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melissa_m_m's review against another edition
5.0
This is such a great 90s time capsule, especially the discussion of literature and pop culture, including misogyny - all of the extensively discussed, admired writers are men. Songs and music by female musicians are praised as guilty pleasures; their talent dismissed. For whatever reason, Elizabeth Wurtzel is an exception.
Foster Wallace and Lipsky (interviewer) are both incredibly smart, passionate, and curious. Interesting, (to me) they both mention having accomplished parents. Anytime I talk to or read about someone who seems innately intelligent, I wonder about their parents. Possibly because I'm looking for it, but there generally seems to be a large degree of environment and opportunity behind a lot of "natural" intelligence. Listening to the two of them was a bit like a Jeopardy show with all my favorite categories
Overall, liked the book and recommend for Foster Wallace fans, writers, or anyone who grew up in the 90s/90s pop culture fans.
Foster Wallace and Lipsky (interviewer) are both incredibly smart, passionate, and curious. Interesting, (to me) they both mention having accomplished parents. Anytime I talk to or read about someone who seems innately intelligent, I wonder about their parents. Possibly because I'm looking for it, but there generally seems to be a large degree of environment and opportunity behind a lot of "natural" intelligence. Listening to the two of them was a bit like a Jeopardy show with all my favorite categories
Overall, liked the book and recommend for Foster Wallace fans, writers, or anyone who grew up in the 90s/90s pop culture fans.
levelstory's review against another edition
3.0
I watched the film adaptation of this book (End of the Tour) a few years back and really enjoyed it. Although I'm not an avid fan of David Foster Wallace (I tried to read Infinite Jest and gave up after 20 pages), I admire the guy and plan on reading his fiction/essays in the future. I listened to the audio book version of this book.
I expected this to be book reflecting on the conversations David Lipsky had with David Foster Wallace. In some places it is that, but most of the time the book is a transcript of the tapes Lipsky recorded for his piece. This made for quite a listening experience. The actor playing Wallace did a good job, and for the most part I enjoyed the whole thing. But after a while I found myself growing tired of it. I wanted some relief from Wallce just talking. I wanted observations and something to take away. It became difficult to tell whether I was getting sick of Wallace of getting sick of how the book was structuring what he was saying.
Overall, it is a good read/listen. But I expected it to be beyond just a transcript.
I expected this to be book reflecting on the conversations David Lipsky had with David Foster Wallace. In some places it is that, but most of the time the book is a transcript of the tapes Lipsky recorded for his piece. This made for quite a listening experience. The actor playing Wallace did a good job, and for the most part I enjoyed the whole thing. But after a while I found myself growing tired of it. I wanted some relief from Wallce just talking. I wanted observations and something to take away. It became difficult to tell whether I was getting sick of Wallace of getting sick of how the book was structuring what he was saying.
Overall, it is a good read/listen. But I expected it to be beyond just a transcript.
themtj's review against another edition
5.0
Everything I wanted to ask David Foster Wallace and more is covered in this book. It is a very intimate interview and captures his shyness, his awkwardness, his paranoid self-conscious Tendencies, and most importantly his loneliness. David lipsky is willing to ask hard questions and push further than I would have been comfortable asking, but not beyond the realm of my curiosity. I ended up respecting David lipsky just as much as I do DFW after this book
adamz24's review against another edition
3.0
So this is less, like, a review, as such, than a set of personal remarks, and ramblings, and vaguely embarrassing confessions.
With a guy like DFW, I enjoy reading interviews, books like this one, and so on, because I'm a serious admirer. Like, if I were an attractive girl I would totally have flashed DFW at a reading or something, screaming in orgasmic ecstasy. But they're also a little empty to me, because I find that almost everything in them is stuff I've come across, in more interesting form already. In his essays and fiction. Etc. So the stuff that's really interesting to me in reading stuff like this is little details I couldn't really have otherwise gotten. Stuff that's minor and incidental in some ways, but weirdly huge in others, in my personal reading.
That he loved Wodehouse and named his dogs Jeeves and Drone was just fascinating to me, for example.
That he smoked American Spirits. Which I'd actually bet someone once, both of us inebriated, and my left hand just resting awkwardly there on her right tit, that there's no way that David Lynch and David Foster Wallace didn't both smoke American Spirits. Mainly because I, too, was smoking American Spirits.
But the bigger thing is: I have this pet theory. More like an opinion. I get verbally defecated upon for it a lot, especially in person, it seems. It goes like this: like, yeah, DFW's stuff obviously has an important literary context and what not, but basically, what really matters about DFW's stuff is basically what really matters about certain sorts of really earnest, sincere, but also very self-aware rock lyrics. That what makes DFW's stuff really Important is what makes said rock lyrics really Important, as art. What comes to mind primarily is stuff like Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and all the good shit they've influenced.
And so I felt vindicated, and it really was a massive and pretty pathetic kind of ego stroke when I read somewhere (I think it's the DT Max book) that DFW listened to sad Springsteen and Neil Young a lot, when sad, and like, wore out Springsteen tapes while writing or something like that. Which is a minor detail really in the narrative of that book, but is super interesting to me.
But people kind of just shake their head at me when I put forth the Springsteen/Young version of that pet theory/opinion/thing. Cause they know me and know that I dig those guys and also DFW to a possibly dangerous and irrational extent.
What really pisses people off, weirdly, though it's probably actually more sensible, is when I put forth the Cobain version of it. I basically really think Wallace and Cobain are on the same cultural and writerly continuum. And that, basically, Infinite Jest is basically what a more erudite and less nihilistic Cobain would've written in the early-mid 90s. I think it makes way more sense to talk about DFW and Cobain in the same breath than to talk about DFW and, like, Gass or Barthelme, in the same breath. This version gets horrible reactions, and people have even claimed that I'm being insensitive to a ridiculous degree (cause they both suicided or something; I'm not clear on the irrational thought involved).
So it was incredibly vindicating to read the following, about Nirvana, that DFW said:
THERE!
Hey, I know it's not much. But that's kind of the point. Stuff like this is so thoroughly incidental to the fiction and the essays that weird little shit like this is pretty much what seems most valuable about it to me. It's nice to get a little background on some stuff, but little of it is stuff that's vital in any way.
With a guy like DFW, I enjoy reading interviews, books like this one, and so on, because I'm a serious admirer. Like, if I were an attractive girl I would totally have flashed DFW at a reading or something, screaming in orgasmic ecstasy. But they're also a little empty to me, because I find that almost everything in them is stuff I've come across, in more interesting form already. In his essays and fiction. Etc. So the stuff that's really interesting to me in reading stuff like this is little details I couldn't really have otherwise gotten. Stuff that's minor and incidental in some ways, but weirdly huge in others, in my personal reading.
That he loved Wodehouse and named his dogs Jeeves and Drone was just fascinating to me, for example.
That he smoked American Spirits. Which I'd actually bet someone once, both of us inebriated, and my left hand just resting awkwardly there on her right tit, that there's no way that David Lynch and David Foster Wallace didn't both smoke American Spirits. Mainly because I, too, was smoking American Spirits.
But the bigger thing is: I have this pet theory. More like an opinion. I get verbally defecated upon for it a lot, especially in person, it seems. It goes like this: like, yeah, DFW's stuff obviously has an important literary context and what not, but basically, what really matters about DFW's stuff is basically what really matters about certain sorts of really earnest, sincere, but also very self-aware rock lyrics. That what makes DFW's stuff really Important is what makes said rock lyrics really Important, as art. What comes to mind primarily is stuff like Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and all the good shit they've influenced.
And so I felt vindicated, and it really was a massive and pretty pathetic kind of ego stroke when I read somewhere (I think it's the DT Max book) that DFW listened to sad Springsteen and Neil Young a lot, when sad, and like, wore out Springsteen tapes while writing or something like that. Which is a minor detail really in the narrative of that book, but is super interesting to me.
But people kind of just shake their head at me when I put forth the Springsteen/Young version of that pet theory/opinion/thing. Cause they know me and know that I dig those guys and also DFW to a possibly dangerous and irrational extent.
What really pisses people off, weirdly, though it's probably actually more sensible, is when I put forth the Cobain version of it. I basically really think Wallace and Cobain are on the same cultural and writerly continuum. And that, basically, Infinite Jest is basically what a more erudite and less nihilistic Cobain would've written in the early-mid 90s. I think it makes way more sense to talk about DFW and Cobain in the same breath than to talk about DFW and, like, Gass or Barthelme, in the same breath. This version gets horrible reactions, and people have even claimed that I'm being insensitive to a ridiculous degree (cause they both suicided or something; I'm not clear on the irrational thought involved).
So it was incredibly vindicating to read the following, about Nirvana, that DFW said:
I think it's absolutely incredible. But unbelievably painful. I mean if you, you know, all the stuff that I was groping in a sorta clumsy way to say about our generation? Cobain found. Cobain found incredibly powerful upsetting ways to say the same thing
THERE!
Hey, I know it's not much. But that's kind of the point. Stuff like this is so thoroughly incidental to the fiction and the essays that weird little shit like this is pretty much what seems most valuable about it to me. It's nice to get a little background on some stuff, but little of it is stuff that's vital in any way.
pharmdad2007's review against another edition
4.0
I love that DFW talks just like he writes. This extended interview was very entertaining.
kjboldon's review against another edition
3.0
2 or maybe 3 stars for Lipsky's talking and lack of self insight, 1 for the book's set up and non-connected end notes (afterward before the book?)and 5 for "listening" to DFW talk for days.
jakeyjake's review against another edition
4.0
This year has certainly been a DFW year for me. I started out reading his collection of mostly long-form Harper's essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Then I psyched myself up watching DFW's commencement speech at Kenyon College a couple times and dove headfirst into Infinite Jest. This book was a nice final footnote for me. He talks pretty clearly about what he was trying to do with Infinite Jest and for all the many IJ reading guides out there, I think I like hearing it from him the most.
I also loved his thoughts on his success vs the satisfaction that comes from working hard on something- at time of interviewing he had just been on Time and was getting a lot of good press about IJ.
"And I think that the ultimate way you and I get lucky is if you have some success early in life. You get to find out early it doesn't mean anything, which means you get to start early the work of figuring out what does mean something."
"I'll bet, I mean I don't know you, but I'll bet there will come a time when you realize you're always gonna have about as much success as you need. And that's fine.Where you'll just feel like you can draw a free breath about it. And maybe not for all time, it's just, that sort of, that's the best thing about what's going on right now. Is that I feel like, you know what, this doesn't run me."
"You know, why are we, and by we I mean people like you and me- mostly white, upper middle class or upper class, obscenely well-educated, doing really interesting jobs, sitting in really expensive chairs, watching the best, you know, watching the most sophisticated electronic equipment money can buy- why do we feel empty and unhappy?" "But that's in Hamlet too, just without the channel surfing." "You know, and you put the question that way, as a rhetorical question and its, 'Yeah, yeah yeah yeah!' But what the book's trying to do is put questions like that in a way so that it's hooked into your gut a little bit and you feel some stuff about it. And you feel like, 'Hey, this is me a little bit.'"
"You know if I could just achieve X by age X then something magical, you know. That we're gonna find out, as all generations do, that it's not like that. That at a certain point we're gonna look for something. And the question for me is, what?"
Referring to a small brilliant bit about the devil in a James L Brooks movie (Broadcast News 1987): "You've got this enormous lump of shit and then a rose growing out of it. And then you realize that the more rank the shit, the more saprogenic the shit, the more fertile it is too. And it's not like, 'Oh pop culture's great! We're surrounded by this beauty all the time!' But the trick is that if you can get the right arrangement in your head, and get kind of in the right spirit to really try to pay attention and do the work, to like see what's beautiful in it. The paradox is that the popular stuff is training you not to do the work. It's telling you, you don't have to do the work."
“It’s the only thing I’ve gotten, you know, food pellets from the universe for, to the extent that I wanted.”
I also loved his thoughts on his success vs the satisfaction that comes from working hard on something- at time of interviewing he had just been on Time and was getting a lot of good press about IJ.
"And I think that the ultimate way you and I get lucky is if you have some success early in life. You get to find out early it doesn't mean anything, which means you get to start early the work of figuring out what does mean something."
"I'll bet, I mean I don't know you, but I'll bet there will come a time when you realize you're always gonna have about as much success as you need. And that's fine.Where you'll just feel like you can draw a free breath about it. And maybe not for all time, it's just, that sort of, that's the best thing about what's going on right now. Is that I feel like, you know what, this doesn't run me."
"You know, why are we, and by we I mean people like you and me- mostly white, upper middle class or upper class, obscenely well-educated, doing really interesting jobs, sitting in really expensive chairs, watching the best, you know, watching the most sophisticated electronic equipment money can buy- why do we feel empty and unhappy?" "But that's in Hamlet too, just without the channel surfing." "You know, and you put the question that way, as a rhetorical question and its, 'Yeah, yeah yeah yeah!' But what the book's trying to do is put questions like that in a way so that it's hooked into your gut a little bit and you feel some stuff about it. And you feel like, 'Hey, this is me a little bit.'"
"You know if I could just achieve X by age X then something magical, you know. That we're gonna find out, as all generations do, that it's not like that. That at a certain point we're gonna look for something. And the question for me is, what?"
Referring to a small brilliant bit about the devil in a James L Brooks movie (Broadcast News 1987): "You've got this enormous lump of shit and then a rose growing out of it. And then you realize that the more rank the shit, the more saprogenic the shit, the more fertile it is too. And it's not like, 'Oh pop culture's great! We're surrounded by this beauty all the time!' But the trick is that if you can get the right arrangement in your head, and get kind of in the right spirit to really try to pay attention and do the work, to like see what's beautiful in it. The paradox is that the popular stuff is training you not to do the work. It's telling you, you don't have to do the work."
“It’s the only thing I’ve gotten, you know, food pellets from the universe for, to the extent that I wanted.”
shawnwhy's review against another edition
5.0
very interesting to listen to him talk about NAbokov, television and movies. and just how much Dip he chewed and how much television he watched. the movie kind of dramatized this book alot