I liked the beginning where DFW expresses his opinion on the purpose of literature, how it's fundamentally about becoming human and challenges presented by modern society. I also liked how he talked about the effect of television, which sort of jived with Amusing Ourselves to Death, which claims there are limits set by different mediums in the complexity of ideas pertaining to politics that can be presented and a decline in quality of public discourse.
Then about 1/3 through the topic shifts to postmodernism, which for the reasons pointed out by Noam Chomsky I found difficult to take seriously [1]. There's even a part where DFW commends (perhaps in a tongue-in-cheek manner) the interviewer for having "a gift for lit-speak".
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I liked the beginning where DFW expresses his opinion on the purpose of literature, how it's fundamentally about becoming human and challenges presented by modern society. I also liked how he talked about the effect of television, which sort of jived with Amusing Ourselves to Death, which claims there are limits set by different mediums in the complexity of ideas pertaining to politics that can be presented and a decline in quality of public discourse.
Then about 1/3 through the topic shifts to postmodernism, which for the reasons pointed out by Noam Chomsky I found difficult to take seriously [1]. There's even a part where DFW commends (perhaps in a tongue-in-cheek manner) the interviewer for having "a gift for lit-speak".
[1] http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/chomsky-on-pos...
A recent biography was published. It's really good and provides tons of context for his mental state.
http://www.amazon.com/Every-Love-Story-Is-Ghost/dp/014750972...