Rick Simonson

David Foster Wallace ...
September 15, 2008

Since the sad news of David Foster Wallace's death this past Friday, tributes and appreciations for him and his work have started to pour forth. Well they should. Many, if not most, will be by people who knew him, his writing, his work as a teacher, better than I.

Rather than saying much about the writing - except to say I would read whatever he wrote, even in subjects (infinity) I might not otherwise tread - a little here about what happened the few times he visited our store (Elliott Bay) to read. Some of the most moving pieces written about him since last week have been about him as a teacher. On one of the nights here, people got a feeling for that, an extraordinary feeling.

David Foster Wallace made two appearances (by my count) here, for Infinite Jest, and then the essay collection, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Perhaps Infinite Jest was newly in paper then, also? Books have been times that way. 

Both nights drew huge crowds. Many of those there had about them the air of knowing that this was one of the designated figures who 'had it' - a cultural cool, cache, something above and beyond being the author of a second novel. (A novel you wondered how many would actually buy, much less read.) You could feel that projected toward the stage. When you stand there to introduce someone, whatever the audience is bringing to that author is brought to you first. You only have to ride with it (or around it) a few moments, have your say, get out of the way. When you're the author, the one really up there, you get that aimed at you. If on tour, it's night after night.

On one level, Wallace seemed able to shrug that off, didn't act or seem so affected. And yet, there was a sensitivity. There was also the relation of him as person out there, being 'live' and all, and the person who had created an incredible work, the result of long hours, countless hours, wrestling with the words, making them happen.

If memory serves, the most distinct, or theatrical moment of his first reading night, came when the reading part was over. It was the switch over to q-&-a. How might this possibly go? one could wonder. A thousand-page book ... 

There was the moment's pause there often is between art (the reading) and inquiry. Sometimes it takes moments to change the flow, get questions going (which, then loosened, sometimes keep going).

With Wallace, it was that moment, quick glimpse around, and ok, that's it. Thank you. Let's go sign books.

That was it, the quickest q-&-a ever, before or since. That moment that opened, then closed.

When he was back to Elliott Bay again, this time with the essays and Infinite Jest in paper, there was again, the huge, overflow audience. I was better prepared for the no q-&-a q-&-a. Once the reading part was winding down, I got myself positioned to help move him to the signing table.

This time, whether he felt more at ease (perhaps explaining the essays, not having read from the novel), or people in the audience this time were ready, this time there were questions ... and this time there were answers. It was only one answer, really, that has lasted, that has been one of the most resonant moments in over twenty years and 7,000 or so (?) occasions like this.

A young woman asked a question, something about the general state of things in the country, wondering where he thought where things were headed. Wallace took the question and soared: he gave a brilliant exposition on what had happened in the U.S., how his generation - which he then carefully qualified to particularize as white and middle/upper class - had gone and squandered a great inheritance, an inheritance of many kinds blown and wasted in many ways. He went on at some length, cited poisibiltiies for what might have been, what ways seemed to otherwise have been opted for. He said it with passion, knowing, conviction.

My perspective, standing behind Wallace, seeing the faces looking to him as he was seeing them, was compelling. People were spellbound. For a writer whom some might have thought to be self-absorbed (footnotes to your own fiction?), this talk coming out was utterly selfless, almost seemed channeled. It was a true speaking from the pulpit moment. If he didn't know it all the way along, he did at the end. Brilliantly - ready to deflate the too-high and mighty moment (no hubris), he pulled the irony out of the fire - turning to the same woman who had asked the question, genuflecting priestlike, 'And now I may bless you in the name of ...' Comic relief and release from the intensely serious moment, the moment of what is so real, so vital, you better be careful how and where it's spoken of.

While the signing went on (and on) that evening, a book came to mind to ask him about, one of those I consider a foundation for what I do. It's one of those books most of us carry in us (the different ones we carry), that we think hardly anyone else might know of. At night's end, stock being signed, a little unwinding in the air, I said that he had said things that made me think of this book. Did he know of The Gift by Lewis Hyde? I was ready (as I have with others) to describe the various, eclectic ways Hyde goes at talking about how creativity, gifts, certain kinds of exchanges, currents, and currencies happen in cultures. Wallace's reply, even before I could explain: 'That book informs everything I do as a teacher.'

Amen to that, to what some who had him as a teacher have written.

When Vintage Books recently released a 25th-anniversary edition of The Gift (yes, others do know of it), the lead quote of praise, top of the front cover, is his: "No one who is invested in any kind of art can read The Gift and remain unchanged."

So it also feels for those who read David Foster Wallace, met, or knew him.

Posted by Rick Simonson on September 15, 2008 | Comments (1)