Charlie Rose Interview with David Foster Wallace

This interview was my first exposure to David Foster Wallace:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/6191

As I said on the first day of class, I really love Wallace in this interview, and hearing him speak about why he loves writing and literature was the main thing that got me interested in his work. Wallace states, "What drew me into writing was mostly memories of really fun rainy afternoons with a book, it was a kind of a relationship...Part of the fun for me was being part of some kind of exchange of consciousnesses, a way for human beings to talk to each other about stuff that we normally can't talk about.". I have always felt that there is something very intimate about reading literature, delving into not just the events of a novel but into the psyche of both the characters and the author, in a way that even the closest of typical human relationships rarely do. We get to a glance at someone's deepest, innermost feelings and thoughts and values through reading their literary work.

As I continued to watch the interview I heard some ideas very pertinent to our study of Infinite Jest, issues relating to living and reading in a world taken over by electronic entertainment. Wallace says, "The thing that interests me in a lot of the stuff I think that I do has to do with commercial entertainment...it's sheer ability to deliver pleasure in large doses changes people's relationship to art and entertainment, it changes what an audience is looking for, I would argue it changes us in deeper ways than that."