New Yorker Lovers discussion

Well, I'm going to read the David Foster Wallace article. Gabrielle, you'll probably want to log onto the website or buy this issue since I know you love him. I have to say that reading about him...it makes me a bit depressed, which is why I don't know if I could ever read Infinite Jest. Just looking at that book makes me depressed. I was interested to hear that he was friends with Jonathan Franzen, though. I guess that makes sense. Who has read him? What are your thoughts?

I read the article online! I enjoyed it enough, although I think I prefer the earlier Rolling Stone profile that was cited in it. I think it was a bit more nuanced and included a lot more of his parents' perspective.

About The Pale King: Although I was initially excited about the novel, after surveying how all the coverage around it has focused almost exclusively on his mental illness I'm not so sure I'll read it. It took me a long time to start reading Wallace and so I wasn't paying attention when Infinite Jest was released, but I can't help but think that it most likely didn't get this much attention.

Granted, you can't write about the book without writing about the suicide, but even the amount of coverage I've seen this far ahead of publication makes me uncomfortable. And sure, I understand that the circumstances surrounding the book are the definition of "newsworthy," and I understand that Wallace purposely left the manuscript out for his wife to find and get published, but I don't know if I could read it without feeling like I was rubbernecking.

I finally read the entire article and thought it was great. Did any of you know where he got the title for "Infinite Jest"? I didn't, and I didn't think about it, until I was reading Act 5, scene 1 of Hamlet with my seniors and there you go! Hamlet is talking about the death of his court jester when he uses the phrase. It was a weird moment of synchronicity. Mike also read the article and now is determined to buy Infinite Jest today. Errr. Let's see how far he gets in that 1200+ page novel. I also started the short story in that issue and don't know if I'm going to finish it. It's not the kind of thing you want to read after work or when you're relaxing. I do think he wanted The Pale King to be found and I think he figured it wouldn't matter to him once he's gone what the critics think, and that would be a sort of relief, like a long sleep.