5 ms·

David Foster Wallace: The Big, Uncut Interview

98 points by fogus 15y ago

angusiguess 15y ago
Probably one of the most unlikely guys to talk about some of the interesting/terrifying implications of technology on communication and interaction (among many other things)
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  I wouldn't necessarily call him "unlikely" to discuss those topics. While he wasn't a technologist, per se, he was certainly more inclined in that direction than most literary writers of his generation were. In fact, he wrote an entire book on the history of transfinite set theory. (From a layman's perspective, sure, but how many other non-sci-fi writers claim to have such interests?) For anyone unfamiliar with his work, I can't recommend him highly enough. Especially to the HN crowd. He's very discursive, and he rewards long attention spans. But he's worth it.
  - angusiguess 15y ago
    A Compact History of Infinity was pretty tremendous. And while it makes some amount of sense that he's be apt to deal with questions of metaphysics from a formal standpoint, there are some more unusual topics in there, like that bit from Infinite Jest about the evolution of videophones and the use of masks. I think some of his best work centers on the ability (or even possibility) to communicate with other people, and how technology has a lot of potential to disrupt it.
- Estragon 15y ago
  He'd been doing it for a long time: http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf
StinkyJay 15y ago
David Foster Wallace had an uncanny prophetic ability in Infinite Jest, he describes a company called Interlace which is essentially just Netflix. He also describes the failure of video-phoning because of social pressure When I was reading the passages about new technology and the de-contextualation of media I was actually stuck by how the reality of media and communications landscape has eclipsed the novel in terms of absurdity. We now don't just phone instead of video-chat we text each other, now instead of physically owning entertainment cartridges we just receive a 30-day license that allows us to watch it. The truth as always has surpassed fiction.
- zmmz 15y ago
  I am a bit surprised by your and angusiguess's take-aways from DFW. For me, the technical details of IJ were absolutely uncritical parts of the story - I imagine that the setting could be changed if DFW wanted to. Much more interesting for me was the absurdity of the characters, the physical pain and nausea caused by reading the book, the mental strain, and the story itself. The most memorable things about IJ are the effects that reading the material had on me, not so much the contents of the material itself. If anybody has not read What Happens at the End of Infinite Jest [1] by Aaron Swartz, you must. [1]: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend
  - ncarroll 15y ago
    I don't know how it ends and I can't read the end. Every time I try, I have this strange feeling that as long as I don't read it, it can't happen; what ever it is; that the story, and the fate of all those strange and magical personalities hangs in limbo until I - specifically, I - finish reading, at which point the whole house of cards will simply spontaneously combust and leave me with a pile of ashes in my lap and smoke in my hair. I've never been involved with a book like IJ before. Well now, that sounds pretty silly, doesn't it?
    - neutronicus 15y ago
      I really, truly love Infinite Jest.
Estragon 15y ago
My wife introduced me to Wallace around the time of his suicide. I read IJ in 2010, and have been hooked ever since. I watched this interview in its entirety about a month ago, and really enjoyed it. The wincing which the Open Culture post mentions was mostly induced by the camera man, who accused Wallace of "pontificating" early in the interview. After that, every time Wallace thinks he might be getting too heady, he looks worriedly in the camera man's direction. :-) The part of the interview about liberal arts students going on to careers which have nothing to do with the emancipatory values they were taught in their degrees is reminiscent of the bitterness in some of the recent metafilter critiques of PG's essay "How To Do What You Love." http://www.metafilter.com/113015/How-to-do-what-you-love http://www.metafilter.com/113015/How-to-do-what-you-love
- achompas 15y ago
  Bitter, maybe, but are the MeFi comments actually wrong?
  - Estragon 15y ago
    I don't think bitter tone has any bearing on correctness. I think the thread is a mix of insightful observations and knee jerk emotional reactions, and sometimes a single comment has both.
    - achompas 15y ago
      Sorry, that's a fair distinction worth making. I was worried you were dismissing some very salient points against PG's essay (and PG's writing in general).
ppod 15y ago
There's an odd moment just at the end of part 1 and the start of part 2. The camera guy complains a little that Wallace is moving around a lot as he talks, and then he tells Wallace that he's 'pontificating'. It's a strange one, I think the cameraman is kind of being a dick, and you can see Wallace is bothered by it and not really sure how to react.
platz 15y ago
So much has already been discussed about DFW. And still being written(for example: http://www.thepointmag.com/2012/essays/coming-to-terms http://www.thepointmag.com/2012/essays/coming-to-terms). I must say I'm almost surprised to see Hacker News branching into literary subjects, but of course there are related topics concerning technology in his work. Next thing we know, we'll start seeing articles about philosophy and metaphysics!
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
the_cat_kittles 15y ago
The actual text he writes, like each sentence and phrase, is extremely well crafted syntactically, whatever style he is going for. In particular, I've noticed he is extremely aware of verbal ambiguity. His prose has coherence and obsessive detail that remind me of Bach's music. These things seem deeply intertwined with software dev, I'm surprised he doesn't show up on HN more.
garret 15y ago
Today would have been his 50th birthday.
pron 15y ago
And here's an intriguing article about DFW's fascination with self-help books: http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/inside-david-foster-wallaces-private-self-help-library http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/inside-david-foster-wallaces-p...
djtriptych 15y ago
Quick script to download all videos locally (I have no faith these will stay up for posterity). Requires the cclive command line tool. https://gist.github.com/1879275 https://gist.github.com/1879275
dtf 15y ago
Absolutely worth watching, every second of its uncut entirety. Despite his initially almost paralysing self-doubt, defensiveness about European views of America and distinct unease at the start of the interview, he gets himself ever so gradually disarmed by the German interviewer. Her English is pretty awkward, but she's actually incredibly genuine and she repeatedly charms DFW with sincerity, as he becomes increasingly fluid and open. It helps that the producer is an absolute dick, allowing for a kind of common enemy to pave the way of rebellion. If you have a bottle of tequila or some other hideous drink, you should definitely reach for it each time he mentions the word "paradox" or "irony".

98 points by fogus 15y ago

Probably one of the most unlikely guys to talk about some of the interesting/terrifying implications of technology on communication and interaction (among many other things)

jonnathanson 15y ago
I wouldn't necessarily call him "unlikely" to discuss those topics. While he wasn't a technologist, per se, he was certainly more inclined in that direction than most literary writers of his generation were. In fact, he wrote an entire book on the history of transfinite set theory. (From a layman's perspective, sure, but how many other non-sci-fi writers claim to have such interests?) For anyone unfamiliar with his work, I can't recommend him highly enough. Especially to the HN crowd. He's very discursive, and he rewards long attention spans. But he's worth it.
- angusiguess 15y ago
  A Compact History of Infinity was pretty tremendous. And while it makes some amount of sense that he's be apt to deal with questions of metaphysics from a formal standpoint, there are some more unusual topics in there, like that bit from Infinite Jest about the evolution of videophones and the use of masks. I think some of his best work centers on the ability (or even possibility) to communicate with other people, and how technology has a lot of potential to disrupt it.
Estragon 15y ago
He'd been doing it for a long time: http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf

StinkyJay 15y ago

David Foster Wallace had an uncanny prophetic ability in Infinite Jest, he describes a company called Interlace which is essentially just Netflix. He also describes the failure of video-phoning because of social pressure When I was reading the passages about new technology and the de-contextualation of media I was actually stuck by how the reality of media and communications landscape has eclipsed the novel in terms of absurdity. We now don't just phone instead of video-chat we text each other, now instead of physically owning entertainment cartridges we just receive a 30-day license that allows us to watch it. The truth as always has surpassed fiction.

zmmz 15y ago
I am a bit surprised by your and angusiguess's take-aways from DFW. For me, the technical details of IJ were absolutely uncritical parts of the story - I imagine that the setting could be changed if DFW wanted to. Much more interesting for me was the absurdity of the characters, the physical pain and nausea caused by reading the book, the mental strain, and the story itself. The most memorable things about IJ are the effects that reading the material had on me, not so much the contents of the material itself. If anybody has not read What Happens at the End of Infinite Jest [1] by Aaron Swartz, you must. [1]: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/ijend
- ncarroll 15y ago
  I don't know how it ends and I can't read the end. Every time I try, I have this strange feeling that as long as I don't read it, it can't happen; what ever it is; that the story, and the fate of all those strange and magical personalities hangs in limbo until I - specifically, I - finish reading, at which point the whole house of cards will simply spontaneously combust and leave me with a pile of ashes in my lap and smoke in my hair. I've never been involved with a book like IJ before. Well now, that sounds pretty silly, doesn't it?
  - neutronicus 15y ago
    I really, truly love Infinite Jest.

Estragon 15y ago

My wife introduced me to Wallace around the time of his suicide. I read IJ in 2010, and have been hooked ever since. I watched this interview in its entirety about a month ago, and really enjoyed it. The wincing which the Open Culture post mentions was mostly induced by the camera man, who accused Wallace of "pontificating" early in the interview. After that, every time Wallace thinks he might be getting too heady, he looks worriedly in the camera man's direction. :-) The part of the interview about liberal arts students going on to careers which have nothing to do with the emancipatory values they were taught in their degrees is reminiscent of the bitterness in some of the recent metafilter critiques of PG's essay "How To Do What You Love." http://www.metafilter.com/113015/How-to-do-what-you-love http://www.metafilter.com/113015/How-to-do-what-you-love

achompas 15y ago
Bitter, maybe, but are the MeFi comments actually wrong?
- Estragon 15y ago
  I don't think bitter tone has any bearing on correctness. I think the thread is a mix of insightful observations and knee jerk emotional reactions, and sometimes a single comment has both.
  - achompas 15y ago
    Sorry, that's a fair distinction worth making. I was worried you were dismissing some very salient points against PG's essay (and PG's writing in general).

ppod 15y ago

There's an odd moment just at the end of part 1 and the start of part 2. The camera guy complains a little that Wallace is moving around a lot as he talks, and then he tells Wallace that he's 'pontificating'. It's a strange one, I think the cameraman is kind of being a dick, and you can see Wallace is bothered by it and not really sure how to react.

platz 15y ago

So much has already been discussed about DFW. And still being written(for example: http://www.thepointmag.com/2012/essays/coming-to-terms http://www.thepointmag.com/2012/essays/coming-to-terms). I must say I'm almost surprised to see Hacker News branching into literary subjects, but of course there are related topics concerning technology in his work. Next thing we know, we'll start seeing articles about philosophy and metaphysics!

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

the_cat_kittles 15y ago

The actual text he writes, like each sentence and phrase, is extremely well crafted syntactically, whatever style he is going for. In particular, I've noticed he is extremely aware of verbal ambiguity. His prose has coherence and obsessive detail that remind me of Bach's music. These things seem deeply intertwined with software dev, I'm surprised he doesn't show up on HN more.

garret 15y ago

Today would have been his 50th birthday.

pron 15y ago

And here's an intriguing article about DFW's fascination with self-help books: http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/inside-david-foster-wallaces-private-self-help-library http://www.theawl.com/2011/04/inside-david-foster-wallaces-p...

djtriptych 15y ago

Quick script to download all videos locally (I have no faith these will stay up for posterity). Requires the cclive command line tool. https://gist.github.com/1879275 https://gist.github.com/1879275

dtf 15y ago

Absolutely worth watching, every second of its uncut entirety. Despite his initially almost paralysing self-doubt, defensiveness about European views of America and distinct unease at the start of the interview, he gets himself ever so gradually disarmed by the German interviewer. Her English is pretty awkward, but she's actually incredibly genuine and she repeatedly charms DFW with sincerity, as he becomes increasingly fluid and open. It helps that the producer is an absolute dick, allowing for a kind of common enemy to pave the way of rebellion. If you have a bottle of tequila or some other hideous drink, you should definitely reach for it each time he mentions the word "paradox" or "irony".