# David Foster Wallace is dead. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 14, 2008, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523 "2008-09-14T02:36:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/41 "2008-09-14T19:53:13Z")
C) --although, that’s not really relevant here; only as a general rule. In this case, I was inspired to post because someone started a thread on a topic regarding which I had something specific and personal to add. I have participated in other funeral threads positively, and my initial post in this thread was, I hope, honest and even-handed; not intended as threadshit. In future funeral threads, if I have something to add I will add it, I hope just as honestly, and if other participants disagree with me I hope they will address what I have added rather than try to tell me my own motivations for adding it. (ETA, in response to your post above: Happy to drop it too. As you probably knew when you changed the subject from Wallace to me, I sometimes have a hard time suppressing my instinct for self-defense in such instances, but I’ll let it go since you have.) ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/42 "2008-09-14T20:05:26Z")
> [@KarmaComa](#): > > The footnotes, for example, are a bit much sometimes and I think it’s important to recognize that many of them are for his sake, not the reader’s. Oftentimes when he gets into jerkoffy territory I recognize that as the way a certain type of mind tends to work and I recognize it in myself and I deeply appreciate how well he expresses himself. Exploring the tributaries of the stream of consciousness, in a way. He certainly doesn’t bend over backwards to make things easy for the reader, but many argue that he bends over backwards to make things hard for the reader. I disagree with this – to me it really seems like he gets wrapped up in the little games he plays with himself, and if there’s a thread you can follow naturally the rewards can be huge. I largely agree with this. I think he did some fascinating, if crude, experiments with what was, essentially, hypertext–“linking” to the footnote on the page, rather than to another web page. I wish he’d lived long enough to take those experiments further. I think he was, to a certain degree, very much a representative voice of his “generation” of fiction writers (much as I hate that phrase). I think one of his greatest flaws as a writer–this will sound odd–is that he was so, um, what, undeveloped. In other words, I think the ideas he had were much bigger than he was able to accomplish; I’d like to have seen him perfect them. Other writers of his, what, his “school”–Leyner, Franzen, Eggers–had smaller ideas and so achieved them more fully. His reach far exceeded his grasp, for which I will always respect him, and for which I will always mourn his unfulfilled promise. Puts me in mind of another writer whose early death foreshortened her huge ideas and potential accomplishments, Kathy Acker (who was, surprisingly (contrarily?) a real sweetheart in person 🆒 ). ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/43 "2008-09-14T21:02:10Z")
Just wanted to share my shock and grief upon reading this morning of his death.:(:(☹ If there is any news of a funeral or memorial service, especially if there is a service in the east somewhere, can someone post? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/44 "2008-09-14T21:06:23Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > As a math guy, I really enjoyed and appreciated his _Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity_. It’s not every literary genius who can write so knowledgeably and well about mathematics. > [@KarmaComa](#): > > Although funnily, I remember seeing a lot of mistakes in the math described in Infinite Jest. He obviously knew enough to sound convincing to the average reader (ok average IJ reader). I’ve never read either, but “Everything and More” is also said to contain unfortunate mathematical errors (see [here](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n24/moor02_.html), particularly the last paragraph). ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2008, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/45 "2008-09-14T21:43:51Z")
There are some clips on this web site of him at a writers’ conference in Italy in 2006. [le conversazioni |](http://www.leconversazioni.it/index.php?lingua=2&sezione=programma&evento=1&edizione=2&scheda=19&area=video&extra=&page_news=1&page_multi=1) ---
**Author:** ![PeskiPiksi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/46 "2008-09-15T02:59:11Z")
Some of you might be interested to know that there’s a movie version of \*Brief Interviews \*being made. It’s a passion project of John Krasinski (Jim from _The Office_). I don’t know that it’s going to be a wide-release movie–sounds like it’s going to be more of a small indie type of film. [Linky.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790627/) ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/47 "2008-09-15T04:59:37Z")
> [@Key\_Lime\_Guy](#): > > Did he have an especially well-known non-fiction essay? I know I’ve read _something_ by him, but not any of his books… > > (The Updike piece linked upthread was, well, uproarious.) As far as essays not published in books I believe his article for the New York Times Magazine about Roger Federer and Wimbledon was pretty widely read. Link here: [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?pagewanted=all](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html?pagewanted=all) ---
**Author:** ![Figaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ea666f/32.png) [@Figaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Figaro)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/48 "2008-09-15T13:19:31Z")
Jesus! ☹ _Infinite Jest_, _Girl With Curious Hair_, and \*Remember the Lobster \*are three of my favorite books, and I’m not afraid to say I think the guy was a genius. I couldn’t care less if he was a jerk. I’ll miss having his brain, and its printed jetsam, in the world very much. ---
**Author:** ![Dumbguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dumbguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dumbguy)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/49 "2008-09-15T15:54:16Z")
Wallace always gave me this beautiful impression that he was smart and fearless enough to take the world head on, to see as it is with all its bullshit and misery, to never shy away from the grotesque, to use it, conquer it, make it do his bidding, but somehow never drown in it. I guess he lied about the last part. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/50 "2008-09-15T16:42:50Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Eh, I dunno. I read _Consider the Lobster_, and was sort of annoyed that too often the footnotes seemed basically there for the sake of having a lot of footnotes, and were more or less contentless. I thought the version of “Host” that was in this compilation was almost unreadable… but the original magazine version is very nice. It reads like a standard article, but with the pull-quotes and photos replaced with footnotes, and they’re in muted colors so they don’t intrude. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523/51 "2008-09-15T18:05:32Z")
> [@SmackFu](#): > > I thought the version of “Host” that was in this compilation was almost unreadable… but the original magazine version is very nice. It reads like a standard article, but with the pull-quotes and photos replaced with footnotes, and they’re in muted colors so they don’t intrude. The online version of this is pretty nice too (I just re-read it today) in that the footnotes are hyperlinked pop-up boxes with the same muted color scheme from the magazine. Link here: [Host](http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200504/wallace). It still seems like a very relevant take on right-wing talk radio, even though it was written 4 years ago. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-foster-wallace-is-dead/463523.md?page=2)