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Book Club Fri Feb 24 2012
A Note on David Foster Wallace for His Birthday
David Foster Wallace would have turned 50 years old on Tuesday, and it is worth taking pause for those of us with bookish interests, and for all of us, really. It is a sad reminder that his genius, of which so many have enjoyed the fruit, tortured him, and that the world will never see another new word penned by this master of footnotes, save for the unlikely event that another posthumous work comes to light.
Whether or not you are a regular Wallace consumer, or entirely new to his uniquely sensitive text, here's a small round up of his work that you can read or watch online:
1. "Consider the Lobster" published in Gourmet magazine in 2004.
2. An interview in Amherst College's alumni magazine, his alma mater.
3. Another interview by Salon in 1996.
4. The Atlantic published "The Host" by Wallace in 2005.
5. You can watch him speak at a literary festival in Italy, Le Conversazioni, where he appeared alongside Jonathan Franzen, Jeffrey Eugenides, Zadie Smith, and Nathan Englander. He draws laughter from the crowd, discussing a sense of disorientation (feeling like a "baby") being in a foreign country where he does not speak the language.
6. He also appeared with Franzen on the "Charlie Rose show" to discuss what the future holds for the novel in the internet age. This one's from 1996.
