Something really sad

I love this quote (among others) from a 1996 interview with David Foster Wallace:

And I know that when I started this book I wanted--I had very vague and not very ambitious...ambitions, and one was I wanted to do something really sad. I'd done comedy before, I wanted to do just something really sad and I wanted to do something about what was sad about America.

Which "this book", i.e. Infinite Jest, definitely is, i.e. sad, and which reminds me--again--that I really want to re-read it. One of these days, I guess.

(via Jason and Daring Fireball)

Comments

[Michael Sippey]

I tried reading it again.  When I read it the first time it was when I was in grad school without crazy work and without crazy kids and it took me an entire semester...and I didn't really get it. Jason's post about the book being fractal really opened my eyes about how the book worked, and made me want to go read it again, but I'm worried that I'm really worried that I don't have the attention span for it anymore...