A mate asked about him in an email and this is my reply:
I'm still seriously depressed, no disappointed the way that life does disappoint you, about DFW.
Somebody quoted from American Psycho to me recently when I said something about music and I was just thinking "that is the kind of "ironic" hip, self regarding, smug, empty, vapid, self conciously clever, consumer as creator, dead end of literature and culture that David Foster Wallace demonstrated is the nadir of civilisation. A rallying point, a line to make in the sand and anathema to reject. And now he's dead". I read Infinite Jest and A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again as well as various journalism. He's infuriating, Razor sharp yet obfusticating, earnest, sincere and elusive. Difficult and brilliant to read. I wanted to edit his books with a hammer.
McSweeney's doesn't do it for me, I feel like I'm not part of the joke, not part of the scene. DFW had a terribly self destructive streak, an inability to not analyse, to enjoy, to deliver straight. It's the thread that joins Harvey Pekar to Curb Your Enthusiasm but allied to a fierce and ferociously learned intellect and a genuine and sincere quest to understand modern society, happiness, sadness, horror, television, literature, advertisement, debasement, entertainment, infantilism, addiction, autoeroticism, intoxication, and again and again, sadness and living.
I can't honestly recommend that you read him however.
