David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen and Mark Leyner interview on Charlie Rose (1996)

Authors David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen and Mark Leyner debate the future of American fiction and the appeal it has to the younger generation.

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[ManufacturingIntellect]

Check out these David Foster Wallace books on Amazon!

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[EliSantana]

“...artistic snorkel to the Universe...”

This fucking guy. What I wouldn’t give to have him around today.

[ChichiNaka]

Insane to have this conversation in 1996 before phones and tablets and 'real' internet

[heruser]

David Foster Wallace speaking to commercial art impacting us in deeper ways really hits home with the algorithm telling me to keep consuming and altering my consciousness.

[antihero]

David Foster Wallace is able to see between the lines and insightful enough to elaborate on them, he changed my life.

[jameslatin]

Rose: "Your book is known to be very complicated, even compared to the... internet." hahahahahahahahahaha

[zigsaquaza]

9:42 "Im *totally* with you about *50 per cent* of it"

[poitaots]

i dont think any of them thought i'd be able to download and listen to their books on a calculator sized rectangle that isn't even physically connected to the listening buds in my ears while i work. also i'm 7 hours into infinite jest and have no idea what is going on lol

[EkafEmanresu]

12:26 The way Franzen and Wallace looked at each other when he said that, haha

[brainsareus]

David was so brilliant, yet so tightly wound.

[AW-ezzn]

ahahaha that sassy head bob at 11:46 "enlighTEn me"

[pam]

David Foster Wallace...you are missed. Why do the good ones always leave too soon?

[davidhammond]

Wallace had already thought deeply about and written essays about the relationship between popular culture and fiction writing, so he was better prepared for the question than the others. Dig up his essay "E Unibus Pluram".

[wiseyoutube]

These three men were giants, but listening to DFW really makes you realize he was a bigger giant among giants.

Whereas Franzen and Leyner speak quite linearly and directly, Wallace is fishing between the lines, looking at the paradoxes and contradictions that exist in simplistic notions. You can tell he was always obsessively questioning things with superhuman-like reductivity ... likely at the cost of his psyche.

But it's here I think DFW's thinking is the most _human, _ especially with how prevalent media has become, how the bedrock of morality has crumbled, how easily inquisitive and intelligent the new generation is, and also how well-off they generally are to their parents.

DFW reminds me a lot of Charlie Kaufman, a screenwriter considered great for just how finely between the lines he could see and observe. I feel like if DFW had kept working, he might have suffered the same artistic setback Charlie Kaufman had in creating a masterpiece so complex, human, and honest yet a commercial failure. I'm sure he'd have kept working, but these greats have their time in the sun when their honest works are misinterpreted as something else (like when Infinite Jest was consumed because people thought it was "funny" or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was consumed because people thought it was "quirky").


Charlie then ventured to his next film, Synecdoche, New York, a monument of cinematic genius that fell completely under the radar for most audiences.

[yourladybug]

David Foster Wallace was such a pleasure to listen to. However these three writers are legendary.

[danv]

Jonathan Franzen's haircut has a mind of its own

[daveygentry]

David was clever as usual, but the throwaway line about putting "both these guys in a blender" was about as petty and rude as you could possibly be --- no matter what David meant by it.

[mcbudget]

You guys think TV is bad? Wait till you see what happens to humans with smartphones, internet, social media.

[delta-]

Cut to 2020 and there are TVs on gas station pumps you cant turn off, fast food menus are TVs, and everybody has a TV in their pocket that offers instant access to any number of things that are infinitely more interesting than whatever is going on around you. You couldn't even have this same conversation today without forcing everyone present to turn off their pocket TVs. It's like we're in a some kind of PKD version of the future where instead of actual improvements in quality of life we just get the endless replication of TVs. We're totally fucked.

[BookClubDisaster]

The irony here is DFW is trying to sound like Mr. Everyman but it’s Franzen and Leyner who come across as normal guys while Wallace always sounds professorial with that private liberal arts college lilt to his voice. I saw this interview before I ever read Infinite Jest and I couldn’t get that voice out of my head!