“Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved. Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud parties — all these chase away loneliness by making me forget my name’s Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no other party can penetrate or know. Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious love, and, in various ways, religion — these are the places (for me) where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated.”
-David Foster Wallace
I listened to a Fresh Air interview with David Foster Wallace yesterday. I first came to know him through his novel Infinite Jest. And then later through collections of essays he had written. The interview confirmed the kindredness I felt with him when I read his work. Infinite Jest starts off with a character neck deep in the world of competitive tennis. The character is neurotic, the culture of the sport equally so. Wallace committed suicide in 2008, but at that time I didn't have the heart to find out what had happened, so after I heard the interview last night I pursued it.
It seemed it was his inability to gain freedom from his thoughts and loneliness that drove him there. He spoke about it candidly at times, his struggle with depression, his constant, brutal self-critical dialogue. He was brilliant and his brilliance made him really suffer. He was held in such high regard and couldn't accept or see his own beautiful soul. He talked a lot about being a writer too and how writing, while it was all he felt called to do, was tortuous for him. It brought the darkness to the light and somehow also turned the volume up loudly on his inner critic, the lonely unknown parts of himself. I have to agree. To write a book, he said, you have to be willing to half die. I have to say that I agree. You're vanishing, my friend Tabatha told me as she held my wrist. I told her that as the book is growing bigger, I am growing smaller. There are other factors.
Mostly, fiction is a salve where the loneliness can be confronted and relieved. Wallace and I both seem to share the belief that its ultimate goal is to convey truth and love and goodness through fiction.
I was reading Harry Potter to my son last night. It was a particularly passionate part of the text where Dumbledore is trying to make Harry understand that he should not be afraid because he is more powerful than the evil wizard Voldemort. He is more powerful because he lives in love and not fear. Harry doesn't understand and so the conversation escalates. Voldemort cannot love and you can, it makes all the difference... people who are tyrants cultivate fear and control through fear. Harry chose to love instead and that makes him more powerful. I am not doing it justice but it was inspiring and conveyed truth and love and goodness, so I thought about it long after my son had fallen asleep. Ordelia says that too, that it is always a choice between love and fear.
What a loss. David Foster Wallace. There is a movie coming out about him that I am sure I would love to see. He is so articulate about this nagging loneliness that erodes him that maybe I should not, but I probably will anyway because people's stories fascinate me, particularly someone as vulnerable, honest and rawly human as Wallace.
-David Foster Wallace
I listened to a Fresh Air interview with David Foster Wallace yesterday. I first came to know him through his novel Infinite Jest. And then later through collections of essays he had written. The interview confirmed the kindredness I felt with him when I read his work. Infinite Jest starts off with a character neck deep in the world of competitive tennis. The character is neurotic, the culture of the sport equally so. Wallace committed suicide in 2008, but at that time I didn't have the heart to find out what had happened, so after I heard the interview last night I pursued it.
It seemed it was his inability to gain freedom from his thoughts and loneliness that drove him there. He spoke about it candidly at times, his struggle with depression, his constant, brutal self-critical dialogue. He was brilliant and his brilliance made him really suffer. He was held in such high regard and couldn't accept or see his own beautiful soul. He talked a lot about being a writer too and how writing, while it was all he felt called to do, was tortuous for him. It brought the darkness to the light and somehow also turned the volume up loudly on his inner critic, the lonely unknown parts of himself. I have to agree. To write a book, he said, you have to be willing to half die. I have to say that I agree. You're vanishing, my friend Tabatha told me as she held my wrist. I told her that as the book is growing bigger, I am growing smaller. There are other factors.
Mostly, fiction is a salve where the loneliness can be confronted and relieved. Wallace and I both seem to share the belief that its ultimate goal is to convey truth and love and goodness through fiction.
I was reading Harry Potter to my son last night. It was a particularly passionate part of the text where Dumbledore is trying to make Harry understand that he should not be afraid because he is more powerful than the evil wizard Voldemort. He is more powerful because he lives in love and not fear. Harry doesn't understand and so the conversation escalates. Voldemort cannot love and you can, it makes all the difference... people who are tyrants cultivate fear and control through fear. Harry chose to love instead and that makes him more powerful. I am not doing it justice but it was inspiring and conveyed truth and love and goodness, so I thought about it long after my son had fallen asleep. Ordelia says that too, that it is always a choice between love and fear.
What a loss. David Foster Wallace. There is a movie coming out about him that I am sure I would love to see. He is so articulate about this nagging loneliness that erodes him that maybe I should not, but I probably will anyway because people's stories fascinate me, particularly someone as vulnerable, honest and rawly human as Wallace.
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