This is how I fall in love. A distinct person (read artist) shows intriguing traits and unusual type of work, which takes a stab at my curiosity like a hungry bumble bee. Like dropping out from philosophy classes, writing a 1000+ page celebrated novel and committing suicide at 46 years old. That clues me in that the guy knows a thing or two about intensity. Then I read a little bit about that artist and I find amazing quotes to which I can rely with ease. For example:
Once the first-person pronoun creeps into your agenda you’re dead, art-wise.That’s why fiction-writing’s lonely in a way most people misunderstand. It’s yourself you have to be estranged from, really, to work.
or
The idea of being a "writer" repelled me, mostly because of all the foppish aesthetes I knew at school who went around in berets stroking their chins calling themselves writers. I have a terror of seeming like those guys, still. Even today, when people I don’t know ask me what I do for a living, I usually tell them I’m "in English" or I "work free-lance." I don’t seem to be able to call myself a writer. And terms like "postmodernist" or "surrealist" send me straight to the bathroom, I’ve got to tell you.
Then I want to read their work really bad. Here is an amazing interview with David Foster Wallace, a writer I have discovered the existence of last week. Needless to say, I have yet to read his fiction. But yet, I admire the man already. I admire him for his ferocious will to democratize academia and to bring enlightment down from any elitist pedestals. This is a long interview I took more than an hour to read, but I couldn't detach myself from it as he swung all-out against any pretentious idea, coming from a dead or alive intellectual, Fred Nietzsche style. Suicide at 46 years old aside, I'm looking up to him already. I got some book shopping to do when I'll come back from Argentina! For those who might have missed it in my paragraph. Take an hour or two to read it. It's worth your time.
Interview with David Foster Wallace
