Book Feature

I have to take a moment or two to step away from exclusively musical content (although this falls squarely within the spirit of rock and roll) in order to talk about one of the people who have shaped my outlook as a writer and as an American living in these dangerous, yet somehow hilarious, times.

David Foster Wallace was, up until the other day when he hung himself, one of the greatest living novelists of our time. He was one of those guys who got called “the voice of a generation,” in spite of the fact that reading books isn’t really on the top of any recent generation’s to-do list. His work was humorous, confounding, and still clear as a bell. He wrote giant books like Infinite Jest, weighing in over a thousand pages, that even serious readers shuddered away from. His stories were as wordy and convoluted as the 18th & 19th century authors our high school teachers forced us to endure, but they were set now, or in the near future, and could illicit laughter from even the most jaded, desensitized hipster.

I was introduced to Wallace at the perfect age. It was sometime during the early ‘90s when the whole Seattle thing happened, when that same Seattle thing got everybody listening to all kinds of other things we were told were “alternative.” Suddenly, small-town Okies were gabbing about Bowie concept albums from the ‘70s, L.A. hardcore from the ‘80s, and grumbling about terms like “sell-out” and “biters” like we knew what the hell we were talking about. Along with this came new tastes in movies, styles, and even books that could be deemed part of an alternative culture it seemed had been lurking just under the surface of the Reagan eighties without our knowledge.

Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Leyner, Thomas Pynchon, even Jack Kerouac became hot reading for my group of friends, who otherwise pretended to be starting a different band every weekend. Those years were a real moment of ferment, however silly they seem to us in hindsight, and I think a whole lot of grown-ups from my generation secretly look back on those days with reverence now—in spite of the flannels, lame gravelly-voiced singing, and died hair.

But as I was saying, David Foster Wallace was part of this general movement in my eyes—part of a new subculture that mocked the status quo and decided to up and THINK for itself. I use the irritating all-caps for a purpose here. It seemed like part of that cheesy grunge movement was an intellectual angle. I mean, just compare the lyrical content of this stuff with what came right before. Clinton came into office, Tarantino started making movies, and everybody I knew started talking about getting college degrees in “completely useless” fields like art, history and English.

Lately, there’s been a rash of American intellectuals committing suicide. Hunter S. Thompson and Spalding Gray come to mind. For those two fellows, we know the cause of their depression to be directly related to the current political situation. Sure, the war is a downer. And the leadership bites. Some criminal things have been going on for a few years with little or no consequences. Throughout history, things like this happen.

But what sticks out about our current situation is that in America, at the dawn of the 21st century, we’ve decided that intellectuals—and by that I just mean informed people who think about stuff—are no longer of any use. In fact, we’d rather do away with their “elitist” mumbo-jumbo and keep everything “down-to-earth.” At any other time or place, intellectuals have a serious role to play in society. They stand up against the B.S. They make sure we’re all informed. They poke fun at our foibles so we don’t take ourselves too seriously. And in the end, they help us all find new solutions and stay out from under the thumb of unchecked power.

David Foster Wallace was one of these intellectuals. From his first book, The Broom of the System, to his journalistic essays, writings on infinity, and rollicking short stories, Wallace carved out a place where thinking critically about our world could be laugh-out-loud funny, acerbically hip, and informed by the goofiness of our own popular culture. He will be missed.

No Comments »