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
"Is that anything like an answer?" 🙂
what a beautiful mind
@MRodness
I'm sure it was Charlie flipping the pages.
@mickycisme
Yours is the best description I've read about this interview. Thanks for this insight.
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.
He throws in so many asides. He practically talks with footnotes!
That was beautiful.
1:14 "beaker of acid in the face" I see what you did there Mr. Wallace
"screen gets all fuzzy" lmaoo 4:10
what does that mean?
Agreed. Rose here is being pretty tough; you can tell David is being uncomfortable. A great interviewer and an infinitely interesting interviewee.
"If that was going on, it was at a level I do not want access to" love that quote, maybe he eventually got to that level
2:00 Uh-oh. In 1907, Cezanne was quite dead. Sounded like he was sure on this one. An otherwise absolutely fantastic interview.
lol
shut up everybody
"great minds battling" Creed, The office
What word does he use at 1:23?
Rose's Cezanne question was his best, that is, with hindsight being 20/20.
H A C K
…what is modernism? post modernism?…. "After Modernism",
4:00, he starts talking to me? when does he talk to you?
"If it's authentic, you will feel it in your nerve endings."
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.
YES! David Foster Wallace vindicated me in my contention that "postmodern" doesn't mean a goddamn qualitative thing these days.
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.
this brotha is IN the zone
if 'post-modernism' was a thing of the 70's….what are we going through now? 'neo-post-modernism'?
They are talking about fiction and make believe, right?
Complete literary nobody….empty suit..