I Will Miss David Foster Wallace
David Foster Wallace got it.
He got our culture. He laughed at it, sure, but not without a sense of outrage and a sense of sadness that made him stand apart from the knowing, ironic detachment that seems be the hallmark of our Gen X generation.
In the 1990s, my husband and I would read aloud passages of his articles to each other. And, as soon as we finished laughing, we'd be struck by his trenchant observations of the effects of our banal mass culture on us—effects we hadn't realized until he pointed them out.
Here he is, in his famous essay on cruise ships, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," on the Professional Smile, which he calls "a national pandemic in the service industry:"
"This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair."
And yet...
"And yet the Professional Smile's absence now also causes despair. Anybody who has ever bought a pack of gum at a Manhattan cigar store or asked for something to be stamped FRAGILE at a Chicago post office or tried to obtain a glass of water from a South Boston waitress knows well the soul-crushing effect of a service workers scowl, ie. the humiliation and resentment of being denied the Professional Smile. And the Professional Smile has by now skewed even my resentment at the dreaded Professional Scowl: I walk away from the Manhattan tobacconist resenting not the counterman's character or absence of good will but his lack of professionalism in denying me the Smile. What a f**king mess."
I wanted to interview David Foster Wallace about John McCain. He had written about McCain in the 2000 campaign. His essay was recently re-published in book form. It's called McCain's Promise. He writes about the dual nature of McCain's, well, McCain-ness. On the one hand, he's a man who, when tested, did something few of us will ever have to do or even contemplate: he chose to spend 5 years in a box, being tortured in Vietnam instead of taking up his captors' offer of early release. And yet, he can behave as ruthlessly as any other politician, perhaps hoping his history of being an honorable man will give him a pass.
David Foster Wallace captured that, and so much more in passages like this one:
"There are many elements of the MCain2000 campaign — naming the bus "Straight Talk," the timely publication of Faith of My Fathers, the much-hyped "openness" and "spontaneity" of the Express's media salon, the message-disciplined way McCain thumps "Always. Tell you. The truth"—that indicate that some very shrewd, clever marketers are trying to market this candidate's rejection of shrewd, clever marketing. Is this bad? Or just confusing? ...the only thing you're certain to feel about John McCain's campaign is a very modern and American type of ambivalence, a sort of interior war between your deep need to believe and your deep belief that the need to believe is bull****, that there's nothing left anywhere but sales and salesmen."
That is essential David Foster Wallace: aware of the manipulation yet yearning for a deeper meaning (any meaning, really.) Essential post-modernism, but with soul.
I wondered what David Foster Wallace would make of McCain now, eight years later. He declined our request for an interview. That was a couple of months ago. I found out today that he had had a particularly rough summer. His father, James Wallace, told the New York Times that his son couldn't find a treatment for his chronic depression that worked. "He had been in the hospital a couple of times over the summer and had undergone electro-convulsive therapy. Everything had been tried, and he just couldn't stand it anymore."
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I didn't know David Foster Wallace or his works until I read about his death. I am sorry to hear that someone so obviously bright and talented chose to end their life. He's close to my own age, and I have struggled with depression myself so it makes the loss sting more.
I recently decided to spend more time seeking out different authors, and more time reading, which is hard in a busy life, as we all know. Reading about David's death has introduced me to a new and exciting author. I'm looking forward to reading his works, but sorry for our and his family's loss.
REQUIESCAT IN PACE dearest David. . .truly the finest mind of my generation. I devoured everything you ever wrote. You tantalized and confounded and dazzled me. YOU MADE MY HEAD HURT. You were and are my beloved cerebral paramour-along with Aldous Huxley. . .
I celebrate your legacy and will always be haunted by your final decision.
IN AETERNUM,
Nancy Alexander Day
Chapel Hill, NC
I came across the news accidentally today while researching a writing piece.
It's still difficult to comprehend.
I only hope that out of this tragedy a new group of appreciative readers will discover the works of one of the most refreshingly original and brilliant writers of our generation.
I can't describe how sad I am over DFW's suicide/death. I loved him and am so sad to know of what he'd been going through over the past months.
I feel badly that I never communicated in any way, (except to my friends and family) how much i loved, was struck by and admired him and his work. Since I first read Infinite Jest in 96, not a week goes by that something he wrote, or a perspective he had, or a sentiment he conveyed in some way, doesn't pass my lips or through my head. Often it is accompanied with awe of him and always gratitude. So sad...
I read Infinite Jest over the course of a summer vacation from college. My life during that time almost revolved around the book- I lugged it with me everywhere and every lunch break at work would find me deeply immersed in a fictional world that totally absorbed me. When I finally finished, I cried at having to say goodbye to the characters who had been my constant companions for an entire summer. I also suffer from severe clinical depression and I know the emptiness and lonliness that can drive someone to suicide. It was his book that drove away my demons of lonliness that summer. I wish I could have shared with Mr. Wallace how much pleasure his writing has brought me and how much his work means to me. I will miss him.
i happen to reach for my phone as i raced through the shanghai streets contemplating the confusion of maoist capitalism and i saw this headline, this is a first for me, as one of my literary heroes has become a hemingway clich?? with a simple twist of rope, i cannot exactly describe how i feel, i revered wallace as my generations vonnegut, a cynical and sardonic voice that was able to verbalize my intimations of reality, a post-existentialist of great importance, constantly pushing and challenging traditional literary notions of form and style, non-linear like a ridelin withdrawal, verbose like a prep school snob and hallucinatory like a warm summer's eve, he gave me hope that there was comedy in even the darkest of corners and that there was intelligence in a universe filled with stupidity, now there is silence where once there was wit and exuberance, these are troubled times, these ae precious times, these are thoughts i generally eschew as a matter of survival, his words have been my solace, his footnotes have been the edifice upon which my solipsism was built, a self proclaimed grammar snoot that could debate with himself the finer points of conjugation and its moral, political and emotional impact on a society losing the desire to reflect upon such things, infinite jest is a book that changed my perception, my very internal wiring, it opened me up to a process of thought previously only caught in lysergic glimpses, what is left? arbitrary commercial wrangling? pseudo philosophical politicism? empty experiential consumption? what can be said except goodbye. so goodbye david foster wallace you are now lionized, cannonized and i will continue to proselytize your words albeit with much sadness.
i happen to reach for my phone as i raced through the shanghai streets contemplating the confusion of maoist capitalism and i saw this headline, this is a first for me, as one of my literary heroes has become a hemingway clich?? with a simple twist of rope, i cannot exactly describe how i feel, i revered wallace as my generations vonnegut, a cynical and sardonic voice that was able to verbalize my intimations of reality, a post-existentialist of great importance, constantly pushing and challenging traditional literary notions of form and style, non-linear like a ridelin withdrawal, verbose like a prep school snob and hallucinatory like a warm summer's eve, he gave me hope that there was comedy in even the darkest of corners and that there was intelligence in a universe filled with stupidity, now there is silence where once there was wit and exuberance, these are troubled times, these ae precious times, these are thoughts i generally eschew as a matter of survival, his words have been my solace, his footnotes have been the edifice upon which my solipsism was built, a self proclaimed grammar snoot that could debate with himself the finer points of conjugation and its moral, political and emotional impact on a society losing the desire to reflect upon such things, infinite jest is a book that changed my perception, my very internal wiring, it opened me up to a process of thought previously only caught in lysergic glimpses, what is left? arbitrary commercial wrangling? pseudo philosophical politicism? empty experiential consumption? what can be said except goodbye. so goodbye david foster wallace you are now lionized, cannonized and i will continue to proselytize your words albeit with much sadness.
A reviewer here in Spain a few years ago somewhat said that DFW was the writer whose writing made you say god damn I wish I could write like that, which I thought was very nearly what i felt about his writing too. Personally, this is as if a big chunk of my own psyche, the chunk that best represents how I'd like to imagine myself in a nearly posibile future, had picked up and said okay, I'm done. As a reader, this actually gives his writing a weightiness and respectability it didn't previously have -- the wittiest wit and most observant observation came to its necessary and needed conclusion. As a human, I find this very, very sad. But enough about me...
I had the pleasure of meeting david in life and not through his writings. My friendship and respect grew from personal interaction that go with everyday activities. I will miss his interpretation of daily life. I did enjoy his writings and thank god that we became friends.
When I read the obituary in the LA Times, I felt that I had lost a dear friend. I was fortunate enough to have met DFW in 2002, and was so surprised at his kindness and magnanimous grace, and the sheer generosity of spirit he demonstrated. I can recall no other author who inspired my writing as he did. I contemplated going back to school just to be able to take his class at Pomona. It was the eve of Bush's Iraqi debacle, and everyone in the room felt the impending doom of what would undoubtedly be error of the decade. My heart aches for his family and for the man, who would in my mind and the minds of all who read him, changed the face of literature forever.
Rest in peace, David Foster Wallace.
We were privileged to have known you.
With works such as Infinite Jest, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and The Depressed Person, you challenged and enlightened us all.
I heard today on NPR that your goal was "to show readers how smart they are". How noble, and how grateful I am for that nobility in an era such as our own.
I am so very sad that you suffered so.
And we know that you knew you were not the only one.
I was surprised by how sad I felt about his leaving. It's not like I've read all of his work. It must be that his conversational and very rational writing style made me feel like I knew him personally. Best wishes to the family, friends and fans of our incomparable Wallace.
I wrote a review of DFW's ``Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity" for a mathematical journal that was a mixture of fawning and finger wagging. I sent him my review and he was kind enough to reply. Of course I saved his letter. I loved the writer and felt somehow that I knew the man, which I know can't be true. Still, I'm deeply saddened by his death and grieve as if he were family.
Foster recalled his coach's advice: "Kid, you got a bad head." That bad head allowed him to really know us to the bone. I wish I would have at least taken him to breakfast.
My usual Sunday morning tea and LA Times was brutally interrupted when I saw a picture of David in the obit section. Hell, if I'd known he was teaching in Pomona I would have signed up for his class and driven from Escondido to attend. The loss of this kind of mind in our current culturally deprived society will be felt for a long time to come. We will feel it sometimes without recognizing the loss, but it will be there. I had no idea he suffered so and I feel for all who knew him personally. RIP.
Foster's ability to enter a narrative in original ways, and seduce the reader with unique points of view will be sadly missed..I read Girl with Curious Hair back in my early 20's, in an anthology called Voices of the X-iled....on thursday of last week, my wife told me about a story i must read, "the depressed person" in an anthology called PRize Stories...she said it was very uniquely written...turns out it was DFW...i was excited to check it out and i put the book on my nightstand to read it this week. Then- this news in the Sunday paper...i was numb to the bone.. I have only recently gone off depression meds, and felt as if part of my own flesh had disappeared when i heard he hung himself...chillingly familiar, that despair that urges out... just too sad.
David Foster Wallace shaped my life and work in 2 profound ways during the 90s. In '97 i had just heard of Infinite Jest and read a Time review of it and i knew it was something that would change my life. Back then i was incredibly poor and on a budget of $25 a month discretionary spending and i sunk the whole month's wad into a fresh copy. Even before i started reading it i had written him the first of several letters we would exchange and well before i finished the massive work months later, he had written me back, about a quarter of a page of text carefully cut from a legal pad in tight small print. It was the first of several short notes i would receive from him with simple encouragement and advice. More than once he sent me back my own letters with his notes in the margins. This would not be the only commentary he would make to shape me and my world.
Turns out i had been working on a magnum opus of my own about a writer who survives his wife's suicide. The complex structure of the work depended on being built out of allusions to numerous other works. Infinite Jest became one of the anchors of the whole construction and in '99 when i finally completed the thing and was awarded an MA, he was one of the people who sent me letters of congrats.
More interestingly, in the summer of '99 while freelancing with a central Illinois A&E weekly, the editor asked me if i had ever heard of Wallace. I gushed yes and he further asked me if i had read, "Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All," Wallace's outrageous anti-reporter coverage of the Illinois State Fair. When i again gushed yes, the editor told me to go read it again and then cover the fair for a week and write something, just like it but better. While i didn't quite do all that, i certainly had the best experience ever while covering the fair.
The last letter i wrote to him was in 2005 when my wife actually did commit suicide just as the character based on her had in my book. He never wrote back, which was OK. This week i have certainly listened to his voice again. Monday morning when i finally got the news of his death, i relived her death all day and night. I may never be sure what all i have learned from this, but i hope to forever appreciate the lesson. Thank you for your life and i hope my continuing work in your memory will honor your death.
I heard of this young man for the first time last night, the conversation struck me as right-on-target, felt a great sense of loss for someone so talented, and prayed for his spirit to reach a point of happiness.
David Foster Wallace was my mentor when I was in graduate school ten years ago. I went to ISU, in fact, precisely to study with him. He was simply the most intelligent person I'd ever met, and yet he was one of the most humble. He took a personal interest in my writing and gave me the high honor of writing a blurb for my book when it came out. His presence in the world, as a writer and as a person, meant a great deal to me. In Infinite Jest he wrote about the suicidal person as someone in a burning building who dreaded the flames burning at his back more than the leap in front of him. I am so sad to know he felt those flames approaching. I feel for all of us who knew him, either as a (very) private individual or as a writer. Rest in peace, Dave.
i don't even know what to say. everything that comes to mind doesn't really put into perspective what a loss this is for all of us. we were smarter and more aware and driven to be both because of David. this news stops us in our tracks. it's like a punch right to the gut that doesn't stop hurting right away. not like it should.
i guess i need to stop putting off the 5th reading of IJ. it'd be nice to revisit those characters again.
I always loved the way he talked. It was straight from his heart. He will be missed by all who new him.
i never claimed to "understand" david foster wallace's writing, but, he sure did take me places. hearing of his death tore me apart. my heart goes out to friends,family, and fans. we miss you, david. i hope you find peace.
David was my professor, mentor and friend in the late 90s, when I was studying literature at ISU as a grad student. Like many writers, I was moved by David -- both emotionally and literally (I packed up my life and took a teaching assistantship at ISU just so that I could study with him). I'm just a few hours into my mourning -- having just heard the news -- so I'm not yet sure how to express the depth of what we have all lost through David's passing. I will always be grateful to him for what he taught me about myself and my craft. The world is a better place as a result of his insights, and I'm a better writer because of his mentorship. Rest in peace, Dave. We miss you.
I am profoundly saddened by David's passing. We met some years ago at a writer's conference. He was eternally kind with his comments of my work and his insightful critique, the stuff of true teachers, will never be forgotten. I left the states to escape our vapid, hollow culture 3.5 years ago and to get my head around the direction of my writing. David's writings immeasurably sustained me as I approached my work, helping me to examine the notion that my dissonance with the world was not the definition of insanity. His absence in the literary world is incalculable; his absence as an authentic individual, a kind man, is excruciating. He will be sorely missed.
This is all such a strange process. strangest of all is seeing everyone strive in one way or another to attach themself to this now Late Great.
"I knew him"
"I taught him"
"I had him as a teacher."
This isn't offered as a put-down. Just a shallow observation.
I cannot express how devastated I was when I heard of David's passing, and how that sadness is with me still. His mind, his wisdom, his wit, his power of observation, his warmth and his compassion will stay with me always; he opened my eyes in so many ways. To know that he is no longer around to share with us what the future may bring is profoundly sad.
