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[KurtMcAllister]

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-me-wallace14-2008sep14,0,6215648.story

David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead Friday night at his home in Claremont, according to the Claremont Police Department. He was 46.

Jackie Morales, a records clerk at the department, said Wallace's wife called police at 9:30 p.m. Friday saying she had returned home to find that her husband had hanged himself.

This is really depressing. DFW was a great author, and Infinite Jest was one of the best, and longest, books I had ever read. He will be missed very much in the literary community. And if you haven't already, you should read his commencement speech at Kenyon College. http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html

[Cartilage Head]

 I hadn't heard of him before this, but reading about "Infinite Jest" makes me reallly want to read it.

[Jackie Blue]

Don't.  It's one of the worst novels I have ever encountered.

I mean, sorry dude killed himself, but he was an absolutely atrocious writer.

[imagist42]

Don't listen to Jackie.

[tuna ketchup x]

I always meant to get around to reading it, but it's like, 1000 pages long. I already have Cryptonomicon and Against the Day taking up space on my shelf waiting to be read. Maybe I'll read a short story collection first.

[RobbieOC]

This is really sad news.

I enjoy his essays more than his novels. The collection "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" is really great.

[TheFuriousWombat]

It is tragic indeed, even though I'm only familiar with his work in name. I probably won't ever get around to reading "Infinite Jest." I've heard mixed things and if I'm going to dedicate myself to 1,000+ pages it better be worth it. I've already read the unabridged version of The Stand (something like 1,200 and not worth it), Against the Day (about over 1,000 and well worth it) and a couple others. A book that long is rare and rarer still is a book that long that can sustain itself. I'm particularly excited for "2666," the new Roberto Bolano book, which is just shy of 1,000 pages. Not that his death was really any more or less sad than DFW, but when Bolano died the writing world lost someone truly phenomenal.

[KvP]

Slate has a pretty good obit. If Infinite Jest seems intimidating, Wallace's essays were often pretty damn good, and comparatively brief. Here's a thoughtful piece on ethics and aesthetics, as they pertaine to the Maine Lobster Festival.

[Valrus]

David Foster Wallace's was the second death ever to make me cry. Over a period of days, on several occasions. I've been reading obits and remembrances and occasionally getting choked up or emitting sobs that I kind of hope the other people in my house can't hear.

I feel like this thread needs a perspective from a hopeless DFW sycophant. I'm a little surprised no one else on this board has stepped in yet to fill that position. I feel like there must be others.

Infinite Jest is my favorite book. Every time I open it up I find something new in there. No other book I've ever read is as packed with comedy and humanity as Infinite Jest, and no other writer has ever made me as excited about the potential of the written word as DFW has. His style is utterly inimitable but, despite what some people think, it's not just to show off. He thought about things carefully and thoroughly and though his style was self-assured and showy, what he was saying almost never was.

Simply put, Jackie Blue is wrong. S/he may not have liked Infinite Jest, but one need only listen to me, or perhaps these guys, talk about it to realize that it changes lives. It changed mine. "One of the worst novels" could not do that.

When Wallace died, the writing world lost someone truly phenomenal. In my mind, no one could ever do what he did.

TKX, by the way, Cryptonomicon is my second favorite book.

[jimbunny]

I always meant to get around to reading it, but it's like, 1000 pages long. I already have Cryptonomicon and Against the Day taking up space on my shelf waiting to be read. Maybe I'll read a short story collection first.

You'll hear otherwise from other people, but Cryptonomicon is most certainly not worth all its pages. Witty, engaging, sometimes. But the ending (in typical Neal Stephenson style) is wacky and terribly unfulfilling, and the last few hundred pages were a chore.

Apologies for the off-topic post. Suicide is a terrible thing.

[Surgoshan]

NPR had a piece on someone's cruise ship experience as an entertainer.  The host then brought up DFW's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.  Wikipedia has an excerpt if you care to hunt it down.  After reading the excerpt, I can't imagine that anyone who read his stuff could be surprised by his suicide.  There's cynicism, then there's bitter, soul-crushing despair that taints your view of every facet of human existence.

[Valrus]

Anyone who thinks they can sum up DFW's work as "bitter, soul-crushing despair" etc. etc. hasn't read enough of it. Seriously? You read one excerpt of one essay by a man with two novels, three short story anthologies and two compilations of essays, besides who knows how much un-recompiled stuff, and think you can characterize him as one bad day away from swinging from the rafters?

There are people out there on the Internet who say Infinite Jest saved their lives. Just something to think about before you make glib generalizations.

Edit: By the way, the essay from which Wikipedia's excerpt was taken is available (though likely quite abridged), along with many other DFW works, at Harper's web site.

Now, The Depressed Person is soul-crushing despair, though I wouldn't call it "bitter."

[Jackie Blue]

There are also people who would say that Trent Reznor changed their lives.

Welcome to Subjectivity 101.

I would posit that Tom Robbins and Mark Leyner already did everything that Infinite Jest did, and better.

But, for the record, Neal Stephenson is probably my overall favourite current author.  I feel that The Baroque Cycle is one of the most important, fun and innovative works of this century.

[TheFuriousWombat]

Hyperbolic as your analysis may be in regards to importance, The Baroque Cycle is indeed crazily brilliant. It's massive (around 3000 pages) and weird and complicated but it's so much damn fun and has so many great characters and pulls in hundreds of cultural, political, economic, scientific. legal and military plots and subplots all of which fit into one awesome historical fiction package filled out with all sorts of cool renditions of real life people, many of whom play key roles in the plot (something I always enjoyed). It's stupendous and I seriously recommend it. I can't say the same for any other work by Stephenson. I can also say that most Pynchon is worth the trouble and should be read, monstrously complex and impossible to follow as it all might be.

[Ozymandias]

Having only read Snow Crash, I find any praise for Stephenson completely and utterly laughable.

I might have to read that, though.

[Surgoshan]

I enjoyed Snowcrash.  I find it kind of (incredibly) dated, but I enjoyed it.  It suffered from a lot of the flaws of mid-90s distopian cyberpunk; a lack of understanding of both technology and economics.

Still, I enjoyed it.

[Jackie Blue]

Having only read Snow Crash, I find any praise for Stephenson completely and utterly laughable.

The difference is enormous.  When I recently went back re-read Snow Crash, the glaring flaws in it really hit me hard.  You can tell it was written by a young, hip dude who was way into heavy metal and bitchin' tech (the author's note for the edition I had, in fact, specifically mentioned that he listened to a lot of heavy metal while writing it).

After that, he began to get much more mature and talented with each novel; The Diamond Age had some of the flaws of Snow Crash, but also hinted at his incredible imagination.  Cryptonomicon was still a bit comic-booky but proved he had solid chops.

The Baroque Cycle goes far above and beyond anything he did before.  It presents an era in a stunningly realistic and detailed way, and reading it is as much a learning experience in things they don't really teach you properly in school as it is an epic and incredibly varied adventure/political drama.

[n0tj3sus]

In all honesty i'm not going to lose any sleep over him.

[Boro_Bandito]

you just tried to resurrect a thread about a dead guy, to say absolutely nothing at all. Congratulations, thanks for playing!

[n0tj3sus]

Actually I really didn’t try to resurrect anything mate, but hey if stating an opinion is wrong my bad.
Personally I have no idea why infinite jest has been rated one of the best novels by time whereas the broom of the system far surpasses it as a literary work but its funny how those things work.

[De_El]

The problem isn't stating an opinion; it's doing it in a thread nearly that's gone nearly two months without a new post. Dead thread needs its eternal rest.

[n0tj3sus]

The problem isn't stating an opinion; it's doing it in a thread nearly that's gone nearly two months without a new post. Dead thread needs its eternal rest.

Fair enough.

[Boro_Bandito]

Not to mention that yo did it in a relatively disrespectful way. Stating your opinion is one thing, but what you did is basically "Oh, that guy. Meh, whatever." Poor dude's dead, true he committed suicide, and I'm not religious in any way, but you really didn't have anything positive to say at all in that initial post. Bringing back an old thread is usually frowned upon on these forums anyway, but is usually okay if you've got something new/interesting to talk about that can really spark up a conversation again. You gave us a single sentence that basically dissed a recently deceased writer.