R.I.P. David Foster Wallace or A Man of Infinite Jest

[penfield]

"Look man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."
- David Foster Wallace


Not long after I started this journal, mearth compared me to "David Foster Wallace on Spanish Fly." At the time, I didn't know who that was. But then I read his essay collections "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" and "Consider the Lobster," and came to view the comment as high praise.

I admired his keen eye for irony and pathos, and his ability to take the mundane and spin it into a rich tapestry of ideas, opinions and argument. I even forgave him his self-indulgent, self-congratulatory command of mechanics and diction because he was able to deploy it with such wisdom.

Wallace was found dead of an apparent suicide on Friday night. It saddens me that we'll never see another word of his thoughts published on politics, pop culture or lobstercide. But it scares me to think that his brilliance was what made him so evidently depressed. Is it possible to be a gifted artist and NOT emotionally screwed up? What does that mean for me?

At any rate, his influence lives on. I hope to live up to that influence, someday.


More quotations from David Foster Wallace (Courtesy of GoodReads)