David Foster Wallace, We Just Met

My wife bought me a copy of "the book with the cruise essay in it" just two months ago. I was told that it was ridiculous that I hadn't read it before. Or that I hadn't read anything by you before.

I've heard your name countless times in the papers and magazines and people have downright gotten in my face to say that I need to read David Foster Wallace, but here I am just getting to you. Just two months ago. (I just started reading Phillip Roth in 2003, if that tells you how far behind I am.)

And you scared me, man. It embarrassed me. The first evening I cracked the book, I shut it within five minutes. I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't know the writing was going to be so heavy and wickedly charming and smacking of the highest intelligence and that not only did you demand my full attention, but you demanded I borrow some from my neighbor. It freaked me out. I felt suddenly exhausted and I went to sleep feeling like a chump.

"Well what do you think of David Foster Wallace?" my wife asked.

"I feel like I was reading Hunter S. Thompson's younger and quieter brother. The brother who understood the world without attacking it at 100 mph."

I opened your book, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, a week later. In the table of contents I saw there was a story about competitive childhood tennis and that rang true of my own childhood, so I started there. You described the game of tennis with the zest of a computer nerd describing his favorite WOW character. It was as if I was reading a first-person anthropology thesis on the impact of Illinois' culture and wind on the analytical perspectives of a teenage male who could always hit the ball back to his opponent. It was brilliant and funny and perfect.

I read your "cruise essay" next in awe. Simply.

But I tread lightly here as I don't know you. My wife says that you are the Kurt Cobain of the literary world and that fans of yours will be grieving as such.

I just wanted to say it was nice to meet you and say that you left quite an impression on me, and for that I thank you.

My thoughts are with your family and friends.

Follow Greg Boose on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Greg_Boose

Comments

[lienaita]

I remember buying Girl With Curious Hair because I thought it was about me. Very lovely letter, Greg.

[ZoraTravels]

I am not sure (and slightly embarassed) that DFW does not occupy my book shelves, never occupied my reading lists in college, nor found my hands as a hand-me-down from a beloved friend. Thank you for this post to inspire me to go out and find a funny story to get to know a writer. Better late than never.

[annis]

He seemed to have the best effect on people. May all the love and admiration and grief help him out, or through, wherever he is.

[saami]

If you really want to appreciate DFW then read the cruise line essay from "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" and laugh along with him as he describes the special toilets or skeet shooting on deck. He was so special, so intelligent and so funny and so real. It is hard to believe that there will be no more essays or books. We will treasure what he left behind.

[Craiggers]

This is an honest and moving tribute to this or any generation's greatest writer.

DFW, was a man of many words, but at his heart he was direct and simple and pure. All his fans appreciate this.

The world is all of a sudden a lot less interesting to me without him.

"There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?"
And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

[dasein47]

DFW,

In my own darker times, contemplating ending it early, two thoughts kept me going. One was why end it early when it's inevitably going to end? Might as well enjoy the filler. The second was learning/knowledge. As long as there was something else to be learned, then life should always have some sense of truth or surprise or beauty, etc. A reason to plod forth.

For you, I think knowledge was something that brought you closer to an ultimate reality few of us have ever known. I think it also brought you farther into isolation, so far that other people or more knowledge couldn't help you.

I think the tragedy of your death is immense, for us.

I don't think you were a coward.

I hope you're better off, away from here, wherever that is.

SCT