As most people who are interested probably know by now, David Foster Wallace died on Friday. (And if I just broke the news to you on a blog, well...I feel pretty horrible about that.)
Wallace, who wrote Infinite Jest and several other wonderful things, committed suicide. I'm reading a lot about how it's not such a shock, given the dark, dysfunctional quality of his fiction, but I think anyone who's read "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is going to mourn the sweet, ordinary guy who comes through in those pages, and isn't going to see anything inevitable about this.
Of course, he was also a genius parodist, and a quick Google news search on "David Foster Wallace" will reveal a memorial I think he would have found most fitting: a popcorn chain of headlines trying to out-ridiculous one another.
What Would David Foster Wallace Make of McCain 2008?
"One of the many reasons I am mourning David Foster Wallace’s death [...] is that we never found out what he thought of John McCain’s 2008 campaign."
Who Broke the News of David Foster Wallace's Death?
"This isn’t the most relevant detail to fuss over, I know [...] [b]ut who had the news of Wallace’s suicide first? "
Recalling Don Paskins, Anita Page and David Foster Wallace
And, my personal favorite: Infinitely Sad
mark (!) emailed me (!!) yesterday to share this link which harper's made available because of DFW's death:
http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf
pretty delightful so far but i haven't read the whole thing yet. i've only hit like 3 footnotes so far, so i think i've got a ways to go.
mark-pants or mark-marina?
marina.