David Foster Wallace was an American author and university professor of creative writing. He is best known for his bestseller Infinite Jest (1996), an unconventional encyclopedic novel that explores a near-future fictional superstate of North American countries.
David Foster Wallace: Biography
Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, on February 21, 1962. He grew up in Philo, Illinois, in the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area. Both his mother and father were professors who taught English and Philosophy, respectively. In high school, Wallace played junior tennis, owing his skill to his interest in mathematics rather than athletic ability. He continued to study mathematics as a philosophy major while attending his father’s former school, Amherst College.
Wallace’s college experience led him to become a writer despite studying philosophy. His senior thesis on philosophy would later be published posthumously as Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will (2011). His honors thesis became the basis for his first novel, The Broom of the System (1987). At the University of Arizona, he earned a Master's in Fine Arts for creative writing. He expressed feeling more himself as a writer than a philosopher.
Fig. 1 - A speech later published as This is Water became David Foster Wallace's only public expression of his personal life values. The speech begins with a story about a fish who does not know what water is.
David Foster Wallace: Books
In his post-graduate years, Wallace taught literature at Emerson College and later became a professor of creative writing at Pomona College. Throughout his teaching career, he submitted excerpts of manuscripts and published in journals and literary magazines what would become his first and most well-known books. Wallace wrote in reaction to postmodernism, often earning himself the designation of a post-postmodern writer.
The Broom of the System (1987)
Wallace’s first novel was inspired by his professor’s remarks about how his philosophical thesis read like a narrative. The story explores twenty-something Lenore Beadsman and her relationships with her mentally ill lover, her eccentric grandmother, and her talking pet bird. The book introduced Wallace’s typical style of writing. Parts of the novel are told exclusively through dialogue, transcripts, or from the first-person view of another character. Thematically, the narrative is concerned with how words are used to define one’s sense of self.
Infinite Jest (1996)
Considered to be his best work, Infinite Jest is known for its sprawling multi-narrative spanning over a thousand pages and its encyclopedia-like non-linear structure. The book is littered with end notes, which frequently have their own footnotes. The novel speculates that the United States, Mexico, and Canada will form a superstate known as the Organization of North American Nations, where mega-corporations generate entertainment that’s nearly indistinguishable from reality.
Fig. 2 - The title of Infinite Jest comes from a line in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet. Hamlet observes the exhumed skull of a dead jester and remarks he had "infinite jest."
Several groups of characters in different settings are connected by a film within the story called Infinite Jest. Once watched, viewers cannot resist rewatching the film until they die. Many themes are explored, such as mental illness, consumption addiction, and national politics, along with film and media theory.
The Pale King (2011)
An unfinished novel published posthumously, The Pale King continues Wallace’s style of seemingly disjointed, non-chronological structure. e. The most coherent aspect is that it follows various characters working for the Internal Revenue Service, but for very different reasons. Wallace organized as much material as he could for his editor to compile. Thematically it explores similar themes to his This Is Water essay, about how as humans we possess the power to choose where to focus our attention, and how to assign meaning to experience, including the mundane and boring.
David Foster Wallace: Essays
Wallace regularly wrote nonfiction that was published in periodicals and literary journals. Many of these essays have been compiled into the collections noted below.
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments (1997)
Wallace critiques popular forms of entertainment and consumer experiences. His most well-known essay (same title as the collection) discusses his underwhelming and uncomfortable experience aboard a week-long cruise ship. He also elaborates on a tennis match and professional athleticism and touches upon his experience as a regional ranking junior tennis player. The essays reflect deeply personal views and experiences of American consumer culture.
Fig. 3 - Wallace spent a week on a cruise ship called Zenith that could carry nearly 2,000 passengers.
This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life (2009)
Originally, a commencement speech by Wallace, This is Water, circulated on the internet as a popular video in 2005. Due to his successful literary career, the speech was controversially stretched and published posthumously into a full-length book. This is Water touches upon the personal themes that guide Wallace’s works and is the only time he explicitly stated his views on life. The essay touches upon the importance of empathy, the loneliness of adulthood, and the practicality of being well-adjusted and self-aware.
Consider the Lobster (2005)
Wallace continues his foray into the excesses of American consumer culture. The same titled essay critiques a lobster festival and its ethical justifications. Other essays detail the ghost-written athlete biography industry, media, and its influence on our manners of speech and his trip to an award ceremony for the pornographic film industry.
David Foster Wallace: Death
Wallace struggled with clinical depression throughout his life. He relied on prescription anti-depressants for most of his writing career. With his doctor's advice, he stopped taking his primary medication after he had an adverse reaction to a meal after dosing. Alternative treatments were unsuccessful. On September 12, 2008, he organized his manuscript for The Pale King, wrote a suicide note, and hanged himself.
Wallace’s work has left a lasting impact. Many contemporary authors, such as his good friend Jonathan Franzen, John Green, and Zadie Smith, cite Wallace as an influence. The University of Texas at Austin maintains an archive of Wallace’s personal notes, letters, drafts, and unfinished manuscripts. The universities of Loyola and Harvard have offered English courses on Wallace.
David Foster Wallace: Quotes
The following quotes are excerpts from Wallace’s most notable works.
The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself, the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise.”—pg 696, Infinite Jest
Wallace struggled with depression throughout his life. Often his work is concerned with the contradictions of modern living. Here he is arguing that suicide is something that can happen to anyone if their circumstances become just unbearable enough. The perceived potential suffering seems worse than death. Paradoxically, it’s hard to empathize with suicide if one hasn’t seriously contemplated it.
An ad that pretends to be art is — at absolute best — like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you."
—A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Wallace frequently commented on consumer culture and advertisements. His concern with subversive ads is that they’re fundamentally dishonest. Consumers become desensitized and cannot tell the difference between art and advertising. It is similar to the service industry culture of always smiling, no matter how one actually feels. It makes it more difficult to read an honest, friendly gesture and puts one’s defenses unnaturally high, perceiving threats when people are actually trying to help.
“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”
—Kenyon College Commencement Speech, April 21, 2005, published as This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life.
In his famous commencement speech, Wallace encouraged graduates to be careful about where they invest their time and energy. He believed the most important thing was to be a kind and empathetic person. Wallace felt that these sorts of life values were worth living for, and did not make for good entertainment, hence their absence from most forms of media. The title references the simple practice of intentional self-awareness and awareness of others.
David Foster Wallace - Key takeaways
- David Foster Wallace was an American author and professor of creative writing.
- His parents were professors of English and Philosophy, and he pursued the same subjects in school.
- Wallace is most famous for his novel Infinite Jest and his commencement speech This is Water.
- His writing style is noted for reacting to postmodernism with a sprawling, multi-narrative structure with many footnotes and end notes.
- Wallace left a lasting impact and has influenced many contemporary writers.
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