Knight of the sorrowful countenance

by Geoff Ryan

O

n the evening of Friday, September 12 David Foster Wallace’s wife came home shortly after 9:00 p.m. to find her husband had hanged himself. He was 46 and is survived by his wife, parents and a sister. He had no children. I had never even heard of the guy until I read the news reports of his suicide.

David Foster Wallace was a writer, but not just any writer, it turns out. He burst onto the American literary scene in 1996 with a 1,079 page novel entitled Infinite Jest, a non-linear piece of piece of writing containing almost as many footnotes as the rest of body of text.

It was a “…huge, Pynchonesque, unsummarizable, labyrinthine, comic-tragic-ironic book about tennis and addiction that some math geek from Illinois had been brazen enough to call Infinite Jest.”(Colby Cosh, The National Post, September 16, 2008). Critics marveled at his talent. The New York Times wrote: “Wallace is to literature what Robin Williams or perhaps Jim Carrey is to live comedy: a creator so maniacally energetic and amused with himself that he often follows his riffs out into the stratosphere, where he orbits all alone.”

Wallace followed this triumph up with other collections of fiction and non-fiction (including a 2003 book on the mathematics of infinity) and articles for a variety of magazines, lectures and appearances (including his tour de force lecture on Kafka in New York City in 1998); and he taught. When he died, Wallace was on leave from his teaching position at Pomona College in California.

In the days and weeks following Wallace’s death, writers and critics reacted with tributes, reminiscences and commentary, enough to fill a book all on their own.

As Stephen Marche of The National Post wrote:

The critical response to Wallace, from fans and detractors alike, has always defined him as a master of irony and self-reference. Such terms are much too imprecise to describe the complexity of his approach to literary form or his attitude towards power. Wallace wasn’t an ironist like Philip Roth or John Updike because he was more sad than angry. His contempt was always mollified by humility.

Thackeray once said that good satirists mock the guilty while great satirists mock the innocent. In David Foster Wallace, even the guilty are mostly innocent; his mockery is always loving. The heightened self-awareness of his best work was never an end but a means, the goal being to take an increasingly monadic culture and shatter it in splinters. He understood that it becomes more and more difficult each day to retain one’s humanity.

The consumerism and conformism of contemporary life, which are at every moment trying to swallow us in ideologies or lifestyles or bought-and-sold cool - he fought against them. Homogeneity was his principal target, both in his fiction and his superb journalism. The nature of his enemy explains the fervour of his fans: He attempted to give those who are different, who do not fit the culture of the office or the mall, a chance to mean something and a chance to be recognized. The relentlessness of his methods, the 388 footnotes in ‘Infinite Jest’ or the broken dialogues of ‘Brief Interviews with Hideous Men’, matched the relentlessness of the forces he was up against.

He chose literature as the site of his rebellion; he recognized the humanism inherent in the process of reading and writing, and surrounded his plots and characters with a rich allusiveness. Frequently damned or praised as a postmodernist, he was really an old-fashioned modernist whose writing developed naturally out of the tradition of James Joyce: the novel as an affirmation of life. Following his suicide, many have looked to his work for clues to his death, particularly in the increasing gloom of his last short story collection, ‘Oblivion’. I don’t see it. His therapy and his drug regimen may have failed him, but his writing never did. The suicide only shows how deeply his work chose life over death, even if he couldn’t. (September 20, 2008)

So why did David Foster Wallace take his life? Depression? Drugs? Existential despair? The logical end of his bad boy, punk persona? Who will ever, really know? In all but a very few cases, suicide inevitably contains deeper mysteries.

My reaction to the news of David Foster Wallace’s death has been unexpectedly profound and disturbing and I’m trying to figure out why. He was a writer and I aspire to that as well. He was an “enfant terrible” (”The sheer joy of watching him terrorize editors only added to the thrill of his prose. He did everything you’re not supposed to, and that, indeed, you shouldn’t”, Marche, The National Post). That appeals to me as I hope secretly and furtively that in my own small way, in my own small world, that I come off the same way. He was my age and at this age, creeping concerns about mortality become a weekly consideration.

I scoured the web for information on David Foster Wallace, clipped obituaries and numerous reflective articles that appeared following his death. I’ve even studied pictures of him - what he looked like, how he dressed, the look in his eyes. I still haven’t read any of his writing. That’ll come.

I think best when writing and as I have been writing this article, I reached a conclusion on this recent minor obsession. Throughout everything I have read about David Foster Wallace runs the thread of his prophetic nature. Never explicitly stated and never couched in such language, but the flickering recognition is evident. Prophets always draw me.

Wallace was not a religious figure and I do not believe that he was a religious person, in the conventional sense. But he was nevertheless intrigued with the mystery of existence, the limits of humanity and mortality, and with God. He was God-obsessed. Like Norman Mailer. Like the 17th -century “heretic” Baruch Spinoza. Like the late comic George Carlin and the late writer Graham Greene. Like the ever-present Christopher Hitchens. These are strangers in - or to - the house of faith. But in the house, nevertheless.

Prophets often die before their time. At least that was the lot of a biblical prophets, Jesus included. Usually, however, it is by the hand of sinners or saints. Rarely do they silence themselves. In a world of managers and merchants, amid the oppressive weight of a humourless homogeneity, David Foster Wallace tilted his lance at many a windmill and with his death the world is little lonelier.

Farewell and good cheer
Oh my brave cavalier
Ride onward to glorious strife.
I swear when you’re gone
I’ll remember you well
For all of the rest of my life.
(Man of La Mancha soundtrack)

Writer: Major Geoff Ryan is co-founder and publisher of theRubicon, co-ordinator of the 614 Network and organizes the bi-annual Urban Forum. His interests include writing, politics, coffee and his children. Geoff and his wife Sandra minister in Regent Park, a social housing project in downtown Toronto, Canada.

7 Comments to Knight of the sorrowful countenance

1. David Foster Wallace’s writing deeply affected me in my formative, high school years. At that time, I was more stunned and inspired by the excellence and beauty of his writing than I was by any Art that I had yet experienced.

   The Man of La Mancha reference is appropriate, for I believe that DFW was, in a way, similar to Don Quixote. Despite his mental illness, he lived life on his own terms and yet strove to make it a better place.

   As cliche as it sounds, the world is a dimmer place without him . . .
Booth Tucker on September 30th, 2008

2. “Homogeneity was his principal target”

   Bring this quality to bear, in your imagination, upon The Salvation Army’s way of being. Would that a man of this ilk crashed violently into us!
Matt Clifton on September 30th, 2008

3. Matt,

   Yep!

   Geoff
Geoff Ryan on September 30th, 2008

4. This touches on some way deeper thoughts than I’m often prepared to delve into. Not so much because of an inability as simply avoidance. To often lesser things crowd my mind and keep me preoccupied and focused on whats next to strike of the “To Do” list. Geoff , I’ve never heard of David Foster Wallace , no big surprise there ; but your ‘minor obsession’ with this man and his life and legacy through his writings resonated with my own long time ‘obsession’ with the late singer - songwriter Mark Heard. I don’t have the time right now to give you the full story on who he was and what he said and did ; if you know of him it would be somewhat redundant anyway , if you’re unsure but interested the ‘net has various sites dedicated to his life and legacy through his music and writings.( you could check out this great article from Paste Magazine on the 10th Anniversary of Mark’s death : http://www.pastemagazine.com/tag/Mark_Heard ) Mark’s passing back in August of 1992 at age 41 left many ( myself included ) definately feeling that “the world is a little lonelier” without his presence on the planet. I’ve included lyrics to his song ” I just wanna get warm ” because these words ( which are even more powerful to me when I hear Mark sing them )are immediately what came to my mind when I read your post. I hope they might mean something to you or some others who happen to read through these lengthy comments!! Most of the time I check the Rubicon I do just that - mostly because I rarely feel like I’ve anything worthwhile or somewhat interesting to say. That may be true in this case as well , but I at least owe it to the memory of one of my “heroes of the faith” to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that those who speak the truth and dare to be authentic make a huge difference in the lives of us weary pilgrims who ” wanna be touched … wanna be real… wanna be well … wanna be healed … wanna be warm.”
   Love ya Geoff. God bless and keep you always HIS.

   Peter

   I Just Wanna Get Warm

   The mouths of the best poets
   Speak but a few words
   And then lay down
   Stone cold in forgotten fields
   Life goes on in this ant farm town
   Cold to the lifeblood underfoot
   All talk and no touch
   And I just wanna be real
   I just wanna be real

   The colors here are monochrome
   Studies in one shade of grey
   The good times and the hard times
   Cut from the same grey cloth
   And all the fires that crackle here
   Consume but do not burn
   All light and no heat
   And I just wanna get warm
   I just wanna get warm

   The days they rattle past me
   Like a tunnel round a train
   Landscapes and heartaches
   I don’t know what I feel
   All I know is my condition
   Is worse than I can tell
   The small talk and the slow burn
   And I just wanna be healed
   I just wanna get well

   There are things I should remember
   But I have forgotten how
   I’m all tied up with no time
   Trying do too much
   And the thoughts that I’ve avoided
   Are the ones I need right now
   Like a warm wind and love’s hand
   And I just wanna be touched
   And I just wanna be real
   And I just wanna be well
   And I just wanna be healed
   And I just wanna be warm

   Written by Mark Heard
   © 1991 Ideola Music/ASCAP
Peter Eason ( Major ) on October 1st, 2008

5. Thank you for introducing me to
   this song!
Maureen Diffley on October 2nd, 2008

6. Hey,
   Thought you might enjoy this…
   http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/835eqlmb.asp
Catherine W on November 20th, 2008

7. Hey,
   Thought you might enjoy this…
   http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/835eqlmb.asp
Catherine W on November 20th, 2008

Leave a comment