Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace, 1999

Final verdict: ★★★★★

Walter Wick, O Frabjous Mirrors!, 1984.

Damn. David Foster Wallace notices EVERYTHING. His mind - wow.

I don’t really think I could do this book justice with the sad state that my writing skills are in now. So maybe I’ll just leave a few quotes here, and let them speak for themselves?

From “Forever Overhead:”

So which is the lie?

Hard, or soft?

Silence, or time?

The lie is that it’s one, or the other.

A still-floating bee is moving faster than it can think.

From overhead the sweetness drives it crazy.

From “Brief Interview 42:”

The unmistakable ramble of the toilet paper dispenser. Affluence. Emission. Obduration. Micturition. Transudation. Emiction. Feculence.

Catharsis.

From “Brief Interview 46:” (The interview that had the most powerful impact on me)

“Alls I’m saying is—who are we to say that getting incested, or violated, or abused, or whatever or any of those things can’t also have their positive aspects for a human being in the long run?”

“What does YOU mean, now? Now it’s showtime. Now is when you find out what YOU even are to yourself. Which most people with dignity or humanity and rights and all that there don’t ever get to know.

That nothing is automatically sacred.”

“Every minute from then on, minute by minute if you want, you can choose to be more if you want.

You can choose to be a human being and have it mean something.”

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