Consider David Foster Wallace

John Freedman interviews David Foster Wallace about his very excellent new book Consider The Lobster .

Q. Did you take a blizzard of notes for this book – there are so many acutely visualized scenes that I think, how in the heck did he get all this in there?

A. I think for me it’s a little bit embarrassing. The first couple ones that I did with Colin, the first one I didn’t even know to take a notebook. I take a notebook to write down what people said – now my credibility is really going through the roof, right? – but what it meant I must have really looked strange to people. I wasn’t experiencing the fair, I was kind of locking it down in memory.

There is no way to take notes like that – or I would take enough notes so that I would be able to remember, and then – the other thing that is hard about this, is once this thing is over, I am essentially useless for two weeks. Because I have to do this right after it’s done or I can’t. It’s like eating a whole lot and going to the vomitorium.