and I'm strangely sad.
I missed the anniversary of David Foster Wallace's death. With all the
trauma that surrounds the day, it's no wonder but I still wish that I
had paused for a brief second on September 12 to recall the life of this relatively young (He was my age. Hey! No chuckling I am too young---ish) and brilliant writer.
I wasn't an English major in college (although even if I had been, we read a LOT of William Faulkner and James Baldwin and frankly had I been an English major, I might have quit with such a meager fare of modern literature) and I didn't read literary fiction until I met Mo (he's very well read). He called me at BnN where I was working at the time and told me about Wallace's passing (sadly, he killed himself after having suffered with depression for 20 years).
The death of a writer is always sad and of course I vaguely knew that he was one of the best of a generation. And then I read 'The Pale King' and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men'... brilliant, both of them brilliant! 'Interviews' was dark- scary realistic dark but amazing nonetheless and 'The Pale King' was wide open, loose ends all over the place, but gripping and compelling- it had little cultural/social references in that made me feel like I was reading a book about my past. I loved it. There's a new biography on him- well, relatively new. It came out about two months ago. I plan on reading it along with Infinite Jest. I think they will make nice companion pieces. Anyway, just sharing a bit of my reading history and future with you. And here's a flower for Mr Wallace (next year I'll try to remember).
How about you? Do you have any great reading schedule?
Always very sad to hear about people who suffer from depression. My heart goes out to this writer and his family.
ReplyDeleteI have never read DFW. I guess I should change that.
ReplyDeleteMy sister loves him, was very sad when he died. I tried to read Infinite Jest but couldn't get through it :(
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