Despre David Foster Wallace
A murit un scriitor tare. S-a sinucis la 46 de ani. Nu-mi place sa fac necroloage si nici sa dau interpretari de lectura in memoriam. O sa citez doar citeva chestii dintr-un interviu de-al sau. Va recomand in plus textele de dedicate de Time, IHT sau Salon . Omul chiar avea prospetimea aia de scriitor adevarat in contactul cu evidente cliseizate, in legatura cu popcultura, in legatura cu sportul. Articolul despre Federer e legendar… Asadar, citeva citate din interviul dat, dupa publicarea romanului „Infinite Jest”, in 1996 pt Salon:
- Asta-i unul dintre citatele mele favorite, despre simplitate si experienta personala: It seems to me that the intellectualization and aestheticizing of principles and values in this country is one of the things that’s gutted our generation. All the things that my parents said to me, like „It’s really important not to lie.” OK, check, got it. I nod at that but I really don’t feel it. Until I get to be about 30 and I realize that if I lie to you, I also can’t trust you. I feel that I’m in pain, I’m nervous, I’m lonely and I can’t figure out why. Then I realize, „Oh, perhaps the way to deal with this is really not to lie.” The idea that something so simple and, really, so aesthetically uninteresting – which for me meant you pass over it for the interesting, complex stuff – can actually be nourishing in a way that arch, meta, ironic, pomo stuff can’t, that seems to me to be important. That seems to me like something our generation needs to feel.
- despre puterea popculturii si atitudini stupide in fata fortei ei: „The project that’s worth trying is to do stuff that has some of the richness and challenge and emotional and intellectual difficulty of avant-garde literary stuff, stuff that makes the reader confront things rather than ignore them, but to do that in such a way that it’s also pleasurable to read. The reader feels like someone is talking to him rather than striking a number of poses.Part of it has to do with living in an era when there’s so much entertainment available, genuine entertainment, and figuring out how fiction is going to stake out its territory in that sort of era. You can try to confront what it is that makes fiction magical in a way that other kinds of art and entertainment aren’t. And to figure out how fiction can engage a reader, much of whose sensibility has been formed by pop culture, without simply becoming more shit in the pop culture machine. It’s unbelievably difficult and confusing and scary, but it’s neat. There’s so much mass commercial entertainment that’s so good and so slick, this is something that I don’t think any other generation has confronted. That’s what it’s like to be a writer now. I think it’s the best time to be alive ever and it’s probably the best time to be a writer. I’m not sure it’s the easiest time.
Articol scris in colaborare cu Dragos Stanca
