Oblivion

Because of an incredibly chaotic weekend of torrential rains and flooding--and no Internet access--I only learned this morning of David Foster Wallace's death.

Like a lot of people, I had very mixed feelings about his work. I thought Infinite Jest was more infinite than jest. Oblivion had some powerful passages, but for the first time in his work there were clear signs of bluffing. His immense gifts were probably better suited for non-fiction, anyway.

While his work struck me as brilliant but uneven, I always liked him, and rooted for him in a mild and obscure way. I remember a profile some magazine did of him after Infinite Jest was published. Wallace was still at ISU, where his colleagues disclosed that Wallace had a not entirely philosophical interest in Bay Watch. Wallace hotly denied it. But Wallace took writing very seriously. Like Hemingway and Walter Benjamin, writing had an existential importance for him. Wallace knew that being a fiction writer in late twentieth-century America was an absurd existence, yet he went at it like he could change the world. It's sad, but not entirely surprising, that Wallace's life would end the same way Hemingway's and Benjamin's did.