I have not read David Foster Wallace but some of you may have. I'm sorry to report he was found dead this weekend, a suspected suicide.
This obit by New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani has me interested. (Note: She can get away with the more than 60-word sentence below.)
His work always sounded a little too manic and hipsterish for me. Maybe
it’s time for a second look.
The reader could not help but feel that Mr. Wallace had inhaled the muchness of contemporary America — a place besieged by too much data, too many video images, too many high-decibel sales pitches and disingenuous political ads — and had so many contradictory thoughts about it that he could only expel them in fat, prolix narratives filled with Möbius strip-like digressions, copious footnotes and looping philosophical asides. If this led to self-indulgent books badly in need of editing — “Infinite Jest” clocked in at an unnecessarily long 1,079 pages — it also resulted in some wonderfully powerful writing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15kaku.html
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