273 pages
Published Jan. 13, 2001 by Time Warner Books Uk.
Brilliant writing that attempts to push the boundaries of fiction while providing depressing/hilarious insights into the human condition.
What's not to like?
Solamente la presencia de 'Octet' justifica las cuatro estrellas. La que le falta se la quita algún relato infumable a más no poder (sí, tiene).
Like the point in Infinite Jest where he says the 'fun' had long since fallen off the 'too much fun'. There's a line in "The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace" (David Lipsky, 'Rolling Stone', 2008) to the effect that, "Wallace's fiction especially after 'Infinite Jest' [became] chilly, dark, abstract." While the nonfiction didn't - the essays and journalism being his public persona, much like a comic going on stage and doing an upbeat, humorous routine then returning to a different inner life.
And like a kind of inerrantism - whereby if your opponent disagrees with you it is because they are insufficiently good, or intelligent, or virtuous - this collection brings with it a feeling that if you, the reader, don't get on with it, it is because you are insufficiently capable to read it and understand.
Some of it - "The devil is a busy …
Like the point in Infinite Jest where he says the 'fun' had long since fallen off the 'too much fun'. There's a line in "The Lost Years and Last Days of David Foster Wallace" (David Lipsky, 'Rolling Stone', 2008) to the effect that, "Wallace's fiction especially after 'Infinite Jest' [became] chilly, dark, abstract." While the nonfiction didn't - the essays and journalism being his public persona, much like a comic going on stage and doing an upbeat, humorous routine then returning to a different inner life.
And like a kind of inerrantism - whereby if your opponent disagrees with you it is because they are insufficiently good, or intelligent, or virtuous - this collection brings with it a feeling that if you, the reader, don't get on with it, it is because you are insufficiently capable to read it and understand.
Some of it - "The devil is a busy man" and the outstanding "Forever overhead" - shows signs of the old more accessible DFW. "The Depressed person" overwhelms by its details and yet retains a feelng of authenticity and keeps the reader's interest.
The title set of stories is not so much conversations, as I understand it, not 'interviews' in the journalistic sense as police interviews of possible suspects in a sex-related killing. In these however and also in "Forever overhead" to some extent and also very very much and hilariously in "Adult World" which does as someone said here read like an Irvine Welsh story some of the time, Wallace approaches the issue of Sex, which issue has very largely been absent from his fiction up until now.
"Datum Centurio" also which sees him return to Science Fiction though very linguistically. However, "Tri-Stan": what is that all about then?
You need to read these stories more than once, quite probably more than twice, and it can be like beating a path through thorns to do it.
I really wish I could give this 4 and a half stars.
This was an extremely difficult collection of stories to work through. If you don't value the rewards of working through difficult prose, this book is not for you.
It's a powerful collection, filled with characters that I was often horrified to discover I related to. I was most struck by The Depressed Person, a powerful story that just won't leave my head. The last interview is also powerful, and it has made an indelible mark in my brain.
