the meaning you make

Charlie Rose discussing the future of fiction and who (if anyone) is actually reading (in 1996 mind you-though these topics seem just as applicable if not even more so) with writers David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, and Mark Leyner.

“there’s this part that makes you feel full” – DFW

I am still recovering from the reading of Infinite Jest. I feel confident that I have watched every David Foster Wallace interview available online. While I have found some answers, even more questions arise. When I read this poem today I could not help but think of DFW and IJ and all the characters that live in it.

poem of the day from poets.org

Having it Out with Melancholy
by Jane Kenyon

If many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure.

A. P. CHEKHOV The Cherry Orchard

1 FROM THE NURSERY

When I was born, you waited
behind a pile of linen in the nursery,
and when we were alone, you lay down
on top of me, pressing
the bile of desolation into every pore.

And from that day on
everything under the sun and moon
made me sad — even the yellow
wooden beads that slid and spun
along a spindle on my crib.

You taught me to exist without gratitude.
You ruined my manners toward God:
“We’re here simply to wait for death;
the pleasures of earth are overrated.”

I only appeared to belong to my mother,
to live among blocks and cotton undershirts
with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes
and report cards in ugly brown slipcases.
I was already yours — the anti-urge,
the mutilator of souls.

2 BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,
Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,
Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.
The coated ones smell sweet or have
no smell; the powdery ones smell
like the chemistry lab at school
that made me hold my breath.

3 SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND

You wouldn’t be so depressed
if you really believed in God.

4 OFTEN

Often I go to bed as soon after dinner
as seems adult
(I mean I try to wait for dark)
in order to push away
from the massive pain in sleep’s
frail wicker coracle.

5 ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT

Once, in my early thirties, I saw
that I was a speck of light in the great
river of light that undulates through time.

I was floating with the whole
human family. We were all colors — those
who are living now, those who have died,
those who are not yet born. For a few

moments I floated, completely calm,
and I no longer hated having to exist.

Like a crow who smells hot blood
you came flying to pull me out
of the glowing stream.
“I’ll hold you up. I never let my dear
ones drown!” After that, I wept for days.

6 IN AND OUT

The dog searches until he finds me
upstairs, lies down with a clatter
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing
saves my life — in and out, in
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .

7 PARDON

A piece of burned meat
wears my clothes, speaks
in my voice, dispatches obligations
haltingly, or not at all.
It is tired of trying
to be stouthearted, tired
beyond measure.

We move on to the monoamine
oxidase inhibitors. Day and night
I feel as if I had drunk six cups
of coffee, but the pain stops
abruptly. With the wonder
and bitterness of someone pardoned
for a crime she did not commit
I come back to marriage and friends,
to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back
to my desk, books, and chair.

8 CREDO

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work
but I believe only in this moment
of well-being. Unholy ghost,
you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can’t
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can’t sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can’t read, or call
for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.

9 WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light
I wake at four,
waiting greedily for the first
note of the wood thrush. Easeful air
presses through the screen
with the wild, complex song
of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly
all my life until this moment?
How I love the small, swiftly
beating heart of the bird
singing in the great maples;
its bright, unequivocal eye.

From Constance by Jane Kenyon, published by Graywolf Press. © 1993 by Jane Kenyon. All rights reserved.

I started reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace in October. I finished it last night. I am not a slow reader. I read it almost every single day. It is a challenging book, is what I am getting at. And long. 981 pages; 1079 with footnotes. And the font isn’t that large and the margins aren’t that big and DFW isn’t much into paragraphs, but really likes abbreviations (without which we’ve speculated it could have doubled in length). I got a new dictionary because of (for) this book. Entire meetings of English Club were devoted to IJ. We were all reading it. It has been nice going through it with others, to share in the confusion and awe of DFW and IJ.

I don’t really know what else to say about it or where I would even begin. When I finished it, I just sat there and stared at the blank space on the lower half of page 981. I had known the end was coming. I’d read the last footnote with eager regret. I had often thumbed to 981 with a twinge of doubt that I would ever reach it (I had started IJ at least 3 times before). I texted Abdul who had finished it the previous week and while waiting for his response, I realized I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

I closed the book. I reopened it to the first page and started reading it again.

When Abdul responded he suggested I do exactly what I had done and then said the most perfect thing: “I feel like the story is just starting and I’m starving for more of that world.”

“A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life” from Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

a david foster wallace exposé on the reality of baton twirling competitions.

anyone not familiar with david foster wallace should become so. i suggest starting with a short-story collection, i.e., consider the lobster or brief interviews with hideous men, because it is easy to get lost in him.

i have been trying to read his novel infinite jest for nearly three years and have only been able to pick it up for short periods of time with long gaps in between. anyone that has finished it is automatically one of my heroes.

anyway, i love dfw despite of and because of how challenging he is. he delves into the mind in a way that makes stream of consciousness look like you are seriously holding back; he has page-long footnotes describing what was seemingly a trivial mention in a sentence (he writes like a poet, every word has a purpose); he explores the thoughts that last for millisecond and then the ones between those; he thinks of everything you have and haven’t thought of (it’s kind of not fair).

this is david foster wallace reading an excerpt from consider the lobster, a non-fiction collection.

dfw lived in claremont and taught creative writing to some very lucky people until he committed suicide this past september.

rolling stone did a great piece on him after his death: the lost years & last days of david foster wallace.