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Quack This Way
Two friends, both of them vocational snoots, sat down to film an interview in February 2006. Their subjects: language and writing. The interviewee drove more than an hour, from Claremont to downtown Los Angeles. The interviewer flew from Dallas. They spoke on film for 67 minutes and then walked uphill to a nearby seafood restaurant, where they continued the running conversation they had started five years earlier. They liked each other, and they seemed to understand each other. The rest is history. This is the last long interview with David Foster Wallace.
146 pages, Paperback
First published October 14, 2013
About the author
David Foster Wallace
122 books12.2k followersDavid Foster Wallace worked surprising turns on nearly everything: novels, journalism, vacation. His life was an information hunt, collecting hows and whys. "I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today," he once said, "of which maybe 25 are important. My job is to make some sense of it." He wanted to write "stuff about what it feels like to live. Instead of being a relief from what it feels like to live." Readers curled up in the nooks and clearings of his style: his comedy, his brilliance, his humaneness.
His life was a map that ends at the wrong destination. Wallace was an A student through high school, he played football, he played tennis, he wrote a philosophy thesis and a novel before he graduated from Amherst, he went to writing school, published the novel, made a city of squalling, bruising, kneecapping editors and writers fall moony-eyed in love with him. He published a thousand-page novel, received the only award you get in the nation for being a genius, wrote essays providing the best feel anywhere of what it means to be alive in the contemporary world, accepted a special chair at California's Pomona College to teach writing, married, published another book and, last month [Sept. 2008], hanged himself at age 46.
-excerpt from The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky in Rolling Stone Magazine October 30, 2008.
Among Wallace's honors were a Whiting Writers Award (1987), a Lannan Literary Award (1996), a Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction (1997), a National Magazine Award (2001), three O. Henry Awards (1988, 1999, 2002), and a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.
More:
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw
His life was a map that ends at the wrong destination. Wallace was an A student through high school, he played football, he played tennis, he wrote a philosophy thesis and a novel before he graduated from Amherst, he went to writing school, published the novel, made a city of squalling, bruising, kneecapping editors and writers fall moony-eyed in love with him. He published a thousand-page novel, received the only award you get in the nation for being a genius, wrote essays providing the best feel anywhere of what it means to be alive in the contemporary world, accepted a special chair at California's Pomona College to teach writing, married, published another book and, last month [Sept. 2008], hanged himself at age 46.
-excerpt from The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky in Rolling Stone Magazine October 30, 2008.
Among Wallace's honors were a Whiting Writers Award (1987), a Lannan Literary Award (1996), a Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction (1997), a National Magazine Award (2001), three O. Henry Awards (1988, 1999, 2002), and a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.
More:
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw
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April 24, 2020
this book is the transcript of a video interview/conversation between david foster wallace and bryan a. garner that took place in 2006, several years after dfw wrote this amazing essay/review of bryan a. garner's Garner's Modern American Usage:
http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads...
i was lucky enough to have attended a similar interview/conversation between dfw and george saunders many years ago, and this book reminded me just how good he was in this context, how simultaneously awkward and natural - how his mind worked to make unexpected connections while still addressing the questions at hand.
for someone who has a(n undeserved) reputation for being "difficult" or "overwritten," it is worth noting how much of this interview is focused on his preoccupation with clarity in writing, and his discomfort with all the linguistic clutter that plagues us, particularly in business writing and advertising.
Buried verbs, which I was taught are called nominalizations, are turning a verb into a noun for kind of BS-y reasons. "I tried to facilitate the organization of the unions," instead of , "I tried to help organize the unions." People like them in bureaucratic, institutional, academic writing, I think, because some people get the idea that maximum numbers of words, maximum amount of complication, equals intelligence and erudition.
and to that i say amen!! utilize, anyone? that word is my personal bugbear. it is so puffed-up and important-sounding to the person using it, but so, so clunky and unnecessary. "use" is such a great word. there's no shame in using simple workhorse words.
But you'll notice, this is the downside of starting to pay attention. You start noticing all of the people who say at this time rather then now. Why did they just take up one third of a second of my lifetime making me parse at this time, rather than just saying now to me? And you start being bugged.
exactly. don't waste my time - just say what needs to be said in a way that will be understood. and i'm not trying to drain all the poetry from life - there are places in which big purple words are completely appropriate, but when you are trying to get a point across to the broadest range of people, sometimes simplicity is best.
…people, unless they're paying attention, tend to confuse fanciness with intelligence or authority.
not me!! i see it for what it is: you like to hear yourself talk and are trying to be impressive, but any girl worth her pigtails is most impressed by precision.
i work in an office now, and have been newly exposed to so very many unconscious jargony words and phrases. it makes me feel like a little kid playing dress-up, so i refuse to adopt them. you want me to "reach out" to jack?? how 'bout i just "email" him? there is too much puffery in the world and i really appreciate that this bothered him as much as it bothers me.
because this just makes sense to me:
the fact remains that, particularly in the professions, that the average person you're writing for is an acute, sensitive, attentive, sophisticated reader who will appreciate adroitness, precision, economy, and clarity.
"economy" is my favorite word there. no one needs to wade through five garbage words to get to the root of what you are trying to say.
i am not a great writer. i am not a SNOOT. i have SNOOT tendencies, in that the misuse of "random" or "epic" gives me chills and i always scowl at the "10 items or less" sign at the grocery store. i am altogether too casual in my writing, and even though i know the "right" way to do things, i am not as vigilant as i should be when i am banging out reviews or emails. but i love reading books like this, where articulate and thoughtful people get really passionate about language and its deployment. my etymology class in undergrad was one of my very favorites in my academic career. so while i probably wouldn't have picked this up without the dfw-hook, i would still have loved reading it.
i could spend all day quoting from this book, but miles to go and all, so i am just going to leave with this really nice long portion of text, because it made the hibernating SNOOT in me smile sleepily at baby-dfw before returning to dreams of its own comma-addiction:
http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads...
i was lucky enough to have attended a similar interview/conversation between dfw and george saunders many years ago, and this book reminded me just how good he was in this context, how simultaneously awkward and natural - how his mind worked to make unexpected connections while still addressing the questions at hand.
for someone who has a(n undeserved) reputation for being "difficult" or "overwritten," it is worth noting how much of this interview is focused on his preoccupation with clarity in writing, and his discomfort with all the linguistic clutter that plagues us, particularly in business writing and advertising.
Buried verbs, which I was taught are called nominalizations, are turning a verb into a noun for kind of BS-y reasons. "I tried to facilitate the organization of the unions," instead of , "I tried to help organize the unions." People like them in bureaucratic, institutional, academic writing, I think, because some people get the idea that maximum numbers of words, maximum amount of complication, equals intelligence and erudition.
and to that i say amen!! utilize, anyone? that word is my personal bugbear. it is so puffed-up and important-sounding to the person using it, but so, so clunky and unnecessary. "use" is such a great word. there's no shame in using simple workhorse words.
But you'll notice, this is the downside of starting to pay attention. You start noticing all of the people who say at this time rather then now. Why did they just take up one third of a second of my lifetime making me parse at this time, rather than just saying now to me? And you start being bugged.
exactly. don't waste my time - just say what needs to be said in a way that will be understood. and i'm not trying to drain all the poetry from life - there are places in which big purple words are completely appropriate, but when you are trying to get a point across to the broadest range of people, sometimes simplicity is best.
…people, unless they're paying attention, tend to confuse fanciness with intelligence or authority.
not me!! i see it for what it is: you like to hear yourself talk and are trying to be impressive, but any girl worth her pigtails is most impressed by precision.
i work in an office now, and have been newly exposed to so very many unconscious jargony words and phrases. it makes me feel like a little kid playing dress-up, so i refuse to adopt them. you want me to "reach out" to jack?? how 'bout i just "email" him? there is too much puffery in the world and i really appreciate that this bothered him as much as it bothers me.
because this just makes sense to me:
the fact remains that, particularly in the professions, that the average person you're writing for is an acute, sensitive, attentive, sophisticated reader who will appreciate adroitness, precision, economy, and clarity.
"economy" is my favorite word there. no one needs to wade through five garbage words to get to the root of what you are trying to say.
i am not a great writer. i am not a SNOOT. i have SNOOT tendencies, in that the misuse of "random" or "epic" gives me chills and i always scowl at the "10 items or less" sign at the grocery store. i am altogether too casual in my writing, and even though i know the "right" way to do things, i am not as vigilant as i should be when i am banging out reviews or emails. but i love reading books like this, where articulate and thoughtful people get really passionate about language and its deployment. my etymology class in undergrad was one of my very favorites in my academic career. so while i probably wouldn't have picked this up without the dfw-hook, i would still have loved reading it.
i could spend all day quoting from this book, but miles to go and all, so i am just going to leave with this really nice long portion of text, because it made the hibernating SNOOT in me smile sleepily at baby-dfw before returning to dreams of its own comma-addiction:
BAG: Why do you think so many children, not just in this country but in almost every English-speaking country, are taught not to begin sentences with conjunctions? You can't begin a sentence with and or but. My own recent findings suggest that you really can't write all that well until you're beginning 10%-20% of your sentences with conjunctions.
DFW: Really? You like it, I notice. Again, it would be a guess. Teachers have a larger agenda, which is to teach students to be able to make compound sentences with more than one independent clause. The big way to do that is with conjunctions and commas.
They're also probably trying to beat out of the students the kinds of sentences that students were exposed to when they were learning to read: "See Dick run. Period. See Jane run. Period. Dick is with Jane. Period." Right? So as part of the attempt to talk about more complicated sentences, it becomes easy to go too far and get knee-jerk and say, "Therefore, just don't do this. It's caused nothing but trouble. Don't start your sentences with but and and." When the truth is, eh, 20% of the time you're probably going to want to, but they're very special cases. So let's sit down for three hours and talk about them.
Well, you're not going to do that with a third grader. Right? That's why this is not a skill that you just learn once and you're done with. This is…You're never done.
BAG: A lifelong apprenticeship?
DFW: This is a lifelong apprenticeship with aspirations to journeymanhood. Right? Yeah. But I think that's a guess. It's very easy to make fun of teachers who do this.
A teacher of mine in junior high hated me because i corrected her about hopefully. She said, "You never start a sentence with hopefully. Hopefully is an adverb." Right? So you never say, "Hopefully it will rain today because my crops really need it." And the truth is there's such a thing as a sentence adverb that expresses the speaker's intention, but that's college or grad-school grammar. It was appropriate in eighth grade for that teacher to tell her students, "Don't do this," because most of us were screwing up with adverbs anyway. Right?
So her nightmare was some little nerd in the back row who happened to know what a sentence adverb was. But when I look back on it, she was completely reasonable. It would have been nice if she would have said,"For now, don't do it. Later on, as part of your lifelong apprenticeship, you're going to learn there are certain adverbs that are in fact graceful at the start of the sentence. But for now, boys and girls, don't do it."
This is part of my own recovery from having hated my grammar teachers. I'm starting to realize they had reasons for what they were doing. They weren't often real smart about them, though.come to my blog!
August 24, 2024
I am forever a howling fantod, in both senses of the phrase. I didn’t necessarily think I could still call myself a fan of David Foster Wallace. These past few years I have experienced a reading depression—a consequence of a general, deep depression which got worse before getting better—and thought I may have lost my ability to appreciate and enjoy literature, as well as my passion for the written word, for language. I was grasping at straws—by which I mean books—desperately trying to stay engaged, but I was incapable of finishing anything. (Forgive the sentimental aside, but I predominantly credit getting active on Goodreads again and being able to write, discuss books, and read reviews from all of you fine people with overcoming that collapse, so thank you; yes, you).
There is no way for me to read or listen to David Foster Wallace without lamentation. It’s like having a lucid dream about an old friend, deceased for years, knowing it’s a dream and just trying to stay there with him for as long as you can. I know that’s more sentimentality, but I can’t help it. My discovery of his work marks a time in my life I often wish I could return to.
After DFW’s suicide, there did develop a kind of cult of sentimentality around him and many readers formed a parasocial relationship with him, posthumously, through his writing and interviews. I was among them. Lexicographer Bryan A. Garner captures this in his introductory tribute:
His spectacular experiential essays had a lot to do with it, in my case.
Quack This Way is, in long form interview, a giddy celebration of language and writing. I gobbled it up and loved every moment, not least of which because it provided proof that I am not done with writing, with improving, and literature is not done with me. (I’d be interested in hearing if anyone else has had a similar lapse and recovery of their reading/writing life).
I’m sure I’ve committed infractions discussed in this interview in this very review:
Moreover, I know my work and my writing has suffered due to my time away from literature. I backslid. I got dumber, frankly. I was heartened to read DFW express something similar:
This book aided me in rekindling my “lifelong apprenticeship.”
There is no way for me to read or listen to David Foster Wallace without lamentation. It’s like having a lucid dream about an old friend, deceased for years, knowing it’s a dream and just trying to stay there with him for as long as you can. I know that’s more sentimentality, but I can’t help it. My discovery of his work marks a time in my life I often wish I could return to.
After DFW’s suicide, there did develop a kind of cult of sentimentality around him and many readers formed a parasocial relationship with him, posthumously, through his writing and interviews. I was among them. Lexicographer Bryan A. Garner captures this in his introductory tribute:
“Sometimes, when I’m unhappy, I’ll read David’s commencement speech immortalized in the booklet This is Water…And it makes me happier…His words uplift me. They give me hope. I’m not alone. Strange, isn’t it, that he didn’t find the hope within himself—the hope he gave to so many others.”
His spectacular experiential essays had a lot to do with it, in my case.
Quack This Way is, in long form interview, a giddy celebration of language and writing. I gobbled it up and loved every moment, not least of which because it provided proof that I am not done with writing, with improving, and literature is not done with me. (I’d be interested in hearing if anyone else has had a similar lapse and recovery of their reading/writing life).
I’m sure I’ve committed infractions discussed in this interview in this very review:
“I am not, in and of myself, interesting to a reader. If I want to seem interesting, work has to be done in order to make myself interesting.”
Moreover, I know my work and my writing has suffered due to my time away from literature. I backslid. I got dumber, frankly. I was heartened to read DFW express something similar:
“It’s also true that we go through cycles. Right? At least in terms of my own work, I’ve gone through three or four of these, and I’m in one now, where it feels as if I’ve forgotten everything I’ve ever known. I have no idea what to do…
“And except on the days I’m really depressed, I realize that I’ve been through these before. These are actually good—one’s being larval…Or else, I just can’t do this anymore, in which case I’ll find something else to do. And I brood about that a fair amount.”
This book aided me in rekindling my “lifelong apprenticeship.”
July 25, 2014
For a transcript of an interview about English language usage and writing, this is about as entertaining and enlightening as a book of this sort could possibly be. Five LOLs and as many genuine insights into the language, usually occurring simultaneously. Filled with infectious DFW phrases -- "gooey-hearted humanists" who want to " vivify and facilitate . . . inter-human relationships of various sorts." Great bits about the religious aspects of art, clarity, efficiency, George W. Bush's solecisms, and the benefit of reading Garner's usage dictionary in the bathroom. The first time I've returned to this voice in two years maybe -- lots of posthumous interview books out there but this one is maybe the best if you're looking for a quick hit of that particular intelligence. All royalties go to the DFW archive in Austin. If I still taught college writing classes I'd definitely assign this.
June 25, 2018
A great transcript of the interview. Great insight from DFW, as always.
December 4, 2013
Bryan A. Garner’s Garner's Modern American Usage was reviewed in Harper’s by David Foster Wallace and an unlikely bond was formed, which led to things like DFW meeting an oppositely-political Justice Scalia of the Supreme Court as well as this book. The book is a transcription of more than an hour’s worth of video taken by BAG. He interviews DFW about language, grammar, usage, proper subjectivity of words, et cetera.
It’s a wonderful glimpse into the minds of two precocious SNOOTS. There’s plenty of good advice for writers and readers alike in the pages. I took a glacial pace through this, and the depth within the brevity is one reason. Another reason is I see myself reading this a few times per year.
To get a sense of the content, here is video from one portion of the conversation, where BAG asks DFW about genteelisms such as “prior to:”
It’s a wonderful glimpse into the minds of two precocious SNOOTS. There’s plenty of good advice for writers and readers alike in the pages. I took a glacial pace through this, and the depth within the brevity is one reason. Another reason is I see myself reading this a few times per year.
To get a sense of the content, here is video from one portion of the conversation, where BAG asks DFW about genteelisms such as “prior to:”
July 13, 2018
This audio transcript of the interview with DFW by Bryan Garner focussed upon some of the tools and techniques involved in English language usage and writing. People who aren't familiar with David Wallace's works and interested in the book might find this review useful.
"You'll cut this out but a Usage dictionary is one of the greatest bathroom books of all time."
DFW discussed his necessities of a thesaurus book, usage dictionary while (re)writing the sixth or seventh draft. How he had taught writing at the school and how he differed from his old school teachers in confusing the pupils though confusion will be prevalent nonetheless, he professed. A little exploration into argumentative writing and the way on how one should focus when it comes to writing non-fiction so that the logical and ethical appeal maybe preserved to be let enjoyed by the readers.
They had a similar take on the usage of 'officialese' (using impersonal, indifferent way of communication in public places of service) that when it is sorely in need to get connected with a mass, two individual speakers should in many sense speak not as human beings but as larynx and tongue of a longer set of people, responsible laws, regulations, and stuffs. Some more bashing on the emerging euphemisms/ genteelisms like the usage of 'prior to' when none is using things like 'posterior to' such that these puffed up words are not worth most of the time.
Despite the topics on the usage of language and writing was quite interesting, this usage fun has become no longer relevant with the culture as there have been too many strides in one culture and not even in the political facade where you find political leaders using emergent words like 'bigly'. They were discussing the usage problems of then-President G.W. Bush during his state of the union addresses and other public addresses.
You recognise this right? You're at a party:
"Yo, what your hobby?"
"Usage"
"Huh, huh, huh! Boy! I bet you get laid a lot."
"You'll cut this out but a Usage dictionary is one of the greatest bathroom books of all time."
DFW discussed his necessities of a thesaurus book, usage dictionary while (re)writing the sixth or seventh draft. How he had taught writing at the school and how he differed from his old school teachers in confusing the pupils though confusion will be prevalent nonetheless, he professed. A little exploration into argumentative writing and the way on how one should focus when it comes to writing non-fiction so that the logical and ethical appeal maybe preserved to be let enjoyed by the readers.
They had a similar take on the usage of 'officialese' (using impersonal, indifferent way of communication in public places of service) that when it is sorely in need to get connected with a mass, two individual speakers should in many sense speak not as human beings but as larynx and tongue of a longer set of people, responsible laws, regulations, and stuffs. Some more bashing on the emerging euphemisms/ genteelisms like the usage of 'prior to' when none is using things like 'posterior to' such that these puffed up words are not worth most of the time.
Despite the topics on the usage of language and writing was quite interesting, this usage fun has become no longer relevant with the culture as there have been too many strides in one culture and not even in the political facade where you find political leaders using emergent words like 'bigly'. They were discussing the usage problems of then-President G.W. Bush during his state of the union addresses and other public addresses.
You recognise this right? You're at a party:
"Yo, what your hobby?"
"Usage"
"Huh, huh, huh! Boy! I bet you get laid a lot."
March 29, 2014
This is probably the epitome of a pointless review. The essential idea behind a review is to encourage others to read or to avoid a book, and Quack This Way is one of those for-completists-only books impervious to reviews and ratings; i.e., if you're among the target market for this book, you're going to read it no matter what anyone says.
Just thought I'd get that out of the way.
Okay so yes, a whole cottage industry has formed around David Wallace, this void-filling proliferation of collected remnants and arcana and last interviews. And yes, there's something sort of unsavory about it, a slight stink of cashing in. And again yes, as completists and fanatics we're at their mercy; five+ years after Wallace's death and it's still hard to accept there's nothing new forthcoming, so we'll sadly and dutifully soak up what we can, the scholarly analyses and transcribed reminiscences and even a Jason Segel movie.
Whether this is barrel-scraping or canonization or both remains unclear. What's mainly understood is that we miss him. And this is where I think the marketing of many of these books misfires: it refers to his genius, as though these lost interviews contain even more new gems, as though they should stand alongside the work he formally put his name to. Don't get me wrong, they fairly frequently do have keen little insights or brilliant asides; they're just not the high-wattage things he spent more time developing. But this is all mostly beside the point.
The interviews -- and Quack This Way is no exception -- don't cover much new ground. For all of Wallace's varied subjects, his obsessions and messages boil down to only a few. We know this. We also know he's said all he's ever going to say, and that saddens us. It's selfish, in a sense, because we mourn not only for the man, but also for ourselves, for the loss of a voice that spoke so electrically to us. So this, then, is really the interviews' main attraction: to eavesdrop, to hear that specifically Dave voice again. It doesn't matter so much that he's saying things he's mostly said before; it matters more that we get to engage with him again, if only briefly, and with a certain melancholy, the way we might cherish meeting a dear dead parent in a dream one more time.
In that sense, Quack This Way is a welcome addition. Garner and Wallace shared an affinity for language and usage, and it's a pleasure to hear them discuss it. Just the way Wallace expresses himself -- even about things he's already said -- carries that good familiar charge. For an hour or two you get to feel like you're with him again, tuned in to that particular Wallace frequency again.
As far as cashing-in is concerned, Garner is entirely respectful and tasteful. While I imagine publishing this book can't but help his Amazon standing -- not that Garner's rock-solid reputation needed bolstering -- he's completely classy about the project. His introduction is very fine and touching, and he's donating royalties from the book to the Wallace archive at the Harry Ransom Center. As far as I know, that's a singularity among the recent crop of Wallace books. And I, for one, am glad he gives us this chance to listen in.
Just thought I'd get that out of the way.
Okay so yes, a whole cottage industry has formed around David Wallace, this void-filling proliferation of collected remnants and arcana and last interviews. And yes, there's something sort of unsavory about it, a slight stink of cashing in. And again yes, as completists and fanatics we're at their mercy; five+ years after Wallace's death and it's still hard to accept there's nothing new forthcoming, so we'll sadly and dutifully soak up what we can, the scholarly analyses and transcribed reminiscences and even a Jason Segel movie.
Whether this is barrel-scraping or canonization or both remains unclear. What's mainly understood is that we miss him. And this is where I think the marketing of many of these books misfires: it refers to his genius, as though these lost interviews contain even more new gems, as though they should stand alongside the work he formally put his name to. Don't get me wrong, they fairly frequently do have keen little insights or brilliant asides; they're just not the high-wattage things he spent more time developing. But this is all mostly beside the point.
The interviews -- and Quack This Way is no exception -- don't cover much new ground. For all of Wallace's varied subjects, his obsessions and messages boil down to only a few. We know this. We also know he's said all he's ever going to say, and that saddens us. It's selfish, in a sense, because we mourn not only for the man, but also for ourselves, for the loss of a voice that spoke so electrically to us. So this, then, is really the interviews' main attraction: to eavesdrop, to hear that specifically Dave voice again. It doesn't matter so much that he's saying things he's mostly said before; it matters more that we get to engage with him again, if only briefly, and with a certain melancholy, the way we might cherish meeting a dear dead parent in a dream one more time.
In that sense, Quack This Way is a welcome addition. Garner and Wallace shared an affinity for language and usage, and it's a pleasure to hear them discuss it. Just the way Wallace expresses himself -- even about things he's already said -- carries that good familiar charge. For an hour or two you get to feel like you're with him again, tuned in to that particular Wallace frequency again.
As far as cashing-in is concerned, Garner is entirely respectful and tasteful. While I imagine publishing this book can't but help his Amazon standing -- not that Garner's rock-solid reputation needed bolstering -- he's completely classy about the project. His introduction is very fine and touching, and he's donating royalties from the book to the Wallace archive at the Harry Ransom Center. As far as I know, that's a singularity among the recent crop of Wallace books. And I, for one, am glad he gives us this chance to listen in.
May 11, 2016
By the time I came to know and appreciate David Foster Wallace he was already dead by suicide, which really stinks because I now have so many questions for him about his life, his writings, his ideas, and I can only interact with his books (as I did in my book *The Joy Project*).
Thankfully, others did have time to talk at length with him including Bryan A. Garner, the lexicographer (think: *Garner’s Modern English Usage*). Their paths crossed after Wallace’s monster book review of Garner’s lexicon (an article titled “Tense Present,” April 2001).
This book is a 67-minute conversation between Garner and Wallace on writing and grammar, and it’s an especially fascinating look into how Wallace wrote his nonfiction pieces. It resonates with me and how much his process resembles mine: the slow, torturous, work of wrangling thoughts down on paper and then rewriting and rewriting until the organization becomes clear, and then finally adding clear transitions (a process Wallace uses but does not commend!). All of this work is aimed at the goal of creating “incredibly clear, beautiful, alive, urgent, crackling-with-voltage prose” (60).
There are bunch of helpful thoughts in the book, many of them simple but good, like “the reader cannot read your mind,” and the process of Wallace using a pen to write his first and second drafts to slow down the writing process for his mind and hand to work at a synchronized pace (a process not unlike that of C.S. Lewis’s, see my article: “Jack’s Typewriter”).
Wallace labors hard for clarity, a deceptively easy looking trait in good writing. “My main deficit, at least in terms of nonfiction prose,” Wallace admits, “is I have difficulty of being as clear as I want to be. I have various tricks for working around that and making it kind of charming to watch somebody trying to be clear, but the fact of the matter is, I can’t be clear and compressed in the way that, say, parts of the preface of your dictionary that I like very much are clear and compressed” (57).
When making arguments Wallace labors to get as many of the facts down on paper as he can, in the right in the order, but then the real labor of rewriting and organizing kicks in, and then, finally, he sharpens transitions to make it clear how points and sentences and paragraphs relate to one another. Hard-to-read content is typically the product of unclear transitions, he says.
All in all this is a delightful book. It’s short and you can read it in about an hour and I’ll give it four stars since this is a raw transcription of the unedited conversation with a lot of broken off sentences, so it’s not the smoothest thing to read, but all of us are making due with the early loss of Wallace, and this book will never be edited by him. Still, the book is full of little nuggets on writing and commendable to non-fiction writers especially.
Thankfully, others did have time to talk at length with him including Bryan A. Garner, the lexicographer (think: *Garner’s Modern English Usage*). Their paths crossed after Wallace’s monster book review of Garner’s lexicon (an article titled “Tense Present,” April 2001).
This book is a 67-minute conversation between Garner and Wallace on writing and grammar, and it’s an especially fascinating look into how Wallace wrote his nonfiction pieces. It resonates with me and how much his process resembles mine: the slow, torturous, work of wrangling thoughts down on paper and then rewriting and rewriting until the organization becomes clear, and then finally adding clear transitions (a process Wallace uses but does not commend!). All of this work is aimed at the goal of creating “incredibly clear, beautiful, alive, urgent, crackling-with-voltage prose” (60).
There are bunch of helpful thoughts in the book, many of them simple but good, like “the reader cannot read your mind,” and the process of Wallace using a pen to write his first and second drafts to slow down the writing process for his mind and hand to work at a synchronized pace (a process not unlike that of C.S. Lewis’s, see my article: “Jack’s Typewriter”).
Wallace labors hard for clarity, a deceptively easy looking trait in good writing. “My main deficit, at least in terms of nonfiction prose,” Wallace admits, “is I have difficulty of being as clear as I want to be. I have various tricks for working around that and making it kind of charming to watch somebody trying to be clear, but the fact of the matter is, I can’t be clear and compressed in the way that, say, parts of the preface of your dictionary that I like very much are clear and compressed” (57).
When making arguments Wallace labors to get as many of the facts down on paper as he can, in the right in the order, but then the real labor of rewriting and organizing kicks in, and then, finally, he sharpens transitions to make it clear how points and sentences and paragraphs relate to one another. Hard-to-read content is typically the product of unclear transitions, he says.
All in all this is a delightful book. It’s short and you can read it in about an hour and I’ll give it four stars since this is a raw transcription of the unedited conversation with a lot of broken off sentences, so it’s not the smoothest thing to read, but all of us are making due with the early loss of Wallace, and this book will never be edited by him. Still, the book is full of little nuggets on writing and commendable to non-fiction writers especially.
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October 22, 2020Working at a law firm, I'm rarely far from Garner's reference books, and when I found out he had a lengthy interview with Saint David of Downstate Illinois, my curiosity was piqued. What I found was a fairly good -- if by no means mind-blowing -- interview that mirrors so much else of what I've heard from DFW. This is how we use language. This is how language creates communities, with all the good and bad that entails. Hardly essential reading, but good enough.
January 30, 2023
I love DFW. He is brilliant. He speaks his mind. He touches the core of the answer to a question and entertains with simple yet wacky sentences. This is a rare one hour interview that DFW did with Brian Garner regarding the English language, its usage, writing, teaching and in general about a lot of things. As usual, certain discussions related to grammar went a little above my head. It is a very short read and highly recommend it for an hour of intellectual exercise.
October 26, 2013
I am a DF Wallace-alholic, so any book that promulgates David's wisdom is, to me, a must-read. This is a must-read.
Setting that aside, though, I would also consider this a must-read for anyone who wants to be an impactful writer. Dave's insights on what makes for effective writing are based on many years of his writing novels and nonfiction pieces that opened our minds in new ways, made us laugh, made is think, and sometimes scared us stiff. His key insight is one you have probably heard from him before: write for the reader and respect who you are writing for. Even though I had heard these chunks of wisdom from him before, it is still worth the price of the book to have them packed into the transcript of an interview in which the interviewer is none other than Bryan Garner. Bryan asked Great questions. David provided Superb answers.
This is a quick read, so quick that you could, as I did, initially conclude that this has the highest cost per word of any book you've ever purchased. The type is fairly big (not uncomfortably so) and the transcript format is such that the text on a typical page takes up not much more than half the page. When I first thought about this, I thought, Well, Garner *is* a lawyer, after all. But then I decided who cares? I got everything out of the book I could hope for AND Garner is giving all the proceeds from the book to The Harry Ranson Center, which houses the DFW library. So now, after thinking it through, my purchase was an investment, not a cost. (Also, Garner is very big on selecting a typography that is reader-friendly, and it turns out that a relatively large text with relatively narrow content field is the best typography.)
Great book. Many thanks to Bryan Garner for putting it together.
Setting that aside, though, I would also consider this a must-read for anyone who wants to be an impactful writer. Dave's insights on what makes for effective writing are based on many years of his writing novels and nonfiction pieces that opened our minds in new ways, made us laugh, made is think, and sometimes scared us stiff. His key insight is one you have probably heard from him before: write for the reader and respect who you are writing for. Even though I had heard these chunks of wisdom from him before, it is still worth the price of the book to have them packed into the transcript of an interview in which the interviewer is none other than Bryan Garner. Bryan asked Great questions. David provided Superb answers.
This is a quick read, so quick that you could, as I did, initially conclude that this has the highest cost per word of any book you've ever purchased. The type is fairly big (not uncomfortably so) and the transcript format is such that the text on a typical page takes up not much more than half the page. When I first thought about this, I thought, Well, Garner *is* a lawyer, after all. But then I decided who cares? I got everything out of the book I could hope for AND Garner is giving all the proceeds from the book to The Harry Ranson Center, which houses the DFW library. So now, after thinking it through, my purchase was an investment, not a cost. (Also, Garner is very big on selecting a typography that is reader-friendly, and it turns out that a relatively large text with relatively narrow content field is the best typography.)
Great book. Many thanks to Bryan Garner for putting it together.
November 6, 2013
They read usage manuals in the bathroom just like the rest of us.
February 2, 2023
There are some gems to be truffled here, but only a few. Like David Foster Wallace and Bryan Garner, I am a snoot: syntax nudnik of our time. I like reading about usage, and to have two smart experts chatting about it in a transcribed interview seemed likely to be my jam. Did you read the full length 95-page essay in Consider the Lobster and want more? Then this is for you. I would have thought it was for me! But from Garner's overly pedestalized portrayal of DFW ("probably the greatest writer of his generation"? Nope. One of? Sure.) To his hand wringing over DFW's suicide and whether it was prefigured by crossing out his name inscriptions, this started off with a weird tone and once it launched into the interview, did not get better.
There's a reason DFW had a laborious process to bring a work to completion. His constantly churning brain is all over the place. This man needed editors. Reading him hem and haw and backtrack and digress, made it tough to find the good points. Garner's questions were slanted toward snootiness, and while DFW sometimes resisted, sometimes he didn't. "Louise Erdrich when she's firing on all cylinders"? Puh-lease. I never felt a spark ignite in their talk, only two geeks affirming one another as they chatted.
This was a passion project for Garner, who clearly felt deeply for his friend. But this one is for DFW completists only. It made me want to re-read Dreyer's English. This book could have really used an editor like Dreyer.
There's a reason DFW had a laborious process to bring a work to completion. His constantly churning brain is all over the place. This man needed editors. Reading him hem and haw and backtrack and digress, made it tough to find the good points. Garner's questions were slanted toward snootiness, and while DFW sometimes resisted, sometimes he didn't. "Louise Erdrich when she's firing on all cylinders"? Puh-lease. I never felt a spark ignite in their talk, only two geeks affirming one another as they chatted.
This was a passion project for Garner, who clearly felt deeply for his friend. But this one is for DFW completists only. It made me want to re-read Dreyer's English. This book could have really used an editor like Dreyer.
May 13, 2019
This book is the transcript of a 67 minute interview, which (if you're a "snoot" like me) will take twice as long to read because you'll be underlining and reading sections again. DFW’s spoken prose is so clear and precise, as opposed to his fictional prose that is spectacular but often in the way Mariah Carey’s singing is spectacular — she can do unbelievable things with her voice in a song, but should she?
August 16, 2014
A satisfying and inspiring espresso shot of DFW.
March 15, 2020
Me gustó mucho este pequeño librito. Filantrópico, porque lo que cuesta es donado al Ransom Center donde están los papeles y manuscritos y archivo de Wallace.
El libro es la desgrabacion de la entrevista entre Wallace y Garner, un lingüista y estudioso del léxico y uso del idioma, en febrero de 2006. Los tipos discuten el proceso de escritura de Wallace, su enseñanza universitaria, sus ideas sobre lo que tienen que aprender los alumnos, la comunicación humana, el uso del lenguaje en la política y la publicidad, y algunos aspectos técnicos del léxico ingles.
Es una de las últimas entrevistas que dio Wallace antes de espiralarse en la depresión de la que no pudo salir. En ese sentido es un documento interesante para ver cómo pensaba Wallace sobre su ficción y no ficción hacia el final de su vida, justo luego de publicar Hablemos de Langostas (Consider the Lobster), donde se publicó la versión completa de su ensayo sobre el uso del lenguaje que incluyó una reseña del libro de Garner; reseña que fue lo que inicialmente hizo que ambos se conocieran.
Creo que es interesante tanto para los lectores de Wallace como para los escritores. Esto último porque es lo más cercano que conozco que produjo el autor en el género de los "decálogos" o instrucciones sobre cómo escribir, o más bien las reflexiones típicas de algunos escritores (Vonnegut, Miller, Bukowski, King, Castillo, Fogwill) sobre el oficio. Me quedan algunas ideas muy sólidas y que son comida del pensamiento: el lector no te lee la mente, hay que intentar ser parsimonioso sin ser parco ni repetitivo, hay que variar de forma elegante, y, en una de esas, quizá logramos resonar en la cabeza de alguno que otro que nos lea.
El libro es la desgrabacion de la entrevista entre Wallace y Garner, un lingüista y estudioso del léxico y uso del idioma, en febrero de 2006. Los tipos discuten el proceso de escritura de Wallace, su enseñanza universitaria, sus ideas sobre lo que tienen que aprender los alumnos, la comunicación humana, el uso del lenguaje en la política y la publicidad, y algunos aspectos técnicos del léxico ingles.
Es una de las últimas entrevistas que dio Wallace antes de espiralarse en la depresión de la que no pudo salir. En ese sentido es un documento interesante para ver cómo pensaba Wallace sobre su ficción y no ficción hacia el final de su vida, justo luego de publicar Hablemos de Langostas (Consider the Lobster), donde se publicó la versión completa de su ensayo sobre el uso del lenguaje que incluyó una reseña del libro de Garner; reseña que fue lo que inicialmente hizo que ambos se conocieran.
Creo que es interesante tanto para los lectores de Wallace como para los escritores. Esto último porque es lo más cercano que conozco que produjo el autor en el género de los "decálogos" o instrucciones sobre cómo escribir, o más bien las reflexiones típicas de algunos escritores (Vonnegut, Miller, Bukowski, King, Castillo, Fogwill) sobre el oficio. Me quedan algunas ideas muy sólidas y que son comida del pensamiento: el lector no te lee la mente, hay que intentar ser parsimonioso sin ser parco ni repetitivo, hay que variar de forma elegante, y, en una de esas, quizá logramos resonar en la cabeza de alguno que otro que nos lea.
July 24, 2018
Interview with DFW by Brian Garner, author of Garner's Dictionary of Modern American Usage which DFW so loved. Fascinating to see that DFW talked with the same vocabulary that he wrote with.
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August 26, 2024"I am not, in and of myself, interesting to a reader. If I want to seem interesting, work has to be done in order to make myself interesting."
July 25, 2020
My review is in my blog. Please follow the link to read it. Thanks.
https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/202...
https://polymathtobe.blogspot.com/202...
April 9, 2022
A few splashes of DFW genius but does not mostly live up to the billing of these two super-snoots dueling it out.
June 18, 2017
p.25-26 – BAG: What’s the best way to learn to write well?
DFW: In the broadest possible sense, writing well means to communicate clearly and interestingly and in a way that feels alive to the reader. Where there’s some kind of relationship between the writer and the reader – even though it’s mediated by a kind of text – there’s an electricity about it.
In order to write effectively, you don’t pretend it’s a letter to some individual you know, but you never forget that what you’re engaged in is a communication to another human being. The bromide associated with this is that the reader cannot read your mind.
p.47-48 – BAG: Why do so many English professors write so poorly?
DFW: There is a kind of bonehead explanation, which is that a lot of people with PhDs are stupid, and like many stupid people, they associate complexity with intelligence. And therefore they get brainwashed into making their stuff more complicated than it needs to be. I think the smarter thing to say is that in many tight, insular communities – where membership is partly based on intelligence, proficiency, and being able to speak the language of the discipline – pieces of writing become much or more about presenting one’s own qualifications for inclusion in the group than transmission of meaning. And that’s how in disciplines like academia – or, I’ve read some really good legal prose, but when it’s really, really horrible (IRS Code stuff) – I think that very often it stems from insecurity and that people feel that unless they can mimic the particular jargon and style of their peers, they won’t be taken seriously, and their ideas won’t be taken seriously.
p.65 – BAG: When you’re writing nonfiction, how do you about research and then organizing your thoughts when you’re writing a long essay?
DFW: My first draft usually approximates somebody in the midst of an epileptic seizure. It’s usually about the second or third draft where I begin having any idea of actually what this thing is about. So my own way of doing it, it’s not very economical in terms of time. It is just going it over and over and over again and throwing stuff away and, you know, whining and crying to friends and stuff and then going back and trying it over again.
DFW: In the broadest possible sense, writing well means to communicate clearly and interestingly and in a way that feels alive to the reader. Where there’s some kind of relationship between the writer and the reader – even though it’s mediated by a kind of text – there’s an electricity about it.
In order to write effectively, you don’t pretend it’s a letter to some individual you know, but you never forget that what you’re engaged in is a communication to another human being. The bromide associated with this is that the reader cannot read your mind.
p.47-48 – BAG: Why do so many English professors write so poorly?
DFW: There is a kind of bonehead explanation, which is that a lot of people with PhDs are stupid, and like many stupid people, they associate complexity with intelligence. And therefore they get brainwashed into making their stuff more complicated than it needs to be. I think the smarter thing to say is that in many tight, insular communities – where membership is partly based on intelligence, proficiency, and being able to speak the language of the discipline – pieces of writing become much or more about presenting one’s own qualifications for inclusion in the group than transmission of meaning. And that’s how in disciplines like academia – or, I’ve read some really good legal prose, but when it’s really, really horrible (IRS Code stuff) – I think that very often it stems from insecurity and that people feel that unless they can mimic the particular jargon and style of their peers, they won’t be taken seriously, and their ideas won’t be taken seriously.
p.65 – BAG: When you’re writing nonfiction, how do you about research and then organizing your thoughts when you’re writing a long essay?
DFW: My first draft usually approximates somebody in the midst of an epileptic seizure. It’s usually about the second or third draft where I begin having any idea of actually what this thing is about. So my own way of doing it, it’s not very economical in terms of time. It is just going it over and over and over again and throwing stuff away and, you know, whining and crying to friends and stuff and then going back and trying it over again.
April 22, 2015
At the bottom of page 4 in Quack This Way there is a link (see below) to an NPR interview hosted by one Judy Swallow and featuring guests David Foster Wallace and Bryan Garner. Wallace had written about as glowing a review about Garner's new Dictionary of Modern American Usage (now titled Garner's Modern American Usage) as any author could hope to receive, and this conversation was the first time the two men had met (if you call Wallace sitting in an Illinois studio and Garner on a long distance phone line -- moderated by a radio host in Boston -- as an official "meeting".)
I found the 47 minute conversation completely fascinating then and still do. Both Wallace and Garner are tack-sharp and easy to listen to, and by the end of this conversation one can sort of sense a friendship between Wallace & Garner germinating.
Also, a cool little human moment occurs at about the 35-40 minute mark when, as the three highly erudite and articulate language aficionados begin to critique each other's speech, the conversation grows staccato and hesitant as the two guests (though not so much the host, well done Ms Swallow!) grow increasingly self-conscious.
The link as published appears dead. The following is a direct link to an mp3 of the conversation and as of 21APR15 was alive and well.
http://www.bu.edu/wbur/storage/2001/03/theconnection_0330_2.mp3
I found the 47 minute conversation completely fascinating then and still do. Both Wallace and Garner are tack-sharp and easy to listen to, and by the end of this conversation one can sort of sense a friendship between Wallace & Garner germinating.
Also, a cool little human moment occurs at about the 35-40 minute mark when, as the three highly erudite and articulate language aficionados begin to critique each other's speech, the conversation grows staccato and hesitant as the two guests (though not so much the host, well done Ms Swallow!) grow increasingly self-conscious.
The link as published appears dead. The following is a direct link to an mp3 of the conversation and as of 21APR15 was alive and well.
http://www.bu.edu/wbur/storage/2001/03/theconnection_0330_2.mp3
November 18, 2013
Probably only for DFW freaks, and yet anyone interested in American usage will find much of interest here. Garner, author of Garner's Modern American Usage (which was the basis of the great essay on usage that appears in DFW's Consider the Lobster collection), became friends with Wallace after Wallace's essay appeared--they had the language-"snoot" quality in common. Quack This Way is a transcription of a long interview Garner made for part of his own research--evidently he teaches, or leads workshops for lawyers about style and usage, etc--and although much of what's covered here is very general and rarely specific, it's still illuminating to read DFW's thoughts on everything from epistemology of language to the basic structure of nonfiction pieces. If you are a DFW fan, it's definitely worth the read, and, if you're anything like me, you close the book and miss the man all over again.
January 26, 2020
Essential for fans of Bryan Garner and near-essential for fans of David Wallace, Quack This Way is a short but fascinating transcript of a dialogue about language and usage between two of the best modern practitioners. Garner and Wallace became friendly after Wallace's essay "Tense Present," an extended essay and review of Garner's Modern American Usage, was published in Harper's. Wallace's views on English and on the teaching of English to young writers, although expressed off the cuff, are cogent and worthy of study. Garner's introduction to this volume is a poignant history of their correspondence and friendship.
June 8, 2015
A torturously brief exchange between two of the indisputably greatest logical and grammatical minds of our time. Delightful. Wish it was 100 times as long as it was. I think a further collaboration between these two would have been nothing short of magical. More detailed analysis to follow, but too excited to keep all this enthusiasm to myself. Loved it!
January 31, 2022
Quack This Way offers a glimpse into the mind of David Foster Wallace and a conversation about writing, reading, language, and structure. A short read (transcript of an interview) warranting a slow consumption and re-reads. Keep a dictionary on hand.
DFW is so engaging you will forget you're reading the transcript of an interview, he actually articulated these ideas in real time - amazing.
DFW is so engaging you will forget you're reading the transcript of an interview, he actually articulated these ideas in real time - amazing.
June 25, 2016
Some great bits about writing and usage and empathy. I don't always agree with DFW, and his verbosity can be tiresome (especially because it's so self-effacing), but he and Garner shared some great insights and quotable-quotes for word-nerds like me.
September 14, 2014
Good book to get from the library - probably not worth owning.
September 7, 2015
It's just as bad as Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself for exactly the same reasons.
September 24, 2024
Short and insightful at about 1.5 hours. A coworker lent it to me because he thought I'd like it.
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