Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself

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I have not read Infinite Jest. I have it, but every time I pick it up the sheer density of the book is off putting - the detailed writing, the nuanced ideas, the sheer number of pages covered in text and footnotes. I look at this book and I realise it’s going to take me the best part of a year to get through it. Can I commit to that? Do I want to? It’s the perfect book to take travelling – chunky to take the punishment of the road and long enough to absorb its boredom.

Of course, I chickened out when it came time to pack for my travels. Instead I opted for the Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy. But I’m going to read it – I can feel its mass drawing me past his other works, such as, A Supposed Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and now this, equally DFW titled book about DFW, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace.

Really, it should be called Although Of Course You End Up Talking About Drugs, Depression and DFW’s Eventual Suicide. His death stains the book. How could it not? David Lipsky has edited his tale of five days on the road with America’s rising star of literature because we are all in some small way, reading to find out why he hanged himself. DFW’s depression, possible drug and alcohol use; Lipsky circles these subjects, trying to tease some indication as to why he did it as they fly, drive, smoke and eat at Denny’s across the Midwest. But there’s none to be found. The closest he comes is in the foreword: DFW had recently changed his medication before he committed suicide.

Shame, because his death is often at the expense of all sorts of fascinating details – descriptions of DFW teaching, the revelation that even after his second novel was published, he had to take work as a security guard. And that David Foster Wallace was a big Alanis Morissette fan.

Originally, Lipsky’s trip was to be the basis for an article for Rolling Stone. It was never published. It would be interesting to know why.

 

Posted via email from the antigob