David Foster Wallace

[Nighthawk 0]

David Foster Wallace hung himself.

 

Sucks. I always enjoyed his work, although it was challenging. Started reading him cause of Incandenza. This'll probably get him more deserved recognition.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Well that's a bummer

[godthedog 0]

i wonder how long his suicide note was. and if it had footnotes.

[Guest Brady's Torn ACL]

We were all thinking it.

 

I don't know enough about his life, other than what he's written about, to guess what brought this on. Terrible loss. Again, got into him via Matt, and I'm glad I did.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

As awful as this is, it's not completely shocking. I'm somewhat wary of reading fiction as a direct extension of its creator, but I think it's really, really hard to look at some of the stories in Brief Interviews... and Oblivion and not take them as cries of personal psychic despair.

[Guest Brady's Torn ACL]

Incidentally, I revisited two of the stories from Oblivion today ("Mr. Squishy" and "Good Old Neon"), and I would agree with you there. He just got married recently, if I'm not mistaken, so that whole passage in "Mr. Squishy" about how perfect and miraculous marriage can be when you allow yourself to share the real you with somebody else was kind of sad. Moreover, the whole allure of the state fair and cruise essays in Supposedly. . . is that he's on such a different wavelength than the rest of the people with whom he's forced to interact, overanalyzing things most people wouldn't think to analyze at all, like Professional Smiles or room service or gonzo porn. I'll always love his nonfiction, but I may not derive as much humor from his being totally ill-equipped to handle everyday life as I used to, inasmuch as it probably contributed to his suicide.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Yeah, it's sad because so much of dude's work deals with the (maybe impossible ) search for authentic connections w/ other people in an increasingly atomized/desensitized/ironicized society and his suicide would seem to indicate that he never managed to really make any such connections in his own life and basically decided to stop trying. It's doubly sad because of quotes like this:

 

I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. Since an ineluctable part of being a human self is suffering, part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering, necessarily a vicarious experience, more like a sort of “generalization” of suffering. Does this make sense? We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple.

[Guest Brady's Torn ACL]

I know it's vain and tacky, but I hope it's not too vain and tacky to note that part of what really drew me in was finding the parallels between his worldview and my own, the same struggles to get what it is everyone else is getting, or at least seems to be on the surface. I feel really stupid and overwrought sitting here typing "oh, how I relate!" and all, especially when he has millions and millions of fans, one of whom I have to thank for making me aware of his work in the first place by way of a message board nickname and a few brief conversations, but I really enjoyed how he was perceptive of so many high frequencies, so to speak, while ostensibly at the expense of a few on the low end, more or less the same situation in which I've found myself pretty often, admittedly with the bouts of depression that, although I'm obv. not dead, had me at some pretty unpleasant depths.

 

From the facebook group:

Anne Flanagan (Los Angeles, CA) wrote

at 1:20am

A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again... like hang myself.

 

I just don't get it. What about Toph? Sad, sad, sad.

That's either the most damning indictment of Dave Eggers ever written or I'm missing something.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Though I'm no longer the rabid fan I once was, finding out David Foster Wallace had committed suicide was still a shock. All I know of the man comes from his works and the handful of interviews I've read; reading Infinite Jest, I felt as if it was coming from someone who knew pain and sadness and whatever else, but that that someone still "got" it. Life. Even in the darker elements of his fiction, there was an underlying current that life was something worth living. Indeed, there was a time where, if I was feeling down about something, I could cheer myself up by simply reading a random section of IJ, or picking out one of his short stories or essays.

 

It's been some time since I've done that. That was long ago for Wallace, too, I suppose. I wish I could think that if he once was able to find meaning and reason in life, then he always could. He couldn't. We can keep trying, though.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

The irony is here is what DFW had to say about suicide in Infinite Jest.

 

The so-called 'psychotically-depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

It isn't ironic that he's written about suicide. I've never been close to the edge before, but I would say that that passage is about as good and accurate a description you'll find on someone on the brink of killing his or herself.

 

It's unavoidable that people are going to go back and read his books, trying to find clues as to why he did what he did. It's a waste of time; the man who ended it on Friday night is not the man who wrote those books.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

In lighter DFW-related news, this old Onion article: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27769

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

For anyone who's interested, Harper's has posted free .pdf files of every piece he wrote for the magazine. Good stuff.

[Nighthawk 0]

I really didn't take this news as well as I let on. Kind of a Kurt Cobain situation for me. I think I'm going to be ok, though.

[Guest Brady's Torn ACL]

Cyber Mark IMed me with the news while I was listening to the Bears postgame show, so it was just a pile-on of bad. Incidentally, in the 9/11 essay he makes an offhand mention of listening to the Bears postgame show, but somehow I have a feeling he never called asking why the Bears don't put Orton in.

 

Since even Deon seems to be chiming in with Infinite Jest excerpts from Huffington Post comment sections or something, here's my quick depth chart for anyone who wants to explore his work:

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: a collection of essays and pseudojournalistic adventures to the Illinois State Fair, a Caribbean cruise, the Canadian Open, a David Lynch film, and a look at television and postmodern irony (I made an oblique callback to this a week ago in my "Boarding Hard" post, btw). I think a lot of people here should read this. It's one of my go-to downtime books.

Consider the Lobster: a continuation of above, with visits to the Maine lobster-eating festival, the McCain 2000 campaign trail, a conservative talk radio program, the Academy Awards of porn, and a piece on the prescriptive/descriptive English debate that of course I would enjoy but others may not like so much beyond the first page of American English usage gaffes and ingrained errors

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: a collection of short stories. For some reason, the two that jump out at me are "Octet" and the one where the guy is traumatized by his dad wiggling his penis in his (i.e., the guy's) face apropos of nothing. Some people might view it as a little gimmicky at times, though?

Oblivion: more short stories, though a little more straightforward, so to speak.

Infinite Jest: far too daunting to expect anyone to dive right in with this one. This was my mistake.

Girl with Curious Hair: flashes of brilliance, but I don't think he had completely found his comfort zone yet. Titular short story is great, but the Lyndon Johnson story and the Jeopardy! lesbian story stand out to me offhand as being a little out of sorts.

The Broom of the System: completists only!

 

Quick "Mr. Squishy' question for anyone who read it: the human fly character ultimately turns out to be an inflatable Mr. Squishy as a promotional stunt, right? Is that what we're supposed to infer?

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I'd rec GWCH over BIWHM as far as his short fiction goes, because the latter is, at times, too gimmicky. And you really need to devote the time to Infinite Jest, Dan. You'll love it.

 

I read the final piece in Consider the Lobster, "Host," a few weeks back. I believed I've mentioned before that I long steered clear of it due to the disorienting layout; I'm glad I finally made the effort. It's one of the best pieces in the collection.

 

I can't answer that "Mr. Squishy" question, as I haven't read Oblivion since it came out. If I pick a Wallace book to revisit soon, it'll probably be that one.

[Copper Feel 0]

I'm not as well-versed in the work of David Foster Wallace as most of you are. I have sampled a scattered collection of his essays (no, not an actual printed collection) and once read the first 100 pages or so of Infinite Jest in Waterstones before realising how long I had been sat there for and becoming pretty ashamed of myself. Even so, I am very fond of his writing, whether it requires a nearby dictionary or not. R.I.P

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

The only work I am familiar with is Consider The Lobster. My impression after reading the essays was that Wallace's writing was at times brilliant, being equal parts engaging, insightful and funny, but ultimately something that was not my cup of tea.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Infinite Jest: far too daunting to expect anyone to dive right in with this one. This was my mistake.

 

Counterpoint: This was the first DFW I ever read and I had absolutely no problems with it. It's long, obviously, but I think it's actually more immediately "digestible" than either Brief Interviews... or Oblivion, due in large part to how insanely insular and self-reflexive many of the stories in those two are.

[Nighthawk 0]

It was my first read of his too. It was sort of difficult, but I kind of knew that going in, so I was resolved to finish it. I can recall picking it up in the bookstore and thinking "This thing is a fucking phone book!"

[Guest Brady's Torn ACL]

I read the final piece in Consider the Lobster, "Host," a few weeks back. I believed I've mentioned before that I long steered clear of it due to the disorienting layout; I'm glad I finally made the effort. It's one of the best pieces in the collection.

That's one of my favorites too, with anything on radio understandably being quite relevant to me. My dad has the original copy from The Atlantic, and the layout makes much more sense in magazine form. I don't know why the book couldn't have reformatted it into good old footnotes. I'd scan it if I weren't certain that the difficulty in reading a scan would negate the easier reading of the original layout.

 

I didn't have any trouble with Oblivion. Maybe I just psyched myself out with IJ. Now, I will prevail.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Maybe I just psyched myself out with IJ. Now, I will prevail.

 

You will not be disappointed.

[Guest Brady's Torn ACL]

It's not like I bought it and never touched it.

[Nighthawk 0]

Yeah, you probably killed a spider with it.

[The Niggardly King 0]

It's not like I bought it and never touched it.

 

I'm sure it's made a great coaster for you over the years.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

Nice, moving article about DFW in the current issue Rolling Stone. Fun Fact: Wallace would periodically become obsessed with famous people, including Margaret Thatcher and Alanis Morrissette. Slightly-Depressing-but-Oh-Well-I-Probably-Would've-Done-It-Too Fact: David Foster Wallace fucked Elizabeth Wurtzel.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

David Foster Wallace's third novel was to be called The Pale King. It's going to be published next year.

 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03...0309fa_fact_max

 

Decent article, but a lot of the bio stuff was already covered in the Rolling Stone tribute.

[Guest Czech please!]

I didn't know all that about the suicide attempts or the ECT. I'm surprised. Anyway, looking forward to reading that.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

That he specifically set out a copy of the manuscript near his body so his wife could find it suggests that he knew the value of his work. Still, it's a little disheartening to read that he'd been working on it for so long because he was having trouble making it as good as he thought it could be.