David Foster Wallace, RIP

David Foster Wallace hung himself on Friday. His wife found his body. He was 46. A terrible loss.



I was never interested in his writing until reading his 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College this spring. It is as good a defense of faith in the face of modern boredom and frustration as any I have yet to find. Reading it buoyed my spirits. It shamed me too, because up until then I considered him supericial, a literary version of a videogame. I was put off by the small passages of Infinite Jest I had read. It was too much for me to take in. Perhaps it still is. After reading the commencement address I read this, a moving portrait of a young couple struggling with the decision to have an abortion.

After reading the commencement address, I sent an email to my father. I'd like to include it in this post because I would like to think that Wallace played a part in opening my closed mind.

Because I wrote it with more than a little emotion, some of the points I try to make may not be so clear. Rereading it, there are a few things I'd like to change (not because of Wallace's death but because I didn't think things through well enough). Here it is:

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

Dad,

I'd like to share with you what I consider wonderful proof that Christian spirituality and real conservatism are alive and well amongst younger intellectuals. I found this proof where I least expected it: I was searching the internet for information on a writer--David Foster Wallace--whom I am not very interested in and whose writing I've found tedious and exemplary of the diffused and over-stimulated mental state of my generation (he employs meandering and exhaustive footnotes in his works of fiction). His debut novel was 1100 pages long, and he seemed to me overly blessed with that blend of precocity, arrogance and self-reverence so many middle-class, middle American people born between 1960 and 1980 exhibit (myself included).

The attached piece is a transcript of a commencement address given by Wallace to Kenyon College's 2005 graduating class. I underlined and highlighted what I consider the most stunning and revelatory passages not only because of their veracity, but because of their source; Wallace is successful at weaving these plain truths into an address aimed at those as precocious and self-absorbed as he once was.

I should add here an important fact about myself, something that has had an enormous impact on my life, and something I never thought I would do or even admit to doing: for the last eight months I have been reciting the Lord's prayer when I wake up each morning. (I try to do this at the end of the day as well, when perhaps the prayer would do the most good; so far that is a touch and go affair, but I am getting there). I don't feel capable of conveying the sense of peace and optimism that descends upon me when I do this; perhaps I will never be able to do so. Right now it is enough to know that doing so has helped me try to be a better person, and to perceive with more clarity the presence and value of the truths to which Wallace refers. Wallace's speech reminded me of three quotes, the first two from Bob Genetski's piece and the last a quote from St Augustine by a Catholic columnist in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

“My grace is all you need, for my power is greatest when you are weak.”

For when I am weak, then I am strong. –2 Corinthians 12

"You have created us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."

Wallace entreats the graduates before him to expand their cast of mind to include sympathy for and understanding of other people and their daily trials; essentially reminding them in coded, 21st century terms that God's presence will be strongest in them during tedious and frustrating moments, and that fulfilling what God asks of us, "to forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" just might be the highest aim of a true liberal arts education.

I am not sure whether or not Wallace understands how close his exhortations come to preaching the Gospel; something tells me he does because he feels it necessary to remind his audience that "I'm [not] getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues," even though he is clearly doing so, for what is a call to exercise compassion and forgiveness, especially since these acts are not a regular part of our daily lives? He may have considered it necessary to disassociate his advice from scripture so that his audience might not dismiss it outright. Nevertheless, by the end of the speech, Wallace has emboldened himself enough to admit that "in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping"

This is a considerable admission by a member of "Generation X" and Wallace goes on to expound upon what is the essential point of the St Augustine quote: until we rest within God, until we seek the peace of living within Him and following His advice, our hearts remain restless; attached to material possessions and pride, we devour ourselves by seeking what is not really there.

It is not for me to say whether or not Wallace is a closet conservative; I am sure he would howl if accused of being one. Reading his speech, I was compelled to ask the following questions: What is someone who doesn't demand the absolute upheaval and destruction of the status quo? What is the person who prefers to pause and think before issuing blanket condemnations of his fellow men? He is a conservative. Not necessarily of politics or causes, but of social relationships. He wishes to conserve the current system we operate within because he realizes, precisely because of his humanity, that he has no right to demand that that system be radically altered to suit his selfish point of view.

I felt compelled to share this with you because you have always urged me to do the right thing throughout my life, to believe in my gifts and talents and to have compassion and respect for others. I share it with you not as a reminder but as proof that your influence on me has enabled me to perceive these things and to desire a complete life of responsibility and compassion.

Thank you Dad,

Eric


God Bless you, David Foster Wallace!