Art

Charlie Rose interviews David Foster Wallace, 3/4



Charlie Rose interviewed the late David Foster Wallace, a contemporary American author, on March 27, 1997.

DFW: Feminists are all saying this, though—feminists are saying white males have—”Okay, I’m going to sit down and write this enormous book and impose my phallus on the consciousness of the world.”
CR: And you say?
DFW: If that was going on it was going on at a level of awareness I do NOT want to have access to.

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/5639

apolloxias

Source

Similar Posts

29 thoughts on “Charlie Rose interviews David Foster Wallace, 3/4
  1. It's mind-boggling to me that DFW, with all his education and hyper-intellect, uses "schizophrenic" the wrong way. It's got nothing to do with "multiple personalities", even if the literal translation of the word suggests that.

  2. it's sad how self deprecating DFW is. The various cringe faces. The constant reference to how well he's answered the question. Seeing that retrospectively after knowing how he died is like an insight into a tortured soul. RIP.

  3. In regard to David Foster Wallace being "self-deprecating," I would only say that what I believe I am seeing & hearing in this interview is Wallace's reluctance to settle for reductive statements about most topics worthy of examination. The facial cringes seem to belie the strain that is felt when one is asked to offer an opinion on a topic that is too broad and/or deep to be satisfactorily summarized in the context of an interview being aired and watched by the public. There seems to be an acknowledgement of how difficult it is to be both succinct and insightful. His renowned self-consciousness is also a sort of conscientiousness and a non-cynical attempt to articulate an authentic response to questions which he might be far more comfortable responding to through writing and not a 'real time' discourse. It is that same self-consciousness that expresses itself in his willingness to think and write about subjects that many others would not hesitate to approach from an ironic perspective. The idea that he was a "tortured soul" seems to be a too-tidy and somewhat 'reductive' view of someone both complicated and also dealing with the fact of his chronic depression and the necessary internal struggle it can be to keep one's head and spirit above water. Depression creates the undertow that further complicates the stamina that such a brilliant thinker and observer must maintain in order to write such a work as Infinite Jest. The inner battle to shape complicated narratives while parsing out what is legitimate doubt and discernment in regard to one's craft while also wrangling with maintaining psychological buoyancy would be a task beyond most writers, and perhaps all the more so for Wallace with his very keen instincts and loathing of sophism and artifice.

Comments are closed.

WP2Social Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com