It might just be that simple.

“DFW: I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. Since an ineluctable part of being a human self is suffering, part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering, necessarily a vicarious experience, more like a sort of “generalization” of suffering. Does this make sense? We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple”

via.

David Foster Wallace on genteelism.

via.

David Foster Wallace Reads From ‘Getting Away From Pretty Much Being Away From It All’.

The David Foster Wallace Audio Project.

There is a fantastic selection of David Foster Wallace related mp3s over at  The David Foster Wallace Audio Project. This is a great collection, including the long out of print recording of DFW reading Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.

A late night recitation.

via not being able to fall asleep and Infinite Jest Note 123.

Sunday Reading.

1.

Oh Molly Lambert. If you don’t follow This Recording you should.

2. In honor of Federer completing his Grand Slam, DFW’s Roger Federer as Religious Experience.

3. Obama is getting rid of the Bush admin’s art.

4. On working with David Fincher.

Note to self.

If Sundays already depress you, don’t spend the day with the following activities.

1.

2.

http://www.granadahouse.org/alumni_letters.htm

3.

4.