Tom: As much as I consider myself a kind man, who, from working with the population of the homeless that have mental illnesses, the bottom line is that Wallace was a dick. A very talented dick, but a dick nonetheless. Having said this, no one of his genius should have to go out as he did.
It was directly your work, Sherman, that I discovered personally at past 75 yrs.
From then on, I tracked down every published work you’ve published or otherwise. Somehow tho being fully caucasian myself, I found I consistently could relate directly to your own story, and beyond that, the rhythm and pace of your writing.
It was specifically your, “The Absolutely True Dairy of a Part-Time Indian” that captured me then and still does now.
The day I heard David Foster Wallace had committed suicide, I felt such bittersweet grief. I'd never met him but he had touched a corner of my life and given me hope that the writer's life was alive and well.
Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain also come to mind when I think about icons who have left this world all too soon.
I've worked in psychiatric hospitals with people struggling with suicidal ideation, so the idea that some people feel their only choice is to take their lives is not a foreign concept. Still, it's hard to truly understand how anyone can lose all hope, especially when we believe they have everything they could possibly want.
Wallace was living the writer's life. His books were being published, he was a star on the book tour, he had the MacArthur Foundation financial backing so he could write without the distraction of making money, and he was considered one of the most brilliant writers of our time.
Wallace's suicide left me questioning whether the my dream of becoming a serious writer is one that will sustain me over the long haul. What if the prize is all wrapping paper with nothing on the inside? What if the need to produce work that exceeds previous expectations is crippling?
I didn't know Wallace or Williams or Bourdain. I do know that their suicides have left me questioning whetheror not the brass ring is worth chasing. I continue to miss their unique perspectives and will never understand the pain they must have endured, but I will always be grateful for the rich gifts they shared with us as I continue to put ink on the page.
Readers keep mentioning that DFWs essays are quite funny, and they prefer them to his fiction. While reading Infinite Jest I had more laugh out loud moments than while reading any other book ever! (And I am Wallace’s age.) I also found it extremely meaningful, asking Dostoyevsky depth questions via the spiritual language of addiction. He wasn’t a saint, yet his dark night informed his art.
I first heard that usual art was created when a lover went off to war and his portrait was created to help with memory. I also heard through a great poet teacher poet was really maker as in creator. My humble guess is that we all are survivors of life and many struggle and sometimes just can’t go on though at the last minute Anne Sexton tried to call for help but failed. I like survivor label best because the rest is construct but whatever works fur folks. Not only do artists see the world in ways different we also hold much and then travel into the shadows and light.I am thinking of Theodore Roethke here.
I think in ancient times perhaps better as in a less hierarchical and more rhizome life landscape and more creators and makers than not. Also in the way of teachers and acceptance but of course moments of times certainly not all. Thanks for the memory and the detail. Many ways of stumbles of harm and hurt and layers and sone hidden with the super gloss of wealth and or eliteness fear always gains entry and not always see -able my best guess for him. Discussion of all of this is essential for the continuation of our journey.
Your David Foster Wallace story raises interesting questions about mental illness and writing, and especially about writers thought to be geniuses. I have friends who knew Wallace. I didn't but did have one odd experience with him. After I published The Best of The Prose Poem: An International Journal https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/prosepoem/the_best_of_the_prose_poem/ , Wallace wrote a very brutal review of it, employing his usual inventive footnotes. He attacked the poets in it, the genre itself, and many, many other things. He even made fun of the sexual connotations of my name (Peter Johnson), the latter which no one had done since sixth grade. (I actually consider that name to be a badge of honor, something to live up to, so to speak). It was indeed a very funny and brilliant piece of writing. But it was also cruel. What he didn't realize was that I was 50 at the time, and I had never cared what anyone thought of me or my work. Although my second book had received the James Laughlin Award and my prose poetry had been awarded an NEA, I wasn't part of the MFA mafia and had never liked literary gatherings because the inauthentic schmoozing at them made me literally ill. For years, I even had to force myself to give readings. Writing, for me, was always work, and I approached it the way I approached the working-class jobs I had done: carpentry, drywall, and laboring in the steel mills. The review sparked some real pushback by poets, including Robert Bly, but I actually appreciated it as a piece of writing. And yet, much to my surprise, I also felt sad for him. There was something tragic in the way he slipped so easily into the impulsivity and rage of the middle grade bully. I realized that he wasn't mad at me (though I heard later he was pissed I had rejected work from a MacArthur friend of his). He just was consumed by undifferentiated rage and was looking for an outlet. The real irony of it was that the budget for my journal was $2000, while his MacArthur was, I think, $500,000, so it was hard to take his "bad boy outsider" pose seriously after that. You can't want to be known for shooting your Dad (the literary establishment) the finger and then ask him to buy you Rolls-Royce. All this also made me aware that it must've been very painful to be a "genius." Now I'm not saying I was completely unaffected by being publicly dissed by Wallace. In fact, I was very angry for all of the talented prose poets whose work had appeared in the journal over its nine-year existence, poets who had no place to send prose poems until my journal arrived. So, yes, I felt grief when he died because I was capable of separating the man from the work, and yet I have known many other writers who have suffered with mental illness ( I have no desire to share my own issues), and not one of them would inflict their moments of confusion or rage on others. Fortunately, he picked the right target with me. I was a confident fully formed man (perhaps disputable), but think about how his review could have destroyed the self-esteem and career of a less confident young poet.
Damn. That’s a lot to integrate. What a clear, generous, self-respecting take on your encounter (collision) with Wallace’s weirdly personal critique of you and the Journal. Undifferentiated rage indeed. You called it. Thanks.
Peter, I recently read DFW's essay The Best of the Prose Poem and although he lavish praise on certain writers ( particularly Jon Davis) I got the impression he thought writing prose poetry was akin to singing karaoke. Humming along in the key of exaggeration, fragmentation, and forced frivolity.
I’m no major fan of karaoke, but have attended some nights and have a good karaoke-singing friend. I feel your characterization of it is inaccurate and likely based on ignorance.
Thanks 🙏 yes. 🙌 very moving and in so many directions and tangents … ExPat artist in Paris since 1980…happy to have a community of like minded artists and family here. Devastated that my vote for Harris didn’t count enough…
Thank you for that. It’s a sad sign of our times that some people havesought to diminish DFWs legacy because he was a white guy appreciated by white guys. He was a genius and one of the most innovative writers since Joyce.
I don’t think that’s fair. His “thoughts on living a compassionate life” emphasized the self-centeredness of the individual. He urges college graduates to absorb the petty irritations of the everyday and to understand that the irritations stem from our self-centered, hard-wired brain. “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”
Yet, he seemed eager to be thought a genius, to prove that he embodied that mantle of intellectual superiority that had been appended to him at a young age. I believe that as he aged, he came to understand the damage his competitive critical identity had had on others, and simultaneously he could not deny his distaste for that person.
Consciousness is everywhere there is life. Billions and billions and billions of points throughout the universe.
To read is to connect to the point of consciousness of another, the writer. You bring to the table whatever it might be that has in any way individualized your point, just as the writer has done.
Tom: As much as I consider myself a kind man, who, from working with the population of the homeless that have mental illnesses, the bottom line is that Wallace was a dick. A very talented dick, but a dick nonetheless. Having said this, no one of his genius should have to go out as he did.
It was directly your work, Sherman, that I discovered personally at past 75 yrs.
From then on, I tracked down every published work you’ve published or otherwise. Somehow tho being fully caucasian myself, I found I consistently could relate directly to your own story, and beyond that, the rhythm and pace of your writing.
It was specifically your, “The Absolutely True Dairy of a Part-Time Indian” that captured me then and still does now.
Your post brought up so many feelings.
The day I heard David Foster Wallace had committed suicide, I felt such bittersweet grief. I'd never met him but he had touched a corner of my life and given me hope that the writer's life was alive and well.
Robin Williams and Anthony Bourdain also come to mind when I think about icons who have left this world all too soon.
I've worked in psychiatric hospitals with people struggling with suicidal ideation, so the idea that some people feel their only choice is to take their lives is not a foreign concept. Still, it's hard to truly understand how anyone can lose all hope, especially when we believe they have everything they could possibly want.
Wallace was living the writer's life. His books were being published, he was a star on the book tour, he had the MacArthur Foundation financial backing so he could write without the distraction of making money, and he was considered one of the most brilliant writers of our time.
Wallace's suicide left me questioning whether the my dream of becoming a serious writer is one that will sustain me over the long haul. What if the prize is all wrapping paper with nothing on the inside? What if the need to produce work that exceeds previous expectations is crippling?
I didn't know Wallace or Williams or Bourdain. I do know that their suicides have left me questioning whetheror not the brass ring is worth chasing. I continue to miss their unique perspectives and will never understand the pain they must have endured, but I will always be grateful for the rich gifts they shared with us as I continue to put ink on the page.
Readers keep mentioning that DFWs essays are quite funny, and they prefer them to his fiction. While reading Infinite Jest I had more laugh out loud moments than while reading any other book ever! (And I am Wallace’s age.) I also found it extremely meaningful, asking Dostoyevsky depth questions via the spiritual language of addiction. He wasn’t a saint, yet his dark night informed his art.
I first heard that usual art was created when a lover went off to war and his portrait was created to help with memory. I also heard through a great poet teacher poet was really maker as in creator. My humble guess is that we all are survivors of life and many struggle and sometimes just can’t go on though at the last minute Anne Sexton tried to call for help but failed. I like survivor label best because the rest is construct but whatever works fur folks. Not only do artists see the world in ways different we also hold much and then travel into the shadows and light.I am thinking of Theodore Roethke here.
I think in ancient times perhaps better as in a less hierarchical and more rhizome life landscape and more creators and makers than not. Also in the way of teachers and acceptance but of course moments of times certainly not all. Thanks for the memory and the detail. Many ways of stumbles of harm and hurt and layers and sone hidden with the super gloss of wealth and or eliteness fear always gains entry and not always see -able my best guess for him. Discussion of all of this is essential for the continuation of our journey.
Sherman:
Your David Foster Wallace story raises interesting questions about mental illness and writing, and especially about writers thought to be geniuses. I have friends who knew Wallace. I didn't but did have one odd experience with him. After I published The Best of The Prose Poem: An International Journal https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/prosepoem/the_best_of_the_prose_poem/ , Wallace wrote a very brutal review of it, employing his usual inventive footnotes. He attacked the poets in it, the genre itself, and many, many other things. He even made fun of the sexual connotations of my name (Peter Johnson), the latter which no one had done since sixth grade. (I actually consider that name to be a badge of honor, something to live up to, so to speak). It was indeed a very funny and brilliant piece of writing. But it was also cruel. What he didn't realize was that I was 50 at the time, and I had never cared what anyone thought of me or my work. Although my second book had received the James Laughlin Award and my prose poetry had been awarded an NEA, I wasn't part of the MFA mafia and had never liked literary gatherings because the inauthentic schmoozing at them made me literally ill. For years, I even had to force myself to give readings. Writing, for me, was always work, and I approached it the way I approached the working-class jobs I had done: carpentry, drywall, and laboring in the steel mills. The review sparked some real pushback by poets, including Robert Bly, but I actually appreciated it as a piece of writing. And yet, much to my surprise, I also felt sad for him. There was something tragic in the way he slipped so easily into the impulsivity and rage of the middle grade bully. I realized that he wasn't mad at me (though I heard later he was pissed I had rejected work from a MacArthur friend of his). He just was consumed by undifferentiated rage and was looking for an outlet. The real irony of it was that the budget for my journal was $2000, while his MacArthur was, I think, $500,000, so it was hard to take his "bad boy outsider" pose seriously after that. You can't want to be known for shooting your Dad (the literary establishment) the finger and then ask him to buy you Rolls-Royce. All this also made me aware that it must've been very painful to be a "genius." Now I'm not saying I was completely unaffected by being publicly dissed by Wallace. In fact, I was very angry for all of the talented prose poets whose work had appeared in the journal over its nine-year existence, poets who had no place to send prose poems until my journal arrived. So, yes, I felt grief when he died because I was capable of separating the man from the work, and yet I have known many other writers who have suffered with mental illness ( I have no desire to share my own issues), and not one of them would inflict their moments of confusion or rage on others. Fortunately, he picked the right target with me. I was a confident fully formed man (perhaps disputable), but think about how his review could have destroyed the self-esteem and career of a less confident young poet.
Damn. That’s a lot to integrate. What a clear, generous, self-respecting take on your encounter (collision) with Wallace’s weirdly personal critique of you and the Journal. Undifferentiated rage indeed. You called it. Thanks.
Elize:
Thanks for the nice comment. It was a difficult piece to write, because I wanted to keep the work and the man separate, and that's often hard to do.
Peter, I recently read DFW's essay The Best of the Prose Poem and although he lavish praise on certain writers ( particularly Jon Davis) I got the impression he thought writing prose poetry was akin to singing karaoke. Humming along in the key of exaggeration, fragmentation, and forced frivolity.
I’m no major fan of karaoke, but have attended some nights and have a good karaoke-singing friend. I feel your characterization of it is inaccurate and likely based on ignorance.
Large essay ? or long essay ?
This is a friendly comment No
Judgement
DFW 👍🏼 and I too love the footnotes he writes the way I think ( or at least how my mind works not sure that qualifies as thought)
k
Thanks 🙏 yes. 🙌 very moving and in so many directions and tangents … ExPat artist in Paris since 1980…happy to have a community of like minded artists and family here. Devastated that my vote for Harris didn’t count enough…
"But we all wear failed armor, don’t we?"
The TV
M loojjut
What a beautiful piece. Thank you for this.
Thank you for that. It’s a sad sign of our times that some people havesought to diminish DFWs legacy because he was a white guy appreciated by white guys. He was a genius and one of the most innovative writers since Joyce.
I don’t think that’s fair. His “thoughts on living a compassionate life” emphasized the self-centeredness of the individual. He urges college graduates to absorb the petty irritations of the everyday and to understand that the irritations stem from our self-centered, hard-wired brain. “The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.”
Yet, he seemed eager to be thought a genius, to prove that he embodied that mantle of intellectual superiority that had been appended to him at a young age. I believe that as he aged, he came to understand the damage his competitive critical identity had had on others, and simultaneously he could not deny his distaste for that person.
And he was hilarious. Some of his essays are the funniest I’ve ever read.
Consciousness is everywhere there is life. Billions and billions and billions of points throughout the universe.
To read is to connect to the point of consciousness of another, the writer. You bring to the table whatever it might be that has in any way individualized your point, just as the writer has done.
Yes, reading and writing is a love story.
David Foster Wallace is now known as George Saunders. There was no suicide.