David Foster Wallace and the Horror of Life

1 year ago
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DFW litost gnosticism

An emergency room visit leads to thoughts about the life and death of
David Foster Wallace; criticism of Wallace from Dave Eggers, Michiko
Kakutani, and Harold Bloom; an encounter with Wallace at the Elliot Bay
Book Company when he was touring for Infinite Jest; Wallace and the
sleazier aspects of addiction and human sexuality; why the grim
perceptions of depressed people hew closer to how the world really
operates; Wallace’s fraught relationships with his mother and Mary Karr;
other distinguished novelists who were emotionally unstable and/or
morally depraved, such as Norman Mailer, William Burroughs, Samuel
Beckett, and James Joyce; Bret Easton Ellis trashing Wallace on Twitter; writers as creators of weaponized memeplexes that can be used to “demoralize and passify the unwary.” Etc.

Prefer to read? This essay can also be found on Medium (with all
footnotes intact):
https://medium.com/@threegracespress/david-foster-wallace-and-the-horror-of-life-9f3daaff6932

Written and narrated by Derek Swannson
https://www.amazon.com/Derek-Swannson/e/B009POSBXU/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_ebooks_1

You can support Three Graces Press through Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/ThreeGracesPress

Soundtrack:

Chris Zabriskie (“Cylinder Four” “Undercover Vampire Policeman” “The
49th Street Galleria” “NirvanaVEVO” “John Stockton Slow Drag” “The
Temperature of the Air on the Bow of the Kaleetan” “Stories About the
World That Once Was” “Itasca, It’s Glowing Red Hot” “Cylinder Seven”
“There’s Probably No Time” “Cylinder Nine” “We were Never Meant to Live
Here” “To Hide Their Secrets” “That Hopeful Future is All I’ve Ever
Known” “I Should Have Been More Human”) http://chriszabriskie.com or: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/

Evan Schaeffer (“Sisyphus” “Mantra” “Big Splash” “Roll” “Sister N Law”
“Bright Side” “Hemlocks” “Portal” “Chimera” “Brook Branch” “Dimensions”)
https://soundcloud.com/evanschaeffer or:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Evan_Schaeffer/

Fleslit (“Paper Cup” “Ex Stories” “Calm Flight” “Lay Low” “Woah”
“Palace” “Crisis” “What Happened” “Ease Up” “Sink” “Float” “London”
“Direct Messages”) https://www.youtube.com/fleslit or:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Fleslit/

Art of Flying (“fuck you America for being so full of lies” “O daughter,
dear daughter”) http://artofflyingband.wixsite.com/artofflying or:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Art_of_Flying/

Chicano Batman (“La Tigresa”) http://www.chicanobatman.com/ or:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chicano_Batman/

Nick Lutsko (“Jones Iver”) https://www.superdeluxe.com/jonesiver

Entertainment for the Braindead (“Solitude”)
http://entertainmentforthebraindead.com/ or:
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Entertainment_for_the_Braindead/

New York Military Band and the American Quartet (“Patriotic Songs of
America”)
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/New_York_Military_Band_and_the_American_Quartet/

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