The Pale King

One of the many themes at work in Infinite Jest is narcissism. However, this extends merely beyond the conventional definition. In Mary Holland’s article “‘The Art’s Heart’s Purpose’: Braving the Narcissistic Loop of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest“, narcissism is equated with Freudian infantile sexuality. In essence, narcissism stems from desire for fulfillment of pleasure – what Holland refers to as “ego instincts” (224) – which is created, for the infant, by the mother, who provides for all needs, creating a cycle of need-fulfillment that makes the mother part of the infant. “In desiring the mother”, Holland writes, “the infant is simply desiring the self and existing in a closed loop of constant fulfillment that seems to flow from no external source.” (224) Holland goes on to connect this pleasure-as-narcissism cycle to the usual addiction themes in DFW’s work. However, there’s another connection to a major plot point and theme staring Holland’s theory in the face: the cartridge, the Entertainment, Infinite Jest V and Joelle and the final fulfillment of absolute pleasure. Indeed, the Entertainment promises nothing less than total and absolute pleasure.

via » A Post Whose Sole Intention is to Test-Run the Author’s Paper, Due Wednesday, Which He Has Not Thought Sufficiently About David Foster Wallace

This Is Water is the transcript of a 2005 lecture Foster Wallace gave to a group of graduating students at Kenyon College in Ohio. In it he talks about a practical approach to counter the banality of everyday ‘adult life’ – an approach that most of us probably try every now and then but usually give up on after ten or fifteen minutes. It’s really interesting and refreshing, but, in a way, sad, to see such a simple, generous approach to day-do-day life put on paper, knowing that the mind that conceived the sentences was, at the same time, struggling with something so intense as to make its owner end his own life.

via Stink Opals: This Is Water.

David Foster Wallace’s unfinished novel, Wiggle Room, apparently takes work for its subject: an extract in the New Yorker a few weeks ago was set in an IRS audit office, in which Foster Wallace’s lead character, Lane Dean Jr, checks tax returns. The tedium of his job is the focus of the chapter, and tedium is, of course, a major part of any job, no matter how good.

via guardian.co.uk 

The piece covers the full sweep of Wallace’s career: his growth from cynical Pynchon-obsessed twentysomething prodigy (circa The Broom of the System) to reluctant superstar (Infinite Jest) to aspiring mindfulness guru (his unfinished novel The Pale King). It gives us excerpts from his journals and letters. (To DeLillo: “I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.”) It gives us possibly the most sane and concise synopsis of Infinite Jest ever written. And it gives DFW fanboys all kinds of sparkly new trivia to hoard: that Wallace wrote in a room painted entirely black and filled with vintage lamps; that his childhood was so dorky his family once substituted “3.14159” for the word “pie” during an entire long car trip; that he once told Rolling Stone he wore a bandanna to keep his head from exploding; that, late in life, he considered quitting writing to open a dog shelter; and (an instant classic in the lore of authorial body art) that Wallace commemorated his early-nineties relationship with the writer Mary Karr by getting a tattoo of a heart with the word “Mary” in it — then, when he eventually married someone else, crossed out “Mary” and added, with an asterisk, the name of his wife (“turning his arm,” as Max nicely puts it, “into a living footnote”).

via Entertainment & Culture Blog — New York Magazine

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At one point, Wallace had a room in his house in Bloomington, Illinois, painted entirely black. The room was illuminated with dozens of antique lamps, some with shades, some without. The whole effect was very spooky. A picture of the room—at least I think it’s the room–is on the Web.

via The New Yorker

Wallace once wrote to his friend Jonathan Franzen that his thoughts on religion were “banal.” He did go to church, and my assumption is that this practice began after he stopped drinking and smoking pot as part of getting clean and may have continued either because he felt it centered him or merely out of habit, as part of his sense of himself as a middle-class Midwesterner. But as to whether Wallace believed that God perched on his shoulder and advised him on every move or whether he/she was a generalized concept inherent in every heart, I don’t know. If I was guessing, I’d say God was not as high on his list of concerns as, say, ethics and trying to do right in the world.

via The New Yorker

Wallace, who had moved to California in 2002, purposely stayed away from the noise of New York City publishing, but, even in his absence, he had a definite, gracious presence in the world of letters.

via The New Yorker

From 1997 on, Wallace worked on a third novel, which he never finished—the “Long Thing,” as he referred to it with Michael Pietsch. His drafts, which his wife found in their garage after his death, amount to several hundred thousand words, and tell of a group of employees at an Internal Revenue Service center in Illinois, and how they deal with the tediousness of their work.

via The New Yorker

Lane A. Dean, Jr., and his girlfriend, both in bluejeans and button-up shirts. They sat up on the table’s top portion and had their shoes on the bench part that people sat on to picnic or fellowship together in carefree times. They’d gone to different high schools but the same junior college, where they had met in campus ministries.

via The New Yorker