DFW

Tomorrow -- Sep 12 -- marks the one-year anniversary of David Foster Wallace's self-inflicted death. I don't have much to add: I didn't know the man personally, but I do know his writing.

As my introduction, I read the New Yorker article about him in March along with the excerpt of his unfinished novel, The Pale King. I immediately went out and picked up Infinite Jest (IJ). Despite the reputation as his masterpiece, the book sat on my shelf for months. I was finally spurred into action when I stumbled across the online book club, Infinite Summer. Now I had a community -- albeit a virtual one -- to help me across the finish line of this monster tome.

Am I finished? No -- I'm on pg. 785 out of 980. But a strange thing has happened: I've stopped reading IJ. But that doesn't mean I've stopped reading DFW -- oh no, my friend. I've read Consider the Lobster -- a collection of his non-fiction writings, and I'm just discovering that a slew of his other non-fiction is floating around the internet (something I'm sure DFW would surely love).

Public Service Announcement: read the article DFW wrote for Harpers about a trip he took on a cruise line: it's called, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again."

But I can't bring myself to finish IJ -- I don't want it to end; I've fallen hard for this book, and I've already told TW that I want to read it again, pronto. Those of you who know my reading habits, know that I tear through a book -- especially the final 1/4.

Ask me to give the denouement of any pop-culture book of the last five years and I couldn't do it -- "The Da Vinci Code" was set in Paris, right? Didn't "The Historian" have something to do w/vampires?

I just don't want this feeling, I mean book, to end...

I don't have anything moving to say: all I can offer you is to open yourself up to DFW; I think you'll be very happy once you've done so.

Here's a few other DFW-related links:

(1) One author's personal take on DFW

(2) How to write like DFW (this will be extra funny once you've read some DFW)