June 5, 2011

I re-opened "Infinite Jest," a novel written by highly acclaimed writer David Foster Wallace. No question the guy was brilliant and a wordsmith, though immature. Reading him makes me appreciate Faulkner all the more. I think the proof is in the pudding of metaphorical depth in each. Wallace rearranges the furniture while Faulkner carves it right out of the tree. Wallace hung himself a few years back, still in his 40's, very sad. He was like a rock musician who decided The Beatles had done it all already, and better. In the words of a Faulknerian illiterate sage: "Because anybody can see and hear and smell and feel and taste what he expected to hear and see and feel and smell and taste, and won't nothing much notice your presence nor miss your lack, so maybe when you can see and feel and smell and hear and taste what you never expected to an hadn't never even imagined until that moment, maybe that's why Old Moster picked you out to be one of the ones to be alive." W.F.