A conversation with David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, and Mark Leyner

with David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen and Mark Leyner
in Books
on Friday, May 17, 1996 * * * * *

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A conversation about the future of fiction in the information age with David Foster Wallace, author of "Jest", Jonathan Franzen, author of "Strong", and Mark Leyner, author of "Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog".

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Keywords:
How to be Alone
Mark Leyner
Jest
new fiction
Jonathan Franzen
Strong

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    1. ShalomFreedman  03/22/2012 06:05 AM Report

      Viewing this sixteen years after it has taken place the knowledge of what has happened to those interviewed in the meantime strongly shapes my reaction. Most especially of course it is seeing a young, bright, sharp and tremendously lively David Foster Wallace and thinking of the the fact that he is no longer here. Both he and Franzen have gone into the stratosphere in terms of fame and popularity though this is something they were already ironically dealing with at the time. Leytner is just now reappearing with a new book after a fifteen year interval.

      The discussion focuses a lot on Television, popular entertainment and what the Novel is or should be about. Foster- Wallace and Leytner make it clear that they want to 'delight' their readers. And apparently they have. Seeing the three so young and bright the thought of course is what happens to everyone, including Charlie Rose, with the years.

      As it is now the audience participation of the Internet culture Charlie Rose mentions here seems to involve a different kind of world than the TV one. Instead of the passive spectators we now have the over- active participants. Leyner tweets, he tells the NYTimes today but so today do many million others.

      What is important and what is of real value is a question which seems to have lost its authoritative answer. But these three have entertained and I suppose moved a lot, and certainly done more than their share to make the show go on. Charlie Rose certainly has done more than his share.

      I should add somewhat apogeletically that I have never had the patience for the fiction of either Foster- Wallace or Franzen. Perhaps I watched too much television in my youth, or read too many other kinds of books. Perhaps I am too much involved in the 'Internet world' now. But one thing that world has taught us is the largeness and variety of good work being done by others who we ourselves will never really know or grasp. These three guys may be the greatest and certainly are to many others. I however enjoyed them more in this one small television segment than I have as a reader.

    2. neckbeard  10/25/2008 11:11 AM Report

      Much too short given the three guys involved, their work, their dynamic together and the fact that we will now never see anything new from DFW.