RIP DFW

I won't say that David Foster Wallace's suicide shocked me. I didn't really know much about the Philo, Illinois native's life until after the fact, but the timing was very strange for me. I hadn't read any of his work until about a month ago, when I picked up a copy of Consider The Lobster on the cheap. I have since polished off three of his books in quick succession, and quickly became something like enamored. 

A friend had recommended A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and lent me Brief Interviews with Hideous Men some time ago. I never got around to these until after reading Lobster in a matter of days. I bought Lobster knowing that "Up Simba", the essay on McCain's 2000 run, was apropos of current happenings and had been spoken of well in various corners of the blogosphere. "Simba" turned out to be one of the weaker essays in the collection. Some of the questions raised, such as whether McCain is really "a different kind of politician" seem kind of quaint in light of the current campaign, and some of the assertions, i.e. "if... you don't bother to vote, you are in fact voting for the entrenched Establishments", are kind of absurd. However, the highlights are very high. "Big Red Son" managed to paint a horrifying picture of the porn industry without being at all moralistic, and he manages to write a riveting review of an English usage dictionary in "Authority and America Usage". (Yes, the fact that I'm kind of a language nerd may detract from my testimony here.)

Maybe more surprising is that the eponymous essay in A Supposedly Fun Thing, which is about DFW's journey on a week-long Carribean cruise, is also quite interesting, while describing what seems to be a mostly stultifying experience. The collection also has a nice analysis of David Lynch's oeuvre, in the guise of a review of Lost Highway.

Brief Interviews clicked less with me, and I suspect this may be true of his fiction style in general. Nonetheless, it's clear that the man possessed a great talent, and as soon as I have a few weeks to spare, I may give Infinite Jest a try.