Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace

This is the only book I've ever pre-ordered from Amazon. Its structure and content are no secret - it's right there in the title. The road trip in question took place as David Foster Wallace was winding down the book tour for "Infinite Jest"; David Lipsky had been assigned to interview him for Rolling Stone. That interview never came to fruition - instead, Lipsky brings us this account of their 5-day road trip from March 1996.I thought I'd devour it in one sitting, but it actually took a while to warm up to it - the first 100 pages meander somewhat and are a little repetitive. But then, as the two men get more comfortable with each other, Lipsky hits his stride - the unwinding, ongoing conversation gets more and more interesting. The final 100 pages are fascinating, moving and bittersweet - as is so often the case with DFW, you come away with the mixture of exhilaration and sense of privilege that comes from experiencing him at his best, and his suicide is all the more heartbreaking. This book may not necessarily win him any new fans, but for someone like me, with a long-standing intellectual crush on DFW, this further chance to experience his wit, smartness and decency seemed like a blessing.David Lipsky has done a good thing by sharing the story of his time with DFW. He seems a little uncertain about how best to structure the narrative, and I wouldn't say that all of his choices are ideal. I mean him no disrespect, but the parts that worked best were the straight transcripts of their conversation, with minimal interruption. His sporadic efforts to sprinkle in atmospheric details were not particularly helpful. It's a safe bet that the folks reading this book are not doing so for his descriptions of the ambience at Denny's.But actually, writing this book can't have been easy for Lipsky; to do it well, he had to keep his own presence as muted as possible, emphasizing his role as reporter over that of author. It's to his credit that he does this well. Most of the book is just the transcript of Foster Wallace's words, with occasional commentary, which I didn't find particularly insightful, but was also relatively unobtrusive. Lipsky stumbles occasionally at the beginning of the interview, there is a certain awkwardness, but as the two men establish rapport the problem fixes itself, and he does a great job of drawing DFW out in the later parts of the book. In a very few instances Lipsky was downright obnoxious - badgering the writer repeatedly about some third-hand rumor that Rolling Stone had fed him about a possible heroin addiction in his past. DFW denies it point blank at the outset, but Lipsky keeps gnawing like a jackal; after a while you realize that it takes him the better part of the entire trip to understand - finally - that having an addictive personality (i.e. prone to addiction) is not the same thing as being an addict. But, to be fair, nobody is going to come off looking smart when interviewing David Foster Wallace. Though Lipsky should probably have read "Infinite Jest" more thoroughly beforehand, given he was about to spend several days with the author.Concretely, what might one expect to learn about DFW from this book? He was clearly hugely ambivalent about the potential price of success, fame and the associated hype - this is a recurrent theme throughout. There's some biographical material about his earlier life that may be unfamiliar, and assorted trivia about his taste in movies and TV shows. But the true pleasure in reading this book lies in the journey, getting to spend more time with DFW, if only figuratively.Isolated remarks or information that stuck with me:* (on the literary scene in New York) "the enormous hiss of egos at various stages of inflation and deflation"* (while confessing his fondness for Alanis Morrissette) "Sheryl Crow made me want to vomit, from the very beginning".* I liked that even the omniscient DFW stumbled occasionally, misidentifying Frank O' Connor, author of "My Oedipus Complex", "First Confession" among other stories, as "Frank O' Hara".* I loved that he infuriated his editor by printing out the first draft of "Infinite Jest" single-spaced in 9-point type, to try to make it seem shorter than its actual length, and that the editor screamed at him and forced him to print him a fresh copy, double-spaced.Throughout the extended interview, Foster Wallace also gives a pretty cogent explanation for the type of deliberate complication of the reader's experience that is an integral part of "Infinite Jest". For anyone specifically interested in reading what he has to say about his own writing, one of the best bets is still Laura Miller's 1996 interview in Salon.com: [...]Damn. Writing this review just makes me sad all over again about his suicide. A terrible loss.

I just finished watching the film THE END OF THE TOUR. It was my third or fourth viewing (of this excellent film) and each time I come away a bit depressed, saddened by the reality of DFW’s passing. I think David Foster Wallace was a genius, something a man of his insecurities wouldn’t like hearing, but it’s true. And it pains me to think of the great novels he still harbored in that mind. Actor Jason Segel brings DFW to life on the screen for 90 plus minutes in that film, speaking the very words David Lipsky recorded during his road trip with DFW on that final book tour for his novel INFINITE JEST: this is the book, Lipsky’s book, on which the film is based.Back in 1996, writer David Lipsky is sent by Rolling Stone to join David Foster Wallace on the final leg of his INFINITE JEST book tour, to get to know the man who has just become internationally famous for his acclaimed 1,000-plus page novel. ALTHOUGH OF COURSE YOU END UP BECOMING YOURSELF is the transcription of the tapes from those days on the road with DFW.I supposed you’d have to be something of a DFW admirer to enjoy this book -- I mean, to really enjoy it, and since a lot of it entails discussions about INFINITE JEST, and what DFW was trying to say in that novel, having read INFINITE JEST would also be a prerequisite for full enjoyment of Lipsky’s book. What DFW makes clear in his conversations with Lipsky is that INFINITE JEST is about entertainment, about how entertainment is on a continuum of addictions which we, as Americans, seem peculiarly susceptible, TV, in particular. DFW envisions in IJ a near future where a video exists which is so entertaining that it holds the viewer in a reverie so powerful that he dies from starvation and sleep deprivation -- the viewer literally cannot stop watching. This is all told, of course, in Wallace’s unique prose style -- it’s comedy, science fiction, a foretelling.I loved BECOMING YOURSELF because I loved DFW’s writing, and reading his words -- the words from DFW the writer and the man, not a character in one of his novels -- is about as close to a conversation with him as I’ll ever get. This book, for that reason alone, is a treasure.

David Foster Wallace is a figure viewed by some as a kind of guru; not only is his writing revered, but his tragically tumultuous life, with its several intellectual and creative foci, seems to resonate with people of a like disposition (or who would like to be an intellectual giant of his calibre!), to the extent almost of a personality cult. A fan, but not quite rabid, I read this book hand in hand with D. T. Max's DFW biography, 'Every Love Story is a Ghost Story', from which combination a sense of a somewhat difficult and far from messianic personality is revealed. Nonetheless, what shines forth most brightly is the incredibly potent mind that DFW possessed. I have seen criticisms of what some claim to be Lipsky's presumptuous or self-aggrandising attempts to interact with DFW on an equal footing; frankly, this is the only way casual conversations such as these ought to be conducted, without the fawning and bowing and scraping people often demand others show to their idols. For all his achievements and intellectual vastness, DFW was just another man, one who, sadly, it seems found life too great a mystery to solve. At any rate, Lipsky is the one who has put this book together, so DFW fans can get a nice insight into what makes him tick- or, at least, what he SAYS makes him tick; I for one don't believe this is a man the depths of whom can be so easily plumbed. He might not be a god amongst men, but he was a great writer, without whose continued presence and contributions to Western literature we are far the poorer. RIP DFW.

Dieses Buch besteht aus der Transkription der Tonaufnahmen, die von David Lipsky 1996 für einen Rolling Stone Artikel angefertigt wurden, als er David Foster Wallace gegen Ende dessen "Unendlicher Spaß"-Tour fünf Tage lang begleitet hat.Dazu kommen Anmerkungen des Autors, die unter anderem die Erlebnisse von damals im Hinblick auf Wallace's Suizid 2008 kommentieren.Wallace's menschenoffene Attitüde und Lipsky's ehrliches Interesse bauen direkt einen Draht zwischen den beiden auf.Es werden viele Themen, mal sehr humorvoll, mal bedächtig, diskutiert, u. A. Popkultur, Familie, Literatur & die amerikanische Autoren-Szene, bis hin zu sehr gedankenvollen Gesprächen über das Selbst, Einsamkeit, Selbstzweifel, Depressionen, usw., womit Wallace sehr ehrliche und tiefe Einblicke in sein Privatleben gibt.Intim, lustig, nachdenklich, berührend. Ein wirklich lesenswertes Buch, für jeden Wallace-Sympathisanten ohnehin ein Must-Read.

Reading this book grave me a lot. Helped me to know more of an author I deeply admire. Emotional experience

Amazing. What a great introduction to David Foster Wallace. I saw the film first without knowing anything about him. So it was fascinating to read the real story that the movie is based on. Love it.

If you love Foster Wallace, this is his voice! Loved it!