9.13.2008

No Thoughtful Title


Perhaps when one is most merited. I just wanted to write how sad I am to have just discovered that yesterday one of my favorite contemporary authors, David Foster Wallace, committed suicide at the young age of 46. He was a hysterically brilliant writer, and his "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" had a particularly lasting impact on me. He made me laugh. He made me think. He made me wonder what it would feel like to have such talent. What can I say but how awful it is.

A quote from an early David Foster Wallace interview (c/o veryshortlist.com):

"We all suffer alone in the real world.... True empathy's impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character's pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple."

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