David Foster Wallace hanged himself last night. He was 46. As I write this the news is the most popular item on Twitter. And I can't help but think that beyond the absolute loss of a great talent far, far too young, there's tremendous symbolism at work. Wallace's INFINITE JEST could not have been written at any other time than the mid-1990s. It was a different, more optimistic time, one that produced a work of ambition and scope and voice like this. Twelve years on, it's a much darker place. A much more fearful one. And Wallace never wrote another novel and decided to check out.
It feels like when Kurt Cobain died. I suspect those who were alive at the time could make comparisons with the deaths of Elvis or Jim Morrison, or perhaps, for those in Europe, Vladimir Vysotsky. It's not just a man committing suicide or even a loss to the literary world - it's a seismic shift in American culture.
What. The. Fuck.
Goddammit.
Posted by: Clair Lamb | September 13, 2008 at 10:32 PM
Please. Please don't romanticize depression.
It is sad and a loss for literature, but it doesn't represent anything more than one man's sad decision.
Posted by: Bill Peschel | September 13, 2008 at 11:08 PM
"a seismic shift in American culture"?
That might be a bit strong.
Very sad for his family. Suicide is a crushing blow to those left behind.
Posted by: David J. Montgomery | September 14, 2008 at 08:31 AM
I don't know -- I tend to go with Sarah. I think the man's influence was astonishing considering his comparatively small catalog of books. And INFINITE JEST is one of the most exhilarating books I've ever read twice.
The thing that makes me really sad is that for all its evident genius, IJ was the work of a man with so much talent he could barely wrangle it. I was really looking forward to seeing what he might do in ten years, or in twenty, when he had really come into his own.
Breaks my heart.
Posted by: Marcus Sakey | September 14, 2008 at 10:57 AM
Michiko Kakutani has a nice piece about Wallace on the Times' website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15kaku.html
Posted by: David J. Montgomery | September 14, 2008 at 01:07 PM
Very sad news. The Washington City Paper piece is worth a read too, if only for the interview quote, which includes an incredibly astute observation from Wallace on the genre wars:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/09/14/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/
Posted by: stevemosby | September 14, 2008 at 01:42 PM
I think Ms. Kakutani's essay was a pretty good assessment of his work. He was a talented writer, but he'll never get a chance to be truly great now. He needed to be more focused and disciplined. Infinite Jest was a mess. I read it when it came out because I was a teenager and didn't know any better. Now, if someone told me I should read a 1,000 plus page work of fiction with footnotes I would politely decline. Life's too short.
Posted by: Nathan Cain | September 14, 2008 at 04:25 PM
"...a seismic shift in American culture." A comment like this requires either more distance from bad news or a greater knowledge of American culture. This is endemic of everything that is wrong with the Internet and its instantaneous ability to commit 'first thought / best thought' to posterity. This is the kind of comment that belongs in someone's diary to revisit years later and cringe.
Posted by: Chandler Hill | September 14, 2008 at 08:02 PM
DFW's death is almost certainly a "seismic shift in American culture." He was one of the few writers who wrote in an erudite and idiosyncratic voice, and managed to get the public interested. His influence on numerous literary figures is tremendous. His popularization of postmodernism is unquestionable. There was simply no other figure writing in the manner that he did alive today who reached such an audience. Of course, if your own view of culture extends no more than bad commercial pop music and assorted offerings on the idiot box, I can see why you might be perplexed by such a statement.
Posted by: ed | September 14, 2008 at 08:06 PM
Very, very sad. May he rest in peace. I hope his wife and family will be given the privacy to grieve.
I believe all the public speculation, opinions about suicide just adds to their grief. I'm not certain how I'd feel if my husband or close family member's personal health was so widely discussed, but unfortunately with our internet culture there isn't much privacy.
Jeanne
Posted by: Jeanne Ketterer | September 15, 2008 at 06:01 PM
Part of what drove me to Oracle, Arizona to pursue my writing fulltime in 2001 was the fact that DFW had gone to grad school twenty miles down the road in Tucson.
I mean, he had that much influence on me.
Posted by: Stacey Cochran | September 15, 2008 at 11:57 PM