Monday, April 19, 2010

Ininite Jesters



I have joined a book club and I have to say that I am delighted that our first pick is David Lipsky's Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace.

David Lipsky, now an editor of Rolling Stone magazine took a five day road trip with David Foster Wallace, at the beginning of his Infinite Jest tour, back in 1996.



This is also at the beginning of Lipsky's turn as a writer for Rolling Stone and perhaps because both Wallace and Lipsky are at the beginning of success, the truths revealed in his interview are that much more poignant.

By turns, insightful, funny and intimate, this book is the straight up interview between Wallace and Lipsky during the five day book tour. Lipsky reveals a Wallace that few people ever got to meet. Wallace was a very private person, who battled with depression his entire life, and dually was a high school athlete, and stellar college professor, who avoided the spotlight whenever he could. In order to get out of television appearances for his book Wallace allowed Lipsky to shadow him and record conversations for a Rolling Stones article. Though the article was not published at the time, Lipsky had a way of asking the appropriate questions to get very candid responses.

While delving into Infinite Jest is a feat in and of itself, getting to understand the man behind this behemoth of modern literature is what this book helps one do. I really look forward to discussing it with my Boss Lady Book club at our next meeting!

~Paz,

Nieves

To order your copy of Infinite Jest from the Odyssey click here.
or
to order Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace, from the Odyssey click here.

1 comment:

Broche Fabian said...

Ooh, check out this post about David Foster Wallace's vocabulary choices:

http://rebf-afterthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/04/david-foster-wallace-vocabulary.html