18 September, 2008

Remembering David Foster Wallace

Rahul points me to this tribute in which a bunch of writers and editors share their memories of David Foster Wallace. Good stuff.

Tragic as Wallace’s death is, I think that suicide is the most dignified way to die: you choose the time and manner of your own passing, and can prepare yourself for it without burdening others. (I know most of my readers won’t agree, and I won’t try to convince you!)

Of course, just as suicide may sometimes reflect humility, in embracing our own mortality, it can also reflect arrogance, as drama queen Yukio Mishima’s seppuku certainly did. But what a writer he was, that Mishima, saving his only bad plot line for his own life. Such it goes…