--Moby Dick, Chapter 1 “Loomings”
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a stong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.”
--Moby Dick, Chapter 1 “Loomings”
The writer, and author of Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, offed himself (I prefer not to use the phrase “committed suicide,” because I think it contains a solemnity that does not always apply to suicide) a few days ago. I have not read his most well-known work, but I hope to get to it when I have time.
I actually own the book and when I went to look for it yesterday, I saw it, somewhat ominously (auspiciously?), next to a Bible I own. I own a few and this is not one I normally look at (prefer KJV). The Bible actually seemed more out of place than Infinite Jest did, since, because I am not a meticulous shelfer, it was resting alongside my other canonical, contemporary novels. Pynchon and DeLillo aren’t too far away; Nabokov lingers nearby.
Anyway, I took it down and read the first few pages. I had known that Wallace received his MFA from the University of Arizona (my current school). But I was delightfully surprised to see immediate references to places in Tucson that I know—the Randolph Sports Complex (where I recently took my dad for a very hot round of golf, and which is right by the Target and In-n-Out that Michele and I frequent). Like Leslie Marmon Silko’s inclusion of Tucson as a setting in her great novel, Almanac of the Dead, it was nice to be able to visualize the inspiration for a novel’s setting. Tucson has a certain lore surrounding it that makes it a conducive place for novelistic settings (it’s also one of DeLillo’s settings in his best novel Underworld).
What is not so delightful is the idea that someone with Wallace’s talent and introspection could not find a reason to live any longer. I mean, I know the reason why; his basic perspective on life is probably closer to Hobbes's "nasty, brutish and short" than any more Romantic explanation. Wallace would likely have added, “and very lonely.” [Actually, not wanting to be too presumptuous about diagnosing Wallace's state of mind or general philosophy of life, I did a little looking, and he’s quoted in his Salon interview declaring, “there is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don't know what you're thinking or what it's like inside you and you don't know what it's like inside me. In fiction I think we can leap over that wall itself in a certain way.”] This was, to a lesser extent I think, Melville’s basic attitude, especially after he received little to no recognition for works of art that he knew were masterpieces, but which so few readers actually understood (luckily, at least, they’d start to understand in the 20th century).
The difference, maybe, is that Melville at least found communion with the writers he loved to read, and the art he created, despite the public’s lack of appreciation. Literature and writing were to Melville what the sea was to Ishmael--what kept him from pistol and ball. [I think they were for Wallace, too, but he also felt that the "redemptive" quality of art was kind of a cliche (see interview)]. In the end, it seems, Wallace found the walls that separate us finally insurmountable, even if he did, for awhile, find his literary endeavors well worthwhile. I wish (for his sake) he could have been more like Pynchon and Beckett, who find an equal amount of absurdity in the world, but instead choose a more comic (but no less serious) demeanor in the face of absurdity. They use their art to mirror absurdity back to itself, so that perhaps whatever sense may be gleaned from life might be captured in the quick shimmer of competing reflections. (An equivalent aural image might be the feedback shriek when a mic is placed next to its amplifying apparatus).
I guess something like this isn’t too unprecedented. Artists almost have to be basically dissatisfied with the world, or else they wouldn’t try to remake it. Writers with even much more talent than Wallace, like Virginia Woolf, have also found recourse in places like the bottom of a river. Kurt Cobain and Ernest Hemingway found the end of a shotgun. So it goes.
That provides little comfort. But I suppose Wallace wasn’t trying to comfort anyone.
I did some searching for interviews he had given and I found a couple. A transcript of one he did for Salon, and his live interview with Charlie Rose. In the interview with Rose he talks about going to see David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and how it changed his perspective on art and what art can do and what makes a great artist. This connection was somewhat eerie since I’ve been thinking a lot about Lynch’s work lately. He probably watched Blue Velvet (at The Loft?) at a theatre I frequent. Michele and I just finished watching Twin Peaks, and I’ve recently watched Eraserhead, Dune, and Inland Empire. (There’s nothing too coincidental about this, since Lynch’s audience is certainly not that limited. But still.). Wallace talks to Rose about what he believes to be Lynch’s primary aesthetic—the confluence of the grotesque and banal. Lynch did not invent this aesthetic, by any means, (I think it’s a vital aspect of Flannery O’Connor’s work), but he probably did use it more provocatively than anyone ever has, and certainly to an extent much more profound than any film director.
Wallace also taught quite a bit later in his career, and he addresses the difficulties of teaching writing to young people who are, on a certain level, illiterate: not in the sense that they can’t read, but that they don’t read (and he is surprisingly non-judgmental about that fact). He also touches on what it’s like to be a writer—how when he’s writing, his schedule usually consists of writing for an hour, and then spending the following eight hours worrying about not writing. Working on my diss, I can completely sympathize with this feeling of dread that writing produces. The fatigue and strain of constantly questioning yourself.
Anyway, here is the video. It’s interesting even if you have no idea who he is.
Coda #1: The interview ends at about the half-hour mark. His final words in the interview are definitely not auspicious, and definitely are ominous: "attention and respect doesn't really change anything...I don'treally have a brass ring and I'm kind of open to suggestions about what one chases...I haven't found any satisfactory new ones, but I'm not getting ready to jump off a building or anything."
Coda #2: Knowing that I won’t get to Infinite Jest for awhile, I still wanted to read something by Wallace, and remembered an article he wrote for Harper’s that I knew I had sitting around somewhere. Luckily at this time all my Harper’s dating back to 2001 are in the same stack. (This is why I keep them around, Michele).
I highly recommend it for anyone interested in understanding his general perspective on language, his humor and wit, and his absolute mastery of English (in all its various forms and dialects).
http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf
His traces will survive him, even if they do not lessen the sadness his death evokes.
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