Tuesday, September 16, 2008

David Foster Wallace RIP



This almost slipped by me in my self-imposed isolation.


David Foster Wallace, author of The Broom of the System and, most famously, Infinite Jest committed suicide on Sept. 12th at the age of 46. I'd be lying if I said I'd read Infinite Jest. I tried but gave up on the grounds that I couldn't make heads or tails of the damn thing. Still, Wallace is the first writer from my generation who achieved "literary" status to die. While his work held no resonance for me at the time I tried to read it, I'm not going to slam a guy who earned comparisons to Juan Luis Borges and Thomas Pynchon. That's a lot more than I've, and I expect you've, done.


I guess I'll give Wallace another try. Now that I'm older, wiser, and, most importantly I suspect, sober, Infinite Jest will make a whole lot more sense to me.

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