Infinite rest

Busy days at The Organ and too many boozy nights mean I have been neglecting you, gentle Reader.

I was deeply saddened last weekend when I heard that David Foster Wallace hung himself. I had come into his stuff late, only getting into him after reading his story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. I was put off when Infinite Jest originally came out, not because of its heft, but because I thought that all those footnotes and endnotes was nothing more than clever-clever post-po-mo jiggery pokery. When I finally read it, I discovered that underneath this stuff is heart and optimism. And it's also a mammoth book of ideas, boundary-pushing, brilliant.

I was talking about DFW with a friend from home and he said that he couldn't believe that someone could write Infinite Jest and top himself. But then I was thinking how can you write something like that and not kill yourself? You write something like that, maybe your work is done. And maybe if you are optimistic, yet clear-eyed you will be continually let down by the world. Suicide becomes the logical option.