ghost writers in the sky

It’s been a dreadfully long time since I wrote anything for this blog. I would like to apologise to anyone out there who has been reading my stuff- your comments and emails mean a great deal to me, and I’ll try and do better from now on. Usually a drop in productivity on my part indicates a phase of languorous self-pity, but I can assure my faithful readers that this was not entirely the case on this occasion (of course there was the usual combination of puerile teenage interpersonal relationship breakdowns and the attendant bouts of narcissistic self-loathing and mirror-gazing, but that’s just everyday life round at my place). In the interim I have changed countries, started two new jobs, and moved into a beautiful new house with three fantastic friends. Having little to no internet access has meant that all my blog posts have been written as mental drafts and archived in my brain for later.

It’s now later, and this is one such post.

David Foster Wallace (pictured above) was a brilliant and gifted young novelist, journalist, mathematician, teacher and theorist who committed suicide last month. The following is a quote from the New York Times:

“His father said Sunday that Mr. Wallace had been taking medication for depression for 20 years and that it had allowed his son to be productive. It was something the writer didn’t discuss, though in interviews he gave a hint of his haunting angst. In response to a question about what being an American was like for him at the end of the 20th century, he told the online magazine Salon in 1996 that there was something sad about it, but not as a reaction to the news or current events. “It’s more like a stomach-level sadness,” he said. “I see it in myself and my friends in different ways. It manifests itself as a kind of lostness.” James Wallace said that last year his son had begun suffering side effects from the drugs and, at a doctor’s suggestion, had gone off the medication in June 2007. The depression returned, however, and no other treatment was successful. The elder Wallaces had seen their son in August, he said.

“He was being very heavily medicated,” he said. “He’d been in the hospital a couple of times over the summer and had undergone electro-convulsive therapy. Everything had been tried, and he just couldn’t stand it anymore.” (New York Times, By BRUCE WEBER Published: September 14, 2008)

I was a little surprised by how shocked and upset I was when I heard about David’s death (and, no, I didn’t know him, but I use his christian name for reasons which I hope will become obvious). On relaying the sad news to my friends and workmates, I was surprised again to find out that none of them had heard of him or his work.

He was a writer of uncommon perception and talent, and his great work, the 1079 page Infinite Jest,has had the words “great american novel” attached to it in just about every review since its release. Time magazine included it in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. It is a dazzling achievement, at once a virtuosic amalgam of inventive and postmodern narrative structures and stylistic flourishes, and an insightful and moving story about real human people and the things that they feel. It’s a book that demands a hugecommitment of attention from the reader, employing a large cast of characters, and indulging itself with seemingly endless amounts of information about everything. There are 388 footnotes in it, and some of them are pages long. Unlike the attempts of other writers to come to grips with a post-Nabokovian, postmodern literature, however, Infinite Jest’s seeming excesses serve its objectives and conform to a satisfying wholeness. Although obviously influenced by DeLillo and Pynchon, Wallace’s book has an authentic humanity that the venerable old masters could never quite seem to reconcile within their similar attempts to render a psychically heightened contemporary reality.

When I first read this book, I was understandably excited and moved, having searched for a modern writer who could give me the same intellectual satisfaction that I enjoyed reading Vladimir Nabokov, and having so far discovered only Bret Easton Ellis (another dear faviourite- I intend to review Lunar Parkhere soon). David Foster Wallace spearheaded a kind of mini-renaissance in American literature, bringing with him new discoveries for me: Dave Eggers (a heartbreaking work of staggering genius), and Chuck (Fight Club) Palahniuk, among others. Infinite Jestseemed new and inspired to me, but the real reason I enjoyed it so much was the fact that, in large part, the novel was about depression, and was written from inside the experience of it. As someone who has suffered from various forms of this malaise from time to time, it was with a shock of recognition that I identified all the familiar colours of the states of mind Wallace so beautifully painted, and admired the sheer determination that must have accompanied his painful self-examination. The book is not about wallowing in depression, but is instead a multi-faceted and perversely optimistic discussion of a thing undiscussable. This egotistical, hyperactive speed-freak of a writer had described parts of me. I felt as if I understood the quest within his art to identify and name every nuance of feeling contained within the broad and rich manic spectrum. It is by naming things that we understand them.

I quickly devoured all of David’s other books (except for Everything and more: a compact history of infinity, which is a nonfiction book largely written in higher mathematics, a language I am not equipped to understand), and began a long internet vigil waiting for a new book from him. That book never came because in September Mr Wallace stopped seeing all of the beautiful colours he showed us.

Suicide is a terrible and lonely thing, a last seizing of control by a cornered and desperate soul. It leaves all who survive feeling so alone, because our dear beloved is no longer there to explain why. Was he tired? Angry? Sad? Why did he not tell us?

A few years ago, my own best friend chose to take his own life. He wrote a suicide note, but I never got the chance to read it. It went to his family, and they did not share it. When I heard about David Foster Wallace’s death, I cried because he, too, didn’t write me anything to explain.

My thoughts are with his family and loved ones.

Here is a link to a very short Wallace story: Incarnations of burned children

casio :: Oct.23.2008 :: literature, obituary, review :: 2 Comments »

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