Since writing a post didn’t help me stop thinking about that pianist’s theory that Ian McEwan used Bach’s Goldberg Variations as the model for Saturday, I went looking for this video. In it, David Foster Wallace talks about how he structured Infinite Jest based on some mathematical principle whose name I’ve already forgotten. Was it important to Wallace that readers understand — or even detect — the underlying math? No. It sounds like the math functioned as a kind of GPS, helping him maintain his sense of direction and connection while he wrote.
This video isn’t really a video; it’s audio. So feel free to press play and do your dishes or your desk-bound isometrics or your elbow exfoliation.
The fine print on YouTube indicates that the video-less video is an edited version of this 1996 interview on KCRW, which I will listen to later and post if it’s as good as I expect it to be.
