Duffy Moon ([info]duffymoon) wrote,
@ 2009-03-07 11:14:00
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David Foster Wallace, Wiggle Room
So, apparently (and thanks to [info]renoir_girl for bringing this to my attention), David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel (unfinished, that is, at the time of his suicide) is to be published in some format next year.

I had, at best, mixed feelings about this, when I heard the idea. But then I read the excerpt in the New Yorker, I realize that I MUST read this. The novel, apparently, is centered on a low-level government employee, whose cubicle-land job is filled with such 'soul-murdering' tedium that he struggles to hold on to his own sanity. Not sure why this appeals to me (cough cough) but it does.

But here's the thing: if this is an early draft of his work, this guy was an amazing talent, and I'm filled again with grief that he couldn't subdue his inner demons enough to live out his life, to continue to write, and to find some semblance of chemical-controlled peace of mind.

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[info]revme
2009-03-07 05:34 pm UTC (link)
Did you read the corresponding NY article? It was really well-done too. I haven't read "Wiggle Room" yet, but the "Excerpt From Something Much Longer..." about the sinister baby that was published a few places made me REALLY want to read whatever the Something Much Longer was, which is apparently _Pale King_.

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[info]duffymoon
2009-03-07 08:19 pm UTC (link)
Yes, I did. It was extremely thorough, and I loved every bit of it (I mean, as much as you can love the story of someone you admire experiencing deep psychic pain to the extent that he'd rather hang himself than experience one more moment of it). There was a ton I didn't know about DFW, despite being such an admirer of all his work for so long.

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[info]revme
2009-03-07 08:22 pm UTC (link)
Heh, exactly. I thought it was such a great, well-done article; I thought it was kind of interesting how DFW did keep to himself, at least when it comes to fans, even though his work is so emotionally open. It's interesting that from reading him, you feel that you know him, even though you don't at all (and even less than you thought, it became clear).

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[info]renoir_girl
2009-03-08 01:55 pm UTC (link)
It's like losing a good friend, isn't it? Sounds like he understood you pretty well.

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[info]duffymoon
2009-03-08 07:06 pm UTC (link)
Or, I guess, from a more pessimistic perspective, he understood a lot about the human condition, about 'soul-murdering' tedium, and he opted out. Not a choice I could ever make, and I certainly am not afflicted with the same psychic cancer that plagued him. Still, I think his struggles can inform all of us.

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(Anonymous)
2009-03-08 04:45 pm UTC (link)
I read the article on him in the New Yorker, still intending to read Infinite Jest this year. It's my Everest. I admit to struggling with doorstop-sized, postmodern Great American Novels at times, due to some bad experiences in college (it was not subtly suggested by some lit students I knew that only men write great novels, which are always 1,000 pages long, and full of importantly circuitous run-on sentences). I think I can get past this-- I have a feeling I might appreciate DFW, nonetheless.

Strikethru


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[info]duffymoon
2009-03-08 07:07 pm UTC (link)
I'm with you. I still haven't made it through "Gravity's Rainbow", despite schlepping it around with me for about a decade now. Ditto with "The Recognitions". Maybe there's only enough room in my literary life for one ginormous, testero-centric pomo novel, and it's filled by IJ?

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