DFW ... RIP

To say that I am bummed just doesn't sum it up and feels like I am being flip. In truth, I am sad and angry at and about someone I never met.

On September 12, 2008 David Foster Wallace committed suicide at age 46.

See, I never met DFW. But, I have read virtually everything he published since I stumbled across Infinite Jest in 1997. He was near the top of a very short list of writers whose work I would read simply because his name was on the it.

Sometimes there are artists whose work we appreciate more than we enjoy. Wallace's work was challenging to read at times, but I actually enjoyed his writing. I cannot say the same thing about everyone whose work I read.

Why am I angry?

I know why I am sad.

I have had the opportunity to meet artists of various types whose work I admire. By meeting them it has given me a human emotional feeling about them. They are real to me more than simply as words on paper or photos on a dust jacket.

Wallace had everything I would want from a writing career. He wrote fiction and non-fiction; both short form and long. In addition, he was a college professor. We are only a handful of years apart in age.

It had been a few years since a new collection had been released. I often look for writers I like online to see if anything is scheduled. This weekend I saw the story of his suicide at about the time I was looking to check on any new releases.

Suicide is not something I understand. Wallace's reasons for ending his life are his own and likely his artistic and career successes are separate from the choice he made. It would be too easy to dismiss his death by pointing at his successes and commenting that someone successful should simply be happy. Life isn't that simple and neither is death. I will simply have to accept that I cannot understand it.

I think it comes down to something very simple. We can understand when someone with tragic circumstances takes their life. We may not like it and we might still be sad about it, but at least it can make more intuitive sense to us. When a successful and talented person dies young, especially someone as artistically talented as Wallace, it simply makes no intellectual sense to us. Wallace did not only take his own life, but he took future works that will now never be written. It is somewhat selfish of me to view the death of someone I did not personally have contact with that way, but it is how I feel. It is not the first time I have felt that way. Tragically, it likely won't be the last. I have been closer to some situations than this one, yet it seems to bother me just as much as those others.

I am not going to go further in this posting to discuss mental illness and creative genius beyond noting that it seems that too often they go hand in hand.

David Foster Wallace was a brilliant and unique talent.

Rest in peace.