I Just Read About That…

[LISTENED TO: October 20, 2010] Readings

This (all too brief) collection of readings by David Foster Wallace includes several excerpts and a few shorter pieces.  I’ve noticed that there seem to be more and more videos (audios) of DFW reading on YouTube.  If I had time I would try to gather all of these videos (or even just try to watch them), but for now, I’ll stick with what’s at the David Foster Wallace Audio Project.

The Consider the Lobster reading is an excerpt from”The View from Mrs. Thompson’s”.  I’d never heard him read this piece before and it is a fascinating look at the events of 9/11/01 from Bloomington, Indiana.  I haven’t read the piece in a few years and it was quite affecting to hear him read it aloud.  The introduction was also interesting because he mentions that this is the quickest piece he has ever written (I wonder how many drafts he was able to do in that short period).

Fiction Fragment/Lannan Readings is three unpublished fragments (which may turn up in The Pale King).   The three fragments are about a “boy” (well, actually two different boys).  The first two are about a boy who wishes to touch every part of his body with his lips.  It’s a tale of obsession and loneliness (with lots of medical-speak).  The third piece is about the most considerate boy in the world (whom everyone hates).  The stories are weird and dark and he reads them with a lot of gusto.  The last piece in this reading is “Incarnations of Burned Children,” one of the most harrowing pieces of fiction that I know of and which he introduces as being inappropriate for reading.  I also didn’t realize that it came from Esquire and that I believe I may have never actually read.  I listened to this when I first found this audio recording (about a year ago) and I found it so disconcerting I hoped to never hear it again…and yet I listened one more time for this post.  I suppose I should read it for myself, but I’m not sure I can.

Free Library of Philadelphia 06/22/04 and then I got to hear it again.  Because the second piece here (which he introduces as “funny” is, indeed, “Incarnations of Burned Children.”  It’s quite a similar reading, but it’s still quite harrowing, and now I really never want to hear the story again.  The first story is an excerpt from “The Soul is Not a Smithy” which is similar to the excerpt he read in one of the audio interviews (but this is longer).  He reads most of the section where the boy waits for his father to get home.  It is completely evocative and his reading really brings it to life.  I do wish there was a reading of the classroom section, though.  This reading ends with a Q &A.  The Q about Star Wars & Shakespeare is pretty fascinating.

State Fair excerpt is a reading at, I believe, Harper’s anniversary. It focuses on the baton twirlers section and it is very funny.

Kenyon College Commencement is an excerpt from This is Water.

Remarks on Kafka is a reading from the piece “A Series of Remarks on Kafka’s Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed” in Consider the Lobster.  The audio is strange on this one; it seems slowed down just enough that I wasn’t entirely sure it was him reading.  But it did make me want to read Kafka’s short stories.

This American Life show is about politics.  This episode features DFW reading an excerpt from “Up Simba!” (or “McCain’s Promise”).  I wondered if they used the audio from the audio book (which I haven’t heard yet).  I assume they must have because I can’t imagine him re-reading the whole thing for the 29 minute show.  I rather like this version because TAL includes musical snippets and sound effects which add an extra dimension to the story.  Given everything that’s happened since that piece was written, this is an interesting look at how politics has changed in ten years.  It’s probably my favorite audio piece here.

Also included on the site is the audio book of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.  In addition to the official release, there’s a collection of brief interviews which were staged by George Carr as part of The Howling Fantods’ Brief Interviews Project.  I’ll talk about both of these in a separate post.

DFW’s readings of his own work are fascinating.  His reading style is almost deadpan and can be very soporific if you’re in the right frame of mind. This deadpan style works rather well for most of his stories since his narrators tends to be detached and almost disinterested in what they are reporting.  But because he knows what he wrote, he brings to life a lot of sections of his stories that are harder to read (scientific lingo, long lists, extensive details), and they also show that despite his long sentences, they are completely understandable syntactically.  It’s a treat to hear these stories, and I’m looking forward to Brief Interviews.

Oh, and the Q&A at the end of the Philadelphia reading provides an answer to IJ that I have been wondering basically since I read it.

Q: Why couldn’t Hal communicate at the beginning?  Was is the moss?

A: Here’s a diplomatic answer: there are between 3 and 5 possible explanations for that, if the book’s set up right any one of which is not implausible and not wholly uninteresting.

True, this is a non-answer.  And yet, it is also exactly the answer that any attentive reader of IJ may want.  We don’t want to know what the answer IS, necessarily, rather we want to know that there isn’t one definite answer.  By knowing that DFW intended there to be several possibilities, it takes the onus off of us for not being able to narrow down THE answer.  This is incredibly liberating and also quite satisfying as it opens up far more avenues of discussion than it could ever close.  And knowing that no one will be “right” means that the conversations can continue….