An Article About David Foster Wallace

I rarely cry over journalism.

Maybe it's because I find David Foster Wallace an unavoidable treasure, and was/am in the middle of reading his 1100 page long novel Infinite Jest, when he committed suicide last year, that I was really moved by his suicide and then now about reading this article.

This article in Rolling Stone took several hours of my time. Reading, pondering, crying. I never before put a link here to something else to read, because I find it wrong. In this time of extreme news feed, it's not ok to go to a blog, and then find the post linking to an article with a recommendation to read it. It's not ok. But today, I do it.

If you don't care about David Foster Wallace, well, I believe you won't click on the link here, and I'm sorry to have wasted your time with this.

If you do, here's a link to a great article, that'll help you understand what on earth happened. We must've been many in the dark. Why would this amazing author take his own life at age 46?

I ended up with my head in my hands, sobbing. The Hours about Virginia Woolf does the same to me, I've watched it many times. Writers who struggle beyond comparison seem to touch me. And what really gets to me with both Virginia and David is, that they both had great love in their lives at the time of their suicide. They had both found and lived with their one. They were loved. They loved too. But it didn't do it. Love couldn't save them. The darkness gets to me. It's an obstacle where the love coming from the outside doesn't do the difference. It must be so thick and hazy, that the love doesn't enter, doesn't take up space, cannot breathe. The dense darkness inside which makes even grand love unacceptable. That is so empty. So poor. So heartbreaking. Someone stands there and offers a heart. A life. An embrace. Offers to carry the other person. But the person cannot be touched in the dark. Cannot be saved. Chooses instead to walk out into a lake. Hang himself in the living room. The powerlessness of the one left behind is the open face of the powerlessness of love in that situation. And that is what I just cannot take. That love can lose like that. That love doesn't overcome all. Loved people killing themselves is too much. Love must lighten up in the dark. Just a little. Just a flame. Just a tiny spark. Just enough to stay alive for.

The Lost Years And Last Days Of David Foster Wallace