Sunday, September 14, 2008

R.I.P. DFW



Holy crap, David Foster Wallace just killed himself.

More on the author here.

Some quotes from DFW.

"Fiction-writing's lonely in a way most people misunderstand. It's yourself you have to be estranged from, really, to work."

"I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction's job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."

"I 've found the really tricky discipline to writing is trying to play without getting overcome by insecurity or vanity or ego."

"The problem is that once the rules of art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the irony diagnoses are revealed and diagnosed, "then" what do we do?"

"...To be willing to sort of die in order to move the reader, somehow. Even now I'm scared about how sappy this'll look in print, saying this."

4 comments:

wysgal said...

Wow shocking. I've only read "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," while my copy of the gargantuan "Infinite Jest" has been growing moss.

Ian Rosales Casocot said...

hmmm... maybe it's time to crack open my 10-year old copy of "infinite jest" which has been gathering dust ever since.

indi said...

Holy crap, indeed!

CHANSONATA said...

I've only read bits of his "Consider the Lobster" but I have a friend who's a big fan. I gave him a copy of "Infinite Jest" as a birthday gift and it's sort of become one of the reasons why DFW's death is affecting me this much (the other reason being that seeing my friend this sad is in itself a sad thing).

One day, maybe one day, I'll summon enough courage to read "Infinite Jest."

Heath Ledger, is that you?