This Evening I Begin A

Mr. Franzen Said He And Mr. Wallace, Over Years Of Letters And Conversations About The Ethical Role Of The Novelist, Had Come To The Joint Conclusion That The Purpose Of Writing Fiction Was “a Way Out Of Loneliness.” (ny Times Article On The Memorial Service Of David Foster Wallace.)

If You Read The Biographies Of People Who Have Written Good Books, You Often See The Point Where They Suddenly Come Into Themselves, And Those Weeks In The Spring Of 1997 Were When I Came Into Myself As A Writer. They Feel Like Some Of The Best Weeks Of Writing I’ll Ever Have. The Discovery That I Could Write Better About Something As Trivial As An Ordinary Family Dinner Than I Could About The Exploding Prison Population Of The United States, And The Corporatization Of American Life, And All The Other Things I’d Been Trying To Do, Was A Real Revelation.

Expecting A Novel To Bear The Weight Of Our Whole Disturbed Society—to Help Solve Our Contemporary Problems—seems To Me A Peculiarly American Delusion. To Write Sentences Of Such Authenticity That Refuge Can Be Taken In Them: Isn't This Enough? Isn't It A Lot?

Remind Me Again What's Wrong With Dave Matthews?" "basically Everything, Except Technical Proficiency," Walter Said. "right." "but Maybe Especially The Banality Of The Lyrics. 'gotta Be Free, So Free, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Can't Live Without My Freedom, Yeah Yeah.' That's Pretty Much Every Song.

Certain Kinds Of Things That The Novel Used To Do, Which Was, "oh, I'm Living Out Here In West Nowhere, Nebraska And I'm Curious How The Upper Class In New York City Lives, I Guess I'll Read A Novel About It." We Don't Have To Do That Now. You Just Turn On The Tv. Turn On Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous. You Can Get That Information Anywhere. Novels Don't Have To Do That Anymore.