Comments on: Reader Meet Author

Reader Meet Author

Mean Mr. Bucket — Mon, 15 May 2006 13:07:50 -0800

Author Interviews from the Center for Book Culture. I particularly liked the interview/bout with David Foster Wallace. Also the only interview Gaddis has ever done stateside is here. Good times.

By: Optimus Chyme

Optimus Chyme — Mon, 15 May 2006 13:32:58 -0800

Good stuff.

By: Lockjaw

Lockjaw — Mon, 15 May 2006 13:59:52 -0800

Thank you! I can't wait to dive in.

By: jouke

jouke — Mon, 15 May 2006 14:01:07 -0800

Is it me or does DFW has a tendency to sound ponderous.

By: Optimus Chyme

Optimus Chyme — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:54:15 -0800

Is it me or does DFW has a tendency to sound ponderous. posted by jouke at 2:01 PM PST on May 15 It's a hell of an interview and there are about ten really great ideas in there. The ponderouness and self-consciousness - to me, anyway - are all part of the charm. I'm also pretty sure I wind up reading this interview once every six months or so.

By: scarylarry

scarylarry — Mon, 15 May 2006 18:12:54 -0800

I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time here when I am not more asleep than awake. DFW gives a wonderfully compelling, yet uniformly ponderous, interview on npr's bookworm here. There are other authors of or near his generation who may interview with greater precision and clarity (Amis, for instance, who's always a brittle delight), but DFW tends to make up for it in both his warmth and the depth of his insights.

By: spacewaitress

spacewaitress — Mon, 15 May 2006 20:06:29 -0800

DFW gets better and better. I like (hearing) his descriptions of his motivations. Good find, Mean Mr. Bucket.

By: jouke

jouke — Mon, 15 May 2006 20:51:45 -0800

DFW: In most other cultures [than the West], if you hurt, if you have a symptom that's causing you to suffer, they view this as basically healthy and natural, a sign that your nervous system knows something's wrong. I don't think that elsewhere that is viewed as 'healthy'. I think a lot of cultures lack the idea that everything in life is changeable and all unhappiness can be avoided. So it's more that's life. A simplistic statement...

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Tue, 16 May 2006 03:40:27 -0800

It's pretty interesting / disturbing to read the interview looking for where his ruminations on fiction also apply to non-fiction (mostly vis-a-vis popular media / teevee).

By: kensanway

kensanway — Tue, 16 May 2006 10:11:47 -0800

Center for Book Culture is great. If you ever get a chance to read CONTEXT, do it, even though they've changed their orientation in the last few years. Also, the dalkey archive has a great 100 books for $500 dollars deal, which makes sense if you can find 10-20 friends to split it or if you're an institution.