David Foster Wallace: 1962-2008
There are a lot of reasons I decided to become a writer, and a lot of writers I can put the blame on for its focus in my life. There was an adolescence of Claremont comics and Stephen King novels. The movies of people like The Coen Brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson. But there was one writer in particular who resonated with me the most, and in doing so, inspired me to seek the same kind of potential for connection in something that I made myself.
I had the good fortune of meeting David Foster Wallace just once. I was in Grad School for Creative Writing at the New School and it was something like the 100th Anniversary for The New Yorker? Or something? Anyway, my instructor and the mentor of my thesis Mary Gaitskill was reading there so I was excited about that. And also, David Foster Wallace was reading, so I was really excited about that. Afterwards, in the courtyard of the 12th Street campus, there was a small clatch of students standing around Wallace, I don’t really remember who was regaling whom with what exactly, but I did eventually find an opening and decided to speak to him.
I told him I was working with Mary Gaitskill and that we had talked about his work, as my own work was heavily inspired by his. I told him that she said he was a really nice, approachable guy and he smiled at that. And then I thanked him for being showing me that it was possible to be a truly great writer but also an incredibly funny writer and that the two didn’t need to be mutually exclusive. He told me that was sweet of me to say.
There are a lot of terrible things about what’s happened. There’s the fact that someone so genuinely enthusiastic and good-humored found life that unbearable. There’s the fact that he left behind a family and dogs that I know he really loved having. But since I spent only about thirty seconds in direct conversation with the man, that’s not really the stuff that itches at me the most.
As a fan of his work, as someone who started a strange and sprawling and barely even started novel solely for the purpose of writing my “own” Infinite Jest, there are other things that hit me harder.
There’s the fact that now, inevitably, this will color reactions to his work. That something like Infinite Jest will now be read and not just appreciated for its wit, its humor, or its melancholy, but as a “roadmap, man.” A series of clues that “like, totally told you what was coming.” There’s a shadow now over a body of work that really didn’t need any other basis of interpretation other than its own reassertion of a true ingenius voice at work.
And there’s the fact that that’s it. Not just that we’ll never get to read another word of prose or non-fiction from him, because like any other late artist, there will still be releases by him, incomplete of course, or maybe not, but still, we haven’t read the last word of work by him, I’m quite sure. It’s that such a fantastically inventive mind will never be inspired by anything else. By anything new. Not that the world won’t be changed by his work, but that his work can never be changed by the world, ever again.
The commencement address he gave to Kenyon College in 2005 is probably the most fitting thing to read today. To get a sense of how he saw the world, and what the world has lost.
But most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it’s also not impossible. It just depends what you what to consider. If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
It’s a strange sensation. It’s probably the deepest I’ve ever felt the loss of someone I barely knew, a celebrity. It’s not a depression or true aching loss. It’s a sense of regret.
David Foster Wallace gave as much to the world as it gave to him. And I regret that there is now such a strong imbalance in that equation.
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Benjamin Birdie
Suddenly kind of aged, Benjamin lives in Queens with his cat. His Master's Degree in Creative Writing has helped him immensely with his primary responsibilities of drawing things.
He can be reached at benjaminbirdie (at) gmail (dot) com.
And do feel free to follow him on Twitter.
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His Comics
Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, this charming comic strip by myself and Kevin Church receives a sparkling new installment. A Comic Strip About A Comic Shop.