Imagine such a situation: you are a third-rate writer with ambitions to write great works, but the reality is that you can't even make a living on your own work, working as a reporter in a magazine. When you are holding a reading session for your new book, the scanty look of the few readers in the audience makes you no longer have the confidence to read the words in the book. At the same time, however, a man named David Foster Wallace became the hottest writer with his novel "Endless Joke". His works not only contracted the most prominent positions of various bookstores, but also major newspapers and magazines. They have also been reported to give high praise. How do you feel in your heart?
This is the situation of Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg), one of the heroes of the movie "The End of Travel". Therefore, whether it is because of his career as a journalist or because of the jealousy of being a writer but far from it, Lipsky is determined to interview the legendary mysterious writer who "does not use the phone, does not watch TV, and does not socialize on the Internet." Wallace (played by Jason Segal).
The most exciting part of life is that no one can predict what will happen in the next second. So when Lipsky was looking forward to an interview with frequent news, God accidentally gave him a collision of thought and soul, a self-examination facing loneliness and anxiety.
Lipsky was not out of school. He got lost when he first went out. He called Wallace for help, but Wallace asked him why he knew this phone number. Anyway, it was his indifference that caused Lipsky to shut the door. At this time, the sky was full of heavy snow, and it really smelled like looking around at thatched cottage.
After the meeting, it proved that Wallace is not a strange otaku, but an ordinary person who has two black Labradors, occasionally goes to school to teach, hides the phone, and does not have a TV at home. He has a normal work and rest, eats regularly, and in the morning. Drinking coffee, insisting on walking the dog, and going to church from time to time are normal.
What would a reporter expect to dig out of the life of a best-selling author? Was it his corrupt private life, or was he addicted to alcohol and heroin? Here in Wallace, I'm afraid there is none at all. This may be beyond Lipsky's expectation. When he tried to integrate into Wallace's life, he tried to conduct "meaningful" interviews and conversations, and he was deeply moved unknowingly. As Lipsky later wrote by himself: "I saw David and I sitting in the front seat. We are both so young. He wants something better than now, but I just want to have what he has now. We are so young. I feel at a loss about life, this feeling is like smelling tobacco, soda and cigarettes. Talking with him is the best time I have ever had in my life."
Wallace’s life is extremely simple, in this interview with Lipsky , Wallace strives not to be facialized and refuses to be labeled with any label, hoping to show others in a "real image". But this "real image" is full of identity anxiety in many ways. As a best-selling author, as a family member, as a friend, as a lover, and as a teacher, it seems that every identity has something to do with Wallace. His inner world, including many behaviors and lifestyle choices, is an extension of this anxiety as the core.
If you want to understand Wallace's image more three-dimensionally, you need to pay attention to these:
He who lives alone chooses to raise a dog instead of falling in love, because he thinks that raising a dog will not have the self-blame that has been hurting her heart. Having been obsessed with TV since he was a child, he would unconsciously watch TV all night when he was on a business trip in a hotel or at a friend's house, so he chose not to buy a TV at all in his own home. He usually only communicates with 20 people. After the novels were sold, he often received calls from "fans", and even his family members were harassed. In order not to hurt the feelings of others, he chose to hide his phone calls. He is still single at the age of 34. Perhaps in Wallace's view, his energy can only be used to focus on one thing. Is writing and love contradictory? "I think if you devote your life's energy to something, the result is that you will become abnormal ego, and you will use others." "If you want to be a writer, then this kind of self-consciousness may be pathological , To kill people, both mind and body rape others."
Whether you think Wallace is a depressed person, an introverted socially impaired person, or even just a person chosen by God to be responsible for thinking too much, it cannot be denied that he is slightly shy and friendly. Under his smile, what is beating is indeed a kind heart.
Twelve years later, Wallace died of suicide. He once said that in his novel "Endless Joke", there is such a description: People jumped off skyscrapers one after another. What kind of fear makes these people feel that jumping suicide is a relief? Perhaps this is an eternal question Wallace left us. The person who thinks everything is just an illusion and uses all his efforts to retain a trace of the self, desperately trying to get rid of the shackles of helplessness, is very reluctant to admit that he may have failed, and can only say that he has been with humans all his life. Nature, struggle with this world, and in the end did not choose to compromise.
"Don't be me." These were the last words Wallace told Lipsky, tears burst into his eyes in the face of the vast snow. This is the end of Lipsky's interview with Wallace, but their stories, their works and wisdom, human self-awareness, and our instinctive anxiety will not have an end. What needs to be kept in mind is: even in such a severe cold, sunlight is still reflected in the eyes, isn't it?
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