37.942 align:middle line:90% That's what he wrote to me. 00:56:37.942 --> 00:56:39.090 align:middle line:90% I don't know-- 00:56:39.090 --> 00:56:41.340 align:middle line:90% I mean, they are-- 00:56:41.340 --> 00:56:42.420 align:middle line:90% he was always writing. 00:56:42.420 --> 00:56:44.940 align:middle line:84% I mean, Pale King, he'd been writing Pale King for 10 years. 00:56:44.940 --> 00:56:48.450 align:middle line:90% 00:56:48.450 --> 00:56:52.530 align:middle line:84% I just know when it's sort of like, there's this novel. 00:56:52.530 --> 00:56:55.930 align:middle line:84% Do you think we could get an advance on a partial novel? 00:56:55.930 --> 00:57:02.190 align:middle line:84% And so I would say it was '91 sometime. 00:57:02.190 --> 00:57:05.146 align:middle line:90% But I'd have to go back-- 00:57:05.146 --> 00:57:08.388 align:middle line:84% The tennis part of the novel was an earlier-- 00:57:08.388 --> 00:57:10.680 align:middle line:84% that was the immediate follow-up to Broom of the System 00:57:10.680 --> 00:57:12.210 align:middle line:90% was a novel [INAUDIBLE]. 00:57:12.210 --> 00:57:12.930 align:middle line:90% About the tennis. 00:57:12.930 --> 00:57:13.870 align:middle line:90% About the tennis camp. 00:57:13.870 --> 00:57:14.370 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:57:14.370 --> 00:57:16.203 align:middle line:84% Because, I mean, he had been a high school-- 00:57:16.203 --> 00:57:20.018 align:middle line:84% he'd been a junior tennis player and sort 00:57:20.018 --> 00:57:21.060 align:middle line:90% of on the junior circuit. 00:57:21.060 --> 00:57:23.140 align:middle line:90% I guess that's what it is. 00:57:23.140 --> 00:57:24.060 align:middle line:90% So I'm sure. 00:57:24.060 --> 00:57:26.520 align:middle line:84% I mean, these things were in his head for a long time. 00:57:26.520 --> 00:57:30.914 align:middle line:84% But I think the actual starting was probably about '91. 00:57:30.914 --> 00:57:33.220 align:middle line:90% Could we have one more question? 00:57:33.220 --> 00:57:33.720 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:57:33.720 --> 00:57:36.708 align:middle line:84% I had a question to follow-up [INAUDIBLE].. 00:57:36.708 --> 00:57:40.080 align:middle line:90% What was the-- [INAUDIBLE]. 00:57:40.080 --> 00:57:43.930 align:middle line:84% What was the response at Gourmet magazine? 00:57:43.930 --> 00:57:47.910 align:middle line:84% Gourmet Magazine, when he turned in a piece 00:57:47.910 --> 00:57:50.015 align:middle line:84% about the Lobster Festival, raising 00:57:50.015 --> 00:57:52.140 align:middle line:84% the question about whether it was moral to even eat 00:57:52.140 --> 00:57:53.973 align:middle line:84% lobsters-- or in fact, any kind of animals-- 00:57:53.973 --> 00:57:56.385 align:middle line:84% and how they [INAUDIBLE] Gourmet. 00:57:56.385 --> 00:57:58.277 align:middle line:90% He was very funny. 00:57:58.277 --> 00:58:00.360 align:middle line:84% They sort of thought they were going to get, like, 00:58:00.360 --> 00:58:03.728 align:middle line:84% the Illinois State Fair piece of like, this is so funny, 00:58:03.728 --> 00:58:05.520 align:middle line:84% and you make fun of the natives, but you're 00:58:05.520 --> 00:58:07.312 align:middle line:84% making fun of your New York Magazine editor 00:58:07.312 --> 00:58:09.040 align:middle line:90% at the same time. 00:58:09.040 --> 00:58:11.170 align:middle line:84% And so they thought they were going to get that. 00:58:11.170 --> 00:58:14.460 align:middle line:84% And there was an editor who's no longer at Gourmet 00:58:14.460 --> 00:58:17.310 align:middle line:84% named Jocelyn Zuckerman who had wanted 00:58:17.310 --> 00:58:20.310 align:middle line:84% him to do a piece forever, and would come up with these ideas. 00:58:20.310 --> 00:58:23.010 align:middle line:84% And he was going to Maine with his parents 00:58:23.010 --> 00:58:25.710 align:middle line:84% and with his new wife, and was like, 00:58:25.710 --> 00:58:27.720 align:middle line:84% oh, we can all go the Lobster Festival. 00:58:27.720 --> 00:58:30.630 align:middle line:84% And of course, when they got an article which is, like, is it 00:58:30.630 --> 00:58:33.660 align:middle line:90% moral to eat lobster at all? 00:58:33.660 --> 00:58:36.270 align:middle line:84% I mean, this is a magazine that has pages and pages 00:58:36.270 --> 00:58:40.680 align:middle line:84% from the beef industry, and pages and pages 00:58:40.680 --> 00:58:42.450 align:middle line:90% from the fish industry. 00:58:42.450 --> 00:58:45.060 align:middle line:84% They were not going to publish it. 00:58:45.060 --> 00:58:46.120 align:middle line:90% I mean, it's that simple. 00:58:46.120 --> 00:58:47.100 align:middle line:84% They were not going to publish it. 00:58:47.100 --> 00:58:48.640 align:middle line:84% How did he get it published there? 00:58:48.640 --> 00:58:49.650 align:middle line:90% Well, I mean, she-- 00:58:49.650 --> 00:58:51.280 align:middle line:90% Ruth Reichl or-- 00:58:51.280 --> 00:58:53.370 align:middle line:84% Ruth was not-- I mean, Ruth will tell you now, 00:58:53.370 --> 00:58:56.220 align:middle line:84% she was a huge defender of it from the very beginning. 00:58:56.220 --> 00:59:01.050 align:middle line:84% But we were this close to not having it run. 00:59:01.050 --> 00:59:04.380 align:middle line:84% And this editor sort of put her job on the line at the time 00:59:04.380 --> 00:59:08.130 align:middle line:84% and said, if you don't do this, I will quit. 00:59:08.130 --> 00:59:12.660 align:middle line:84% And so they wound up running it, and of course got both-- 00:59:12.660 --> 00:59:14.970 align:middle line:84% like, huge amounts of accolades because they 00:59:14.970 --> 00:59:17.640 align:middle line:84% were so brave to do it-- and also, a few people who 00:59:17.640 --> 00:59:21.120 align:middle line:84% canceled their subscriptions saying, how dare you do this? 00:59:21.120 --> 00:59:23.940 align:middle line:84% I eat my Lobster Newberg once a week. 00:59:23.940 --> 00:59:26.490 align:middle line:84% That was the thing about the AVN piece, which ended up-- 00:59:26.490 --> 00:59:30.270 align:middle line:84% which went so well during the process of editing, 00:59:30.270 --> 00:59:32.275 align:middle line:84% and then ended up being bowdlerized 00:59:32.275 --> 00:59:33.900 align:middle line:84% because the editor-in-chief of Premiere 00:59:33.900 --> 00:59:36.780 align:middle line:90% just had kind of a meltdown. 00:59:36.780 --> 00:59:42.360 align:middle line:84% And the bowdlerization itself was not 00:59:42.360 --> 00:59:44.130 align:middle line:84% greeted with such outrage by many readers, 00:59:44.130 --> 00:59:46.930 align:middle line:84% but Dave was very upset about it-- and understandably so. 00:59:46.930 --> 00:59:50.580 align:middle line:84% But it ended up running with all of the profanities hyphenated, 00:59:50.580 --> 00:59:54.510 align:middle line:84% which we were asked to do two days before shipping. 00:59:54.510 --> 00:59:55.710 align:middle line:90% We got quite punchy. 00:59:55.710 --> 00:59:57.690 align:middle line:90% I was like, OK, so "cocktail." 00:59:57.690 --> 01:00:00.150 align:middle line:90% Do we hyphenate it? 01:00:00.150 --> 01:00:02.560 align:middle line:90% And I almost quit over that. 01:00:02.560 --> 01:00:04.740 align:middle line:84% And Dave actually was very kind and called me up 01:00:04.740 --> 01:00:06.450 align:middle line:84% he said, yeah, I am mad at Premiere. 01:00:06.450 --> 01:00:07.920 align:middle line:90% Yeah, I don't like your boss. 01:00:07.920 --> 01:00:09.720 align:middle line:84% And yeah, I'm never going to write for the magazine again. 01:00:09.720 --> 01:00:11.470 align:middle line:84% But we're still friends, and you shouldn't 01:00:11.470 --> 01:00:14.520 align:middle line:84% quit on this account, because you do good work there, 01:00:14.520 --> 01:00:15.330 align:middle line:90% and da, da, da. 01:00:15.330 --> 01:00:18.625 align:middle line:84% But at the time, I don't think I helped the case much, 01:00:18.625 --> 01:00:21.000 align:middle line:84% because instead of actually putting the argument forward, 01:00:21.000 --> 01:00:23.010 align:middle line:84% all I did was act out and be pouty a lot. 01:00:23.010 --> 01:00:26.430 align:middle line:84% Like, you fucker, you're ruining this integrity-- 01:00:26.430 --> 01:00:29.940 align:middle line:84% and if I had actually said to my editor-in-chief at the time, 01:00:29.940 --> 01:00:33.990 align:middle line:84% all right, you're really worried about some Chrysler ad falling 01:00:33.990 --> 01:00:35.070 align:middle line:90% out, but you know what? 01:00:35.070 --> 01:00:36.420 align:middle line:90% This is what's going to happen. 01:00:36.420 --> 01:00:37.770 align:middle line:90% We do this thing. 01:00:37.770 --> 01:00:40.200 align:middle line:90% We put it out as is. 01:00:40.200 --> 01:00:42.990 align:middle line:84% And yeah, a couple of people get mad. 01:00:42.990 --> 01:00:43.740 align:middle line:90% But you know what? 01:00:43.740 --> 01:00:46.530 align:middle line:84% You'll probably get another goddamn ASME nomination. 01:00:46.530 --> 01:00:48.840 align:middle line:84% David will be happy to have worked with us again, 01:00:48.840 --> 01:00:51.810 align:middle line:84% even if it comes out that he's the writer of the piece, which 01:00:51.810 --> 01:00:53.130 align:middle line:90% is going to come out anyway. 01:00:53.130 --> 01:00:55.500 align:middle line:84% And whatever kerfuffle is going to happen, 01:00:55.500 --> 01:00:58.080 align:middle line:84% you're still going to come off of it covered in glory. 01:00:58.080 --> 01:01:00.420 align:middle line:84% And instead, I just sat there and said, you're a douche. 01:01:00.420 --> 01:01:03.780 align:middle line:84% And it ran that way, and it was, as in the immortal words 01:01:03.780 --> 01:01:05.490 align:middle line:84% of Tone Loc it was a big old mess. 01:01:05.490 --> 01:01:09.010 align:middle line:84% But yeah, I mean, that's how you ought to look at it, 01:01:09.010 --> 01:01:11.457 align:middle line:84% it's sort of like, OK, well, we may 01:01:11.457 --> 01:01:13.290 align:middle line:84% have a little bit of trouble with this here, 01:01:13.290 --> 01:01:16.440 align:middle line:84% but eventually, it's going to redound to our benefit. 01:01:16.440 --> 01:01:19.840 align:middle line:84% And the other tragedy of that AVN piece was that it was-- 01:01:19.840 --> 01:01:22.120 align:middle line:84% the editing process up to that, and during it, was 01:01:22.120 --> 01:01:23.020 align:middle line:90% so pleasurable. 01:01:23.020 --> 01:01:25.020 align:middle line:84% And it was funny, because talking about cutting, 01:01:25.020 --> 01:01:26.230 align:middle line:90% he was not averse to cutting. 01:01:26.230 --> 01:01:30.587 align:middle line:84% I mean, he was averse to cutting without his consultation. 01:01:30.587 --> 01:01:32.170 align:middle line:84% And he was kind of bemused, and that's 01:01:32.170 --> 01:01:35.440 align:middle line:84% why Kristin van Ogtrop, who had the first stab at David Lynch 01:01:35.440 --> 01:01:38.110 align:middle line:84% Keeps His Head, was nicknamed "the blunt machete." 01:01:38.110 --> 01:01:40.355 align:middle line:84% But he was always willing to work with you. 01:01:40.355 --> 01:01:41.980 align:middle line:84% And the weird thing about the AVN piece 01:01:41.980 --> 01:01:45.758 align:middle line:84% is that we worked on that for a long time 01:01:45.758 --> 01:01:47.800 align:middle line:84% doing all sorts of things-- cutting this, cutting 01:01:47.800 --> 01:01:48.370 align:middle line:90% that, cutting that. 01:01:48.370 --> 01:01:50.980 align:middle line:84% But except for the fact that the profanity was hyphenated, 01:01:50.980 --> 01:01:53.560 align:middle line:84% the version that we both agreed on 01:01:53.560 --> 01:01:56.590 align:middle line:84% was pretty close to what he originally 01:01:56.590 --> 01:01:59.680 align:middle line:84% submitted, and not that much ended up 01:01:59.680 --> 01:02:01.570 align:middle line:90% being cut out of it at all. 01:02:01.570 --> 01:02:02.278 align:middle line:90% It's just weird. 01:02:02.278 --> 01:02:04.570 align:middle line:84% Well, I mean the same thing happened with the one about 01:02:04.570 --> 01:02:09.670 align:middle line:84% McCain that Rolling Stone had commissioned. 01:02:09.670 --> 01:02:11.950 align:middle line:84% And it was right before Super Tuesday, 01:02:11.950 --> 01:02:16.480 align:middle line:84% and McCain, as we all know, fell out then, because Bush, 01:02:16.480 --> 01:02:18.070 align:middle line:90% for all his-- 01:02:18.070 --> 01:02:19.960 align:middle line:84% the Bush machine sort of went after him, 01:02:19.960 --> 01:02:21.490 align:middle line:90% and McCain lost his temper. 01:02:21.490 --> 01:02:23.420 align:middle line:84% And whatever one may think of McCain now, 01:02:23.420 --> 01:02:26.500 align:middle line:84% McCain then was a rather noble guy. 01:02:26.500 --> 01:02:29.458 align:middle line:84% And Rolling Stone almost pulled it. 01:02:29.458 --> 01:02:31.750 align:middle line:84% I mean, Jann Wenner was like, well, let's not run this. 01:02:31.750 --> 01:02:33.370 align:middle line:90% It's no longer newsworthy. 01:02:33.370 --> 01:02:34.570 align:middle line:90% McCain's out of the race. 01:02:34.570 --> 01:02:35.320 align:middle line:90% All of this stuff. 01:02:35.320 --> 01:02:37.810 align:middle line:84% And they, of course, won a National Magazine Award for it. 01:02:37.810 --> 01:02:41.080 align:middle line:84% And Jann Wenner, I think, went up to the podium 01:02:41.080 --> 01:02:45.290 align:middle line:84% and was like, I always knew this was a good idea. 01:02:45.290 --> 01:02:46.120 align:middle line:90% So I mean, we-- 01:02:46.120 --> 01:02:48.550 align:middle line:84% Same thing you can do with an editor is just-- 01:02:48.550 --> 01:02:51.210 align:middle line:84% and unfortunately, many of you undergraduates 01:02:51.210 --> 01:02:52.960 align:middle line:84% will never get the opportunity to do this, 01:02:52.960 --> 01:02:55.540 align:middle line:84% because there will be no magazines anymore. 01:02:55.540 --> 01:02:59.020 align:middle line:84% But that's your argument in dealing with a case like this. 01:02:59.020 --> 01:03:02.950 align:middle line:84% Just dangle that ASME award idea in front of them. 01:03:02.950 --> 01:03:05.455 align:middle line:84% They love ASMEs-- for some weird reason. 01:03:05.455 --> 01:03:07.330 align:middle line:84% It's not the design of the damn thing, is it? 01:03:07.330 --> 01:03:09.380 align:middle line:90% You've seen those things that-- 01:03:09.380 --> 01:03:09.880 align:middle line:90% $2. 01:03:09.880 --> 01:03:11.880 align:middle line:90% But they love them some ASMEs. 01:03:11.880 --> 01:03:14.622 align:middle line:84% It's like, don't get nominated for an ASME, 01:03:14.622 --> 01:03:15.580 align:middle line:90% and then they're like-- 01:03:15.580 --> 01:03:16.498 align:middle line:90% [SCRIBBLING] 01:03:16.498 --> 01:03:19.477 align:middle line:90% 01:03:19.477 --> 01:03:21.310 align:middle line:84% Well, I wanted to say thank you to everyone. 01:03:21.310 --> 01:03:23.150 align:middle line:90% We're a little bit over time. 01:03:23.150 --> 01:03:26.770 align:middle line:84% So thank you to all of the panelists for both panel 01:03:26.770 --> 01:03:27.693 align:middle line:90% one and panel two. 01:03:27.693 --> 01:03:29.110 align:middle line:84% Thank you everyone for coming out. 01:03:29.110 --> 01:03:30.280 align:middle line:84% And I want to remind everyone that we're 01:03:30.280 --> 01:03:32.113 align:middle line:84% going to have readings starting at 8 o'clock 01:03:32.113 --> 01:03:33.640 align:middle line:84% tonight, with all of our panelists 01:03:33.640 --> 01:03:35.890 align:middle line:84% reading selections from David Foster Wallace's work. 01:03:35.890 --> 01:03:38.380 align:middle line:84% We have programs that list what those selections will 01:03:38.380 --> 01:03:40.972 align:middle line:84% be in a little bit more detail that will be over here right 01:03:40.972 --> 01:03:43.180 align:middle line:84% now, and we'll also be handing them out later in case 01:03:43.180 --> 01:03:44.590 align:middle line:90% you didn't already get one. 01:03:44.590 --> 01:03:46.610 align:middle line:84% So please come back for later tonight. 01:03:46.610 --> 01:03:47.290 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 01:03:47.290 --> 01:03:47.860 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 01:03:47.860 --> 01:03:50.910 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 01:03:50.910 --> 01:03:57.000 align:middle line:90%