“I’m not going to lie, this is the only David Foster Wallace thing I’ve ever finished. I loaned Infinite Jest to my sister before I’d ever read it, and even as I loaned it I knew I’d never see it again. It’s been about 5 years now, and so far time has proven me right.
I tried Consider The Lobster. His writing felt very…academic to me. Just a little cold, or maybe like the essays were trying quite hard to convince me of a thesis every time. The footnotes killed me. I feel a little like someone who refuses to watch movies with subtitles, but I don’t see myself reading many footnoted texts during the remainder of my life. If you don’t have time to incorporate your points into your text, then I won’t make the time to read them. You’re the writer, do the work. And by the way, I do not buy into the idea behind “Big Red Son” that porn stars hold some sort of true power at porn conventions. Interesting thesis, yes. Good social science, no.
Even though this suffers from some of the same issues, I think he makes good points and does it in a meaningful way. I can relate to what he’s saying, how the world is sort of wonderful and terrible when one considers that every person has his or her own demons.
Yesterday I helped troubleshoot a woman’s computer. The problem was clear from the get-go. She was paying AOL $15 a month for…I don’t know what. AOL isn’t her ISP. It’s just some sort of software. Paying for a browser, in essence.
Before I could even try to lightly encourage that she consider abandoning AOL and saving a few bucks, she said, “Everyone keeps telling me to get rid of AOL and to use [Chrome]. But my husband has Alzheimer’s. He knows how to use AOL because he knew that from before. He can’t learn how to use anything else.
What can you do at that point? This frustrated woman, who had bad breath and spent a lot of time almost blaming me for the state of her computer, had a problem that was a lot bigger than just switching over to Chrome. As painful as it was for me, her side of the problem was a lot worse. The only option was to fix the problem within AOL, which took about an hour or so. But we did it.
My point here is Fuck AOL. Fuck you. Seriously, you’re just taking advantage of people at this point. It’s insane that you are charging a monthly fee for your product. I can’t even really understand how that works.
Okay, no. The real point here is that I’ve always been sure that there was an emotional, heart appeal from David Foster Wallace. It had to be there. I just hadn’t found a piece where I managed to battle through to it. This one is short, and it’s a nice introduction to the guy if you haven’t read anything (or completed anything) by him before. I’m glad I came into it (Thanks to Karen’s review) and maybe I’ll keep up steam and send my sister a very nasty text regarding a book she borrowed about 100 years ago.
You can read the entirety of this speech here: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf
UPDATE:
It’s probably better to read the .pdf than the book. It’s come to my attention that the book version has made an edit.
The original text:
âIt is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master.â
In the book version, that second sentence is omitted. An interesting choice. I get it, Wallace killed himself and the reference to suicide is hard. What I don’t get is why they would take out the second sentence as opposed to the whole section.
I did also read a comment I found a bit disturbing regarding Mr. Wallace’s suicide. Along the lines of “I thought he was more enlightened than that.”
Suicide is a very strange thing. And I’ve really come to believe that speculating on suicide in terms other than those meant to dig up ways to help others in the future is extremely pointless and hurtful to a person’s memory. Speculating on why is bad. Assigning a value judgment to a person’s final act, to me is abhorrent. Saying that if a person only had this or that good quality they’d still be alive? Shame on you. Read this speech and then read it again if that’s how you feel.”