Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

De: David Foster Wallace

Narrado por: John Krasinski, Cory Stoll, Joshua Ferris, Denis O'Hare, Will Forte, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, Josh Charles, Malcolm Goodwin, Christopher Meloni, Chris Messina, Max Minghella, Lou Taylor Pucci, Ben Shenkman, Joey Slotnick

In this thought-provoking and playful short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence.
Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many guises. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person,' a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World,' which reveals a woman's agonized consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,' a dark, hilarious series of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women.
Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the absurd, the surprising, and the illuminating from every situation. This collection will enthrall DFW fans, and provides a perfect introduction for new readers.©2009 David Foster Wallace; (P)2009 Hachette

Reseñas de la Crítica

"A host of talented narrators and actors-including television actors John Krasinski and Christopher Meloni-deliver nuanced performances of the late Wallace's classic. But it's the author himself who steals the show: his gentle, almost dreamy voice unlocks the elaborate syntax and releases the immense feeling concealed by the comedy and labyrinthine sentences. While the various narrators ably capture the essence of the text, Wallace's renditions of such stories as "Forever Overhead" and "Death Is Not the End" are transcendent. Essential listening for Wallace fans and a fine introduction for newcomers."—Publishers Weekly, Publishers Weekly

The name of this collection of stories is slightly misleading, given the talent and likability of the cast of narrators who bring the late Wallace's work to life. Each of the performers, including actors John Krasinski, Will Forte, Malcolm Goodwin, and Bobby Cannavale, delivers a powerful reading that is as imaginative as the collection itself.... Krasinski, who directed the film adaptation of the book, is especially fine, reading with a stern, intellectual edge that is at once witty and unabashed. As a whole, each narrator complements the unique work he delivers.—Publishers Weekly

The Spectrum of Strangeness in the Interviews

I didn’t know what to expect from this book. My exposure to Wallace’s work was mostly limited to Reviews and Obituaries. The variety of the styles and characters in the interviews was interesting, some downright repulsive, others, quite bland. The last interview, with the raped woman, seemed the most revealing of the Writer’s own perspective. The others seemed figments of his imagination.

The final entry, while the briefest, was a dazzling display of Wallace’s renowned writing gifts and worth the price of admission to his World. The whole experience was worth Four Stars. ****

Typical Wallace

I am glad this was a fairly short read. It will probably not become my favorite DFW book but I am gad to have read it just to be a completist. He highlights many usually unnoticed details in these brief interviews with men you probably know but would not want to spend much time with if you REALLY knew them. Most of these men have a view of women that women would not be at all pleased about. This men are modern primitives. So listening to four hours of this material has not been all joy. But there have been moments of great insight as there always is in his books and essays. Great performances by the voice cast as well!

....and what if I said that happened to Me?

This interview is very much intended for people who've only ever picked up one or two books by David Foster Wallace, as I am in that same category.

It's a funny feeling - seeing a movie based on a book before actually reading the book. I definitely fall into the camp of movie goers that need to read the book before seeing the film, using my insider knowledge to compare and contrast the differences, seeing it as almost a guided insight into why the filmmakers made the choices that they did. And for the longest time I felt I was better off leaving my experience with this material at the movie theater.

I didn't bother with reading "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men" because of everything I've heard of David Foster Wallace up until this point. Words like brilliant, introspective, and thought-provoking would get tossed around. Sure, it's all mounting evidence that points to the fact that I should be reading his stuff, but then other phrases like "not for everyone" and "you might not get it" would be added in for good measure. I'm not saying I hate to be challenged by a writer's material, but I'm going to need more to it's defense than "you just don't get IT". In these conversations, does anyone ever really know what IT is?

Happy to report, all my fears about tackling the deep introspection of David Foster Wallace's damaged characters was not an exercise in tedium. It was just the opposite.

I never intended on reading this book, even after my (apparently isolated) glowing reviewing of the John Krasinski movie of the same name. And then one day, randomly flipping through the dramatic fiction section on Audible, I came across the voice cast of the audiobook for "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men". Bobby Cannavale, Will Forte, Malcolm Goodwin, John Krasinski, Christopher Meloni, Chris Messina, Max Minghella, and Dennis O'Hare, with additional narration from the book's author. It was almost too good not to listen.

But I did, and I'm glad for it. First off, the material, whose complexity scared me away for so long, was anything but egotistical or out of the realm of understanding. What we have here are a series of shorts (vintages in the film adaption) that all share a unifying theme of sex, attraction, lust, envy, and the idea of selfishness disguised so ingenuously as selflessness. Characters big and small, confident and inadequate, old and young - they all share with each other or with themselves what it takes to grow up, the make it in a relationship, what sex means to them, what it means to their partners.

David Foster Wallace mixes and mingles between a million different perspectives and is somehow able to capture the emotions and motivations so accurately that it's scary. He hops from one story that so deftly describes the mind of an adolescent, experiencing the piercing thrust into adult hood via a wet dream, before changing course in another story about a full grown man explaining, quite convincingly, why it's selfish to refuse blowjobs. It's no joke, he captures, in my limited experience on the subject, every facet on sexual relationships.

I kind of want to read the book just to see how much of my interest was gauged on performance (it feels more like an audio performance rather than an audiobook if that makes any sense) and how much on the material itself, although I'd be surprised if the written material alone didn't give me the same reaction I had while listening to the audiobook.

Not to mention all of the other books in David Foster Wallace's bibliography I plan to read.

Not my favorite DFW...

DFW's genius shows through even here and although this wasn't my favorite book of his that I've experienced, there was enough to get out of it to make this worth the listen.

David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace. And John Krasinski, even. Nuf said.



My Audible app says that any significant review must contain twenty words. Jesus wept.