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Aug 19, 2010

Buck rated it:

When it comes to David Foster Wallace, I’m not exactly a ‘howling fantod’—more of a casual admirer—but I still find it difficult to write about him without getting sappy. What made his death that much harder to take was the sense that we’d lost, not just a good writer, but a good man. And there isn’t such a plentiful supply of either quantity lying around that we can afford to be blasé about it.

On my emotional map of world literature, Wallace is right next door to George Orwell—wh More...

7 comments like (38 people liked it)

Jul 17, 2010

Matt rated it:

Back in my misspent early twenties I labored for far longer than was prudent on a short story. The story involved a young writer who had stumbled into becoming the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist of his day. People were so enamored with his thoughts and found his insights so refreshing that the books themselves soon became superfluous. When the corporate overlord types realized that the fans were getting an adequate fix from merely basking in his aura at readings and the occasional late nig More...

3 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jul 10, 2010

Jimmy rated it:

I'm constantly at a loss for words, or just generally inarticulate whenever I attempt to explain why I think David Foster Wallace is such an extremely important writer and thinker. These attempts often result in an adjective-laden stream of fawning praise; the sort of comments that I try to avoid when I can. In the end, I'm just too frustrated to speak or write, especially when I'm left with the task of defending him in a social environment. And I'm now especially frustrated because there are More...

10 comments like (10 people liked it)

May 29, 2010

unnarrator rated it:

Sure, you were sometimes kind of a jerk, Lipsky, with your relentless, page-after-PAGE obsession with getting Dave to admit that he was revelling in his slender post-IJ fame...but I'm deeply grateful to you anyway, for hustling this into print and giving me a few more hours with the guy. I really needed them, today. So thanks again, for that—and for having grown up quite a bit in between interview and publication, so that you could wryly perceive and admit to us that a) he was mostly yanking you More...

29 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 23, 2011

Mark rated it:

This 300-page interview reads like a transcript of the best conversation you've ever had in your life, with the most interesting, erudite, and cleverest person you've ever known. It made me want to go back in time to my college years and seek out the people I knew then who used to set my brain on fire with our 2 a.m. debates about what it means to be alive, and how best to be an above-average human being. Above all, this book made me wish that I still had friends like that in my life and, perhap More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2010

Schuyler rated it:

Full Disclosure: I am a huge DFW fan, so, ya know, there was very little chance I wasn't going to like this "book".

I say "book" because it's not really a book in the traditional sense, more just a 310 page interview with David Foster Wallace during the last leg of his Infinite Jest book tour in 1996. A lot of what DFW talks about, as far as certain ideas about television, technology, entertainment, addiction, America, etc, I'd already read in other interviews (t More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Jul 01, 2010

Matthew rated it:

I'm really conflicted about this book. The bulk of it is just David Foster Wallace talking, and those parts are great. So many of DFW's essays are conversational, so a long transcribed conversation feels like a natural extension of his work. What really sucks, though, is that I think I hate David Lipsky. Like serious full-on loathing of his persona and the way he handled both the interview and the editing of the book.

This book has the feel of a second draft. It reads like Lipsky tran More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Jul 01, 2010

Dan rated it:

One of Stephen King's greatest characters ever, Roland Deschain of Gilead, was a Gunslinger. In King's universe, a Gunslinger was a kind of "walking justice" that roamed the worlds trying to keep order where disorder reigned. These men were by no means sages or smiling monks. They were filled with a sense of right and wrong in the world that made them lethal when they needed to be. But it was their knowledge, their ability to understand others around them, that made them best suite More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 10, 2010

Eileen rated it:

This book is everything I hoped it would be and more. I was looking for a book that would give me even more of a glimpse into DFW's brain / soul / heart than his non-fiction does. This book turned out to be, not a biography, which is what I was expecting, but, instead, a five-day interview with DFW, mostly verbatim.

I feel like I'M the one asking him the questions and hearing his responses. It is so very moving to read now, after his suicide, how he felt about his successes at th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 05, 2010

Gunnar rated it:

While Lipsky himself did little more than transcribe his tapes, his foreword and afterward were both heartfelt and sincere. In terms of the interviews, we get a picture of Wallace at one of the best times of his life---sober, stable, and content in his own way. It's for this reason that I liked the book: you really feel like you're chatting with an old friend, sitting in his messy living room with his dogs barking all the time. It's tremendously sad to wonder "what if?" at a lot of th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 22, 2012

Jeanne rated it:

Made me want to read Infinite Jest, which no combination of sociocultural pressure, friend recommendations, or DFW's previous books could do. The two black specks on the surface of the facing mirrors' glass here: Lipsky's habit of rendering DFW's speech idiosyncrasies in dialect, which is fine and endearing when he does it in the introduction ("by the way, DFW says 'dudn't'") and less fine when he actually swaps out the word in DFW's transcribed speech, usually when DFW is talking abou More...

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Nov 26, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

It reads like the set-up for a buddy comedy.

Two young writers – one a wide-eyed journalist still cutting his teeth with Rolling Stone after a less-than-successful attempt to make a living as a novelist, the other the somewhat burned out recent author of a ten-pound tome taking the literary world by storm – team up for a road trip where the former covers the latter’s final stops on a whirlwind press tour. Flight cancellations, diner food, and late night conversations ensue – as do enou More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 20, 2011

Ryan rated it:

David Foster Wallace is my favorite writer. Reading Infinite Jest was a life-changer for me because I felt like, for the first time, someone had really captured what it's like to be alive right now. The internal voices of his characters sounded like me or like people I knew, and they dealt with problems and conflicts that are real right now. Foster Wallace's suicide in 2008 made me incredibly sad.

Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself is about a road trip that he took wit More...

0 comments like

Aug 09, 2011

The Awdude rated it:

For me, DFW is pretty much the first writer (or for that matter, the first personal idol of mine from any realm of celibritas) whose private biography and self-everydayness has, apart from my interest in his brilliant fiction, quietly and mysteriously fascinated me. I'm sure this is due in no small part to the hype, the tragedy, etc. But there's also something uncanny about the feeling you get from just being in the presence of his presence--like an aura I guess--and it strikes me again and agai More...

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Aug 09, 2011

John rated it:

I vaccilated wildly from being thrilled to profoundly saddened reading this book, which basically is a transcript from the mid-90's of David Foster Wallace on the last leg of his Infinite Jest book tour. I read the last half of this starting at 2am, for some reason, probably because this was gnawing at me.

At first, I had some trouble adjusting to 1990's Lipsky conducting the interview, I didn't like him a lot-- particularly the part where DFW was taking a shower and Lipsky talked to someone at More...

0 comments like

Aug 06, 2011

Ron rated it:

The story gets off to a horrendous start, with Lipsky offering up a forward, a prologue and an afterward at the beginning of the book in what is ostensibly an homage to Wallace's style (it is not the 'blue magic' Nabakov called imitation). Lipsky's asides into Wallace's psyche are, throughout the first 2/3s of the book, horribly intrusive and seemingly ill-considered--despite the fact that he vainly attempts to back up his assertions by name-dropping the other famous authors the duo know in comm More...

0 comments like

Aug 05, 2011

Rachel rated it:

My cuz, Christina sent me this book and I didn't even bother looking up what it was. I figured it was something she knew I'd like.

I'm kind of ashamed to like this book, which is basically a transcription of a Rolling Stone editor's road trip with DFWallace. I'm ashamed because it means I'm one of those fans who likes the author as a celebrity as well as what the author writes.

The best thing about this book was how inspiring it was that DFW had so many ups and downs. How he sp More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 06, 2011

Aaron rated it:

I wanted to like this more than I did.

And I did like it. I found myself taking notes on the more quotable bits, cross referencing in the margins, remembering how much I love DFW and his works and his words and his world view. I was blown away by his general decency. I was riveted by his explanations about why work I would normally consider to be "good" or "excellent" is really not all that great when you start breaking it down. I was pleasantly surprised to disco More...

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Mar 12, 2011

Greg rated it:

Right off the bat, let me apologize to my readers for this too-long and rather narrow post, subjectwise — I fully realize that this post and the book it's describing won't appeal to anyone who hasn't read Infinite Jest or who doesn't care about David Foster Wallace. But I loved reading "Becoming Yourself" and wanted to write about it in some detail in case someone out there is a DFW fan and hasn't come across it yet.

And but so, if you ARE as big a fan of David Foster Wallace More...

0 comments like

Feb 22, 2011

switterbug (Betsey) rated it:

David Lipsky has done a laudable service for both David Foster Wallace and his readership with this jaunty road-trip/interview/memoir. As Infinite Jest was being launched in 1996 and Wallace was nearing the end of his book tour, Lipsky, a rising name in journalism, followed Wallace through the last week of the tour, the Midwest portion, and recorded almost every word spoken. (The piece was supposed to run in Rolling Stone , but never did. Bad timing due to the untimely death of a rock star and o More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2011

christa rated it:

As I was reading "Infinite Jest," I was simultaneously reading "Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace," a straight up five-day dialogue between the author David Lipsky and DFW, taken from tapes made while D Lips was interviewing DF-Dubs for a piece in Rolling Stone that was eventually killed.

What a treat, this chance to eavesdrop on these two dudes as they kick it at DF-Dubs' pad, at airports, diners, long car rides, More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Thomas rated it:

the introduction, preface, and afterword--all of which were located at the beginning--were downright painful to read, both because of what happened 9/12/08 and because of the grating writing style, so i started with a fairly intense dislike of lipsky. to be frank, it scared me: scared me that he was going to ruin this remarkable opportunity to read what is essentially a transcript of five days with dfw. but as soon as the actual book began, the pleasure of being again with dfw so eclipsed any op More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2010

mark rated it:

This book really, really, really moved me, which is what good books should do. I cried – because I felt like if he had lived, we could have been friends—really, really, really good friends. That’s the way he talked, Wallace. The book is just, just? Only, only? a transcription of Lipsky’s interview with DFW, over five days, after Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest, hit the bookshelves in 1996. My son gave me this book, in the middle of our recent road trip together. Driving across Utah in the dark of More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 14, 2010

Donovan rated it:

There are really two books here: the book Lipsky seems to think it is--reflected in his framing devices--and the one that emerges from Wallace's words. The latter is fascinating, troubling, complicated, messy, occasionally banal, occasionally beautiful--a kind of stream of raw data that I grappled with, even (or especially) as I dealt with my inevitable guilt at exploiting public mourning and cultish genius-worship.

Unfortunately, and embarrassingly, Lipsky believes this is a book abo More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 10, 2010

Richard rated it:

It's easy to tell people if they won't like this book: (1) if you've never had the sense of being completely sucked into a world (fictional or not) just by reading Wallace's writing. (2) if you've never read a sentence, or a paragraph of his and just shook your head at the number of levels where it hit you. Or (3) if you think it couldn't possibly be interesting to be a fly on the wall for a five-day long conversation between two writers that have never met before, one playing the role of interv More...

0 comments like

Jun 23, 2010

Billpilgrim rated it:

Extended interview with David Foster Wallace that took place at the end of his book tour for Infinite Jest. The author was sent by Rolling Stone to interview Wallace when he was the bright star of the literary world due to the success of his novel. Lipsky travels with Wallace from his home in Bloomington, Indiana to the last few stops on his tour, over the course of three days or so. No article was ever published, though. The interviews are transcribed in full here, with occasional explanatory i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 19, 2010

Suman added it

(Note: I'm probably not going to give this or any future books stars. My currently inchoate thoughts on my reasons may reach the interweb if they develop, or I may just move back to stars... who knows)

Writers are sort of a funny lot, because, as a gross generalization, genius-level examples of them work on ideas that normal human beings can relate to on a deeply human level. Ask someone to expound on the beauty of Albert Einstein's work, at best what you'll get is mutual respect for More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 21, 2010

Raul rated it:

This is a book for hardcore Wallace-heads and, more specifically, fans of Infinite Jest. If you regard Jest as the best novel written in the last 25 years and Wallace as the best writer of his/our generation, then this is a book for you.

In 1996, Rolling Stone author David Lipsky accompanied Wallace on a reading tour for Infinte Jest: the road trip of the subtitle is quite literal. They spent a week together in a car, in airports, at readings, and hotels, and the resulting intervi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 18, 2010

Dave rated it:

"Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself" (AOCYEUBY) is the transcription of a five day long interview of DFW at the end of his publicity tour for Infinite Jest. The point of a transcript, should be, generally, to pull interesting quotes and build a narrative around an aspect of the interviewee. In this case the article was never written, and when DFW committed suicide, David Lipsky pulled out the tapes and listened the them, and thought that we, the DFW adoration society, woul More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 21, 2010

Darin rated it:

This book is, hands down, the most original biography I have ever read. Or maybe biography isn't the term; it seems like it creates a new genre. I think the fact that it's kind of category-less -- travel adventure; literary bio; "My Dinner With Andre"-type conversation; pop-culture analysis; a great joke-telling session -- suits Wallace better than anything I can think of. He was so unique, so uniquely his own thing; he deserves a portrait this original.

Because this book g More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

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