Although of course you end up becoming yourself

What is there to say about David Foster Wallace (full name is obligatory) that has not been said before? He is brilliant. Stories, you know, whatever, they don't matter to me, I just love how he thinks and how he manages to transpose that onto the page. Hell, as clearly shown in this book and as Lipsky rightly points it out, Wallace had a natural gift for shitting out prose straight out of his rima oris. Honestly, if I ever meet someone like Wallace, someone with such a keen capacity to discuss anything off the cuff in such a knowledgable and witty manner, I am locking them up in my basement to never allow for a chance to lose them. You are missed, David, you really really really are. I wish I locked you in my basement. If I did, you would still be here to enlighten me now and again. I badly needed to hear some of the stuff in here. The whole "using thousands of pages of continental philosophy and lit theory to prove that you a right just to regret it later" was dropped on my head old-school piano style. Maybe, sometimes, we are too clever for our own good, or maybe it's plain arrogance. I can't yet decide. But as I was emerging out of the rubble, recovering my composure, ridding my blazer off of the remains of the piano, I was blinded by a statement so obvious, so god damn obvious, yet so fucking true, that I immediately became enlightened. All the jest aside, who reads realism to experience the real? I hear it all the time, how great and timeless classics are. Great escape they might be, but they hardly feel real and timeless to me. Wallace put it well: "Life now is completely different than the way it was then. Does your life approach anything like a linear narrative?" This humble discretion made me rave for a day, and even after I thought through all the implications of this postmodern wisdom, I could not shake off the feeling that I will never be okay with it. I will never be okay with how true it is. And the worst part... I have no clue whether I am melancholy and lament the loss of the narrative or euphoric that I do not have to live life by some premade schematic and see it as linear progress with predictable story beats of the slow trip from a cradle to a crematorium. Thank you, David Foster Wallace, you fucked me up real good.

DFW in the movie version of this book was played as insecure, ashamed of his success, but interesting to hang out with. After seeing the film, I started reading [b:The Art Fair|567671|The Art Fair|David Lipsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387710610s/567671.jpg|241941] by David Lipsky. My father was an artist and I found the NYC art culture he describes familiar, but at a certain point, I abandoned reading it. I had previously abandoned [b:Infinite Jest|6759|Infinite Jest|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1446876799s/6759.jpg|3271542] for the second time (the first time I'd felt like a failure) not that long ago. I'd made it through [b:The Broom of the System|6750|The Broom of the System|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386923908s/6750.jpg|1140359] a second time realizing I'd forgotten much of my first reading.

Books like these used to impress me. When they gave me problems, I'd felt it was my fault. I had a similar "relationship" with Pynchon. Somewhere along the line, I'd managed to work it out. Now, I can give these authors up guilt-free, deciding I just don't enjoy them as much as I'm supposed to.

But enough about me. No, a little more about me. I started reading Although of Course because the movie version excited me. The cleverness and the pace were part of this, but it was the suicide that intrigued me. People have said it was because of failed ambition or jealousy or competitiveness or feeling he was no longer able to write and the thing about this book is that he discusses all of these topics and others and has smart and insightful things to say about them. He says many of the things that would be exactly the insights that psychotherapy would claim should free him to live a healthy life. (I should add that he also says much worth hearing about the writing process itself, about the publishing experience, the celebrity experience, about entertainment vs. art, about addiction, etc.) So, why then, did these insights fail him when he needed them most?

My answer (yes, this is still about me--I get to say in my review whatever I want) is that he discovered he couldn't be who he'd decided he should be. He discovered that he often felt driven to be who he shouldn't be, a lustful, envious, anxious, blocked, superficial, flawed human and he hated this failure to transcend being that person. At one point he hints as much to David Lipsky, saying that the way to resolve the problem of being alive is to find a kind of self-love. I'm saying he didn't find it. I could defend this thesis if I were the kind of guy who needed to convince people but at the moment I'm more motivated to finish this review before I time out and am not permitted to save it.

David Lipsky admits at the end that he really wanted DFW to admit he was pleased by his success and that, despite attempts to get him to say so, DFW managed to evade confessing. I saw this as more Lipsky's issue than Wallace's. I didn't (as some other reviewers on Goodreads) hate Lipsky for his influence on the discussion. I thought he managed to get Wallace to reflect on topics on which he much to say. I did think that several of Lipsky's observations were downright wrong, or missing the point. For example, Wallace talks about making an effort to be normal and Lipsky adds (after the actual interview) that normal people don't engage in such an effort. I contend that they are doing this all the time, though often unconsciously or out of habit.

I find the Wallace of the book "truer" and more accessible than how he is portrayed in the movie. Of course I never met him and have read that those who knew him think both are false. To that I say we are all somewhat false and others see us distorted through their projections. Adding to this opinion of mine, Wallace points out that a good writer creates an illusion of intimacy with his readers and then disappoints them when he meets them and doesn't behave like their imagined close friend. It is observations like this that make the book an enjoyable read.

Prior to this book I've never actually read DFW himself, only essays about him/his work but Philipps review, especially his title suggestion ("What it's like to over-think everything") and my love for road trips (being confined to a car for hours on end is such a nice way to learn about your fellow car-inmates) made me give it a try. I was not disappointed, DFW does a great job to elaborate on lots of different topics and talks about his life in a way that at least feels very open and honest.

I have to disagree with Philipp on Lipsky himself. I think he does a great job of being a pain and returns to certain topics again and again to get some answers, while often succeeding. I found his interspersed comments quite nice because they often also provided some context that would otherwise have been completely lost to me.