Reader Meet Author
May 15, 2006 1:07 PM   Subscribe

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.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket (9 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Good stuff.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 1:32 PM on May 15, 2006


Thank you! I can't wait to dive in.
posted by Lockjaw at 1:59 PM on May 15, 2006


Is it me or does DFW has a tendency to sound ponderous.
posted by jouke at 2:01 PM on May 15, 2006


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.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 3:54 PM on May 15, 2006


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.
posted by scarylarry at 6:12 PM on May 15, 2006


DFW gets better and better. I like (hearing) his descriptions of his motivations. Good find, Mean Mr. Bucket.
posted by spacewaitress at 8:06 PM on May 15, 2006


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...
posted by jouke at 8:51 PM on May 15, 2006


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).
posted by aubilenon at 3:40 AM on May 16, 2006


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.
posted by kensanway at 10:11 AM on May 16, 2006


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