I can't call myself a real David Foster Wallace fan: I've only read Infinite Jest and one or two of his essays. (I enjoyed them all, and intended to get around to the rest.) But Infinite Jest came to me at a tough time in my life, when I was overwhelmed by most of life, and in some weird way it helped. Reflecting on it now, I think it's because the book was so incredibly empathetic, in the best sense possible. It was other things, too, but it practically dripped with soul, which is more than I can say for most other contemporary novels.
And though I'm not exactly grieving, and my life has not been changed, I'm still sad to hear that David Foster Wallace killed himself. Because I don't like it when a guy like that ends that way.
To close, via The Canada and Musical Stuff Blog, here's a passage from a commencement speech that DFW gave at Kenyon:
"The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing."
Edit: John Hodgman's brief and touching tribute.
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2 comments:
Hey, thanks for the comment... The joke is indeed mine. I glanced over your blog and it looks similarly interesting. I shall put it on my list.
I read "Consider the Lobster ... and Other Essays" a couple summers ago and came away unconsciously idolizing DFW for his intellect and wit. When I heard the news, I realized I had been aspiring toward something that was now gone. Very sad, indeed.
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