I tend to categorize the writers that I've read based mostly on what they make me think about. Gabriel Garcia Marquez makes me think about determinism and romanticism and how those things can become intertwined. Don Delillo makes me think mostly of death. Cormac McCarthy makes me think about despair and human nature. And so on. All this is to say that, from what admittedly little that I've read of DFW - I've read Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing, but none of his fiction, unfortunately :( - he makes me think mostly about self-conciseness. Like, how much modern society pushes us to be self conscience, image conscience, etc. I mean, he writes about a buttload of other themes, but that's the one that always sticks with me. So, I find it sadly ironic that, as DFW became more and more famous, it kind of seems that he became more aware and accepting of the role that society pushed him towards: the misunderstood, tortured genius. Like, as the cameras were trained on him, he just defaulted to that. I think the article does a real nice job of touching on that, and also talking about how that perception of him has only grown after his death. That quote where he says "I want to be on the other side of the camera" - i.e., on the side that isn't being watched - was particularly telling. Cool read. I should really read Infinite Jest one of these days..
I thought it was interesting to hear a well-balanced person's take on the grocery store part of the commencement speech. I heard it and I was like, "Yeah! I hate the supermarket. Fuck those people, buying food to eat with their happy families. Pfft. I'm gonna go home and drink mouthwash." Now I realize it's another thing to talk about when I get to therapy. It was a very humanizing piece, to see the man called a miserably depressed asshole because I've read a lot of analysis on his work but not so much on the guy except he was a perfectionist. Not that I'm punching up at a popular dead guy, but the author is right that a lot of his complexities are set to be lost as he becomes a combination of his work and a mythical figure. I watched Montage of Heck and it was a very humanizing portrait of Kurt Cobain's early years that I'd not heard about, but seeing his journal entries and comparing that to the lyrical content of his music, the guy did not have a lot to say and captured a zeitgeist more than being a genius. I don't think he could have sustained his trajectory. I really like Nirvana but not in the way I like other artists who have deeper lyrical content. I like Nirvana and I like some DFW I've read, the thing is David Foster Wallace will never get a Montage of Heck documentary made about his formative years and struggles. He doesn't have that wide appeal to have multiple biographical works made until one seems reverant and also honest. This article will probably be the closest thing to that and he'll be remembered for a couple major works and whatever readers and academics choose to remember about the man that reinforces how they interpret his work. I kinda went off on a tangent. He'll get some biographies written but I'm not sure they'll be unflinching.
I thought I was well-balanced and then I agreed with DFW so I no longer think I am well-balanced. But I now shop exclusively at the greatest place on earth -- problem solved. In all seriousness I thought the writer was being totally ridiculous in that paragraph and I still side with Wallace, especially in the way he used the example to tell a morality tale about self-absorption. We'll just have to get some of them in print first.I thought it was interesting to hear a well-balanced person's take on the grocery store part of the commencement speech. I heard it and I was like, "Yeah! I hate the supermarket. Fuck those people, buying food to eat with their happy families. Pfft. I'm gonna go home and drink mouthwash." Now I realize it's another thing to talk about when I get to therapy.
a lot of his complexities are set to be lost as he becomes a combination of his work and a mythical figure.