Endnotes: David Foster Wallace (BBC Documentary)

Professor Geoff Ward discusses the life and works of David Foster Wallace

"When David Foster Wallace hanged himself in 2008, at the age of 46, he was considered by many to be the most gifted and linguistically exuberant American novelist and short story writer of his generation. His books include the 1,000-page Infinite Jest, a novel of grand ambition and stylistic experiment that came complete with 388 endnotes. (Footnotes, digressions, constant second guessing of every thought are features of Wallace's signature style).

In April The Pale King, Wallace's final, unfinished novel will be published. Few literary novels have been more eagerly anticipated in recent years. Its great subject is Boredom. Wallace set himself big challenges. Infinite Jest attacked the entertainment industry while trying to entertain and The Pale King engages with boredom as a path toward transcendence.

This Sunday Feature is presented by Professor Geoff Ward, author of a literary history of America. He, like many, was convinced Wallace would be the preeminent American writer to reckon with in the years ahead, and was shocked by his tragic early death. He assesses Wallace's legacy, themes and preoccupations, talking to the precursor Wallace admired most, Don DeLillo, and to friends, collaborators and contemporaries such as Mark Costello and Rick Moody. In the company of the writer's sister, Amy Wallace, Ward travels to the Midwest of America where the writer grew up, and considers the impact of place on his imagination. He also talks to Wallace's publisher and editor Michael Pietsch about the difficult task of assembling Wallace's final fragments into The Pale King.

The programme also contains some rare archive reflections by a young David Foster Wallace, recorded a year before the publication of Infinite Jest, on the role of the writer in an age of media saturation." (BBC Radio 3)

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  People & Blogs

[Jakabones]

I wish you way more than luck.

[Travis Todd]

Picked up a copy of The Pale King at Powell's today, surprised to see it out so soon. I thought it was being released on tax day. Can't wait to dive in. Too bad it's his last work.

[Andrew Kuharevicz]

really good documentary. Nice. He rather edit than breathe. That's about as true as it gets.

[TheEccentricHippie]

I am a die-hard fan, but I actually laughed out loud at this.

By the way, if anybody has yet to hear, Michael Pietsch put together a new essay collection of DFW's work called Both Flesh and Not.

[dontpanic00xx]

Did you watch the whole video and then come on here to make a silly ironic tribute to him? You could very well consider him talentless, but I think this video shows at the very least he was pretty brilliant, and thoughtful about what he did. Where did you discover he was so bad to the people around him?

[Ryan Musa]

This is an extremely well-written comment that I have no choice but to disagree with in the strongest terms possible, either because it professes an idea that I fundamentally reject, or because I can't embrace the levels of irony.

But it is beautiful, whether intended to be or not.

[tristramshandy3]

Perhaps you aren't going to the right places.

[jagovRUS]

pleb detected.

[B94241]

DFW was a respectable & talented human being and not a neurotic shut-in with little talent that treated people around him dreadfully.[1]

[1] this is sarcasm

[simmoneje]

"27:45infantry screws the entertainment industry

27:47as the most dangerous drug roles

27:50is going to go from as an entertainment cartridge so alluring when watched rubs

27:55his view of the will to do anything else"

there's a lack of autonomy when you choose to view what's shown to you instead of seeing something for yourself. It sounds like you're submitting to the spectacle which is not what this documentary or author advocates.

[BaileysChimney]

Almost done re-reading Infinite Jest, I couldn't help perusing these youtube videos.