Following the news of the tragic,
untimely death
of writer David Foster Wallace on Friday, I reacted in the best way I knew how: I read him. Not all of his work is on the Internet of course, but here are the links I was able to find. They include some of his finest pieces and
offer a glimpse into what made him such a distinctive and powerful voice, one that will be
sorely missed:
(Update: Harper's has opened its archives of Wallace's writings. Links added below.)
Reportage:
"Host" The Atlantic Monthly, April, 2005
"Consider
The Lobster" Gourmet, August,
2004
"The
Weasel, Twelve Monkeys, And The Shrub: Seven Days In The Life Of The Late, Great
John McCain" Rolling Stone,
April 13, 2000*
Video of Wallace reading
from the article "Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All"
(1994, originally printed as "Ticket To The Fair") and "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," (1996, originally printed as "Shipping Out") both from
Harper's.
"David Lynch Keeps His
Head" Premiere, September,
1996
Essays:
"Laughing With Kafka" Harper's, July, 1998
"Federer
as Religious Experience" New York Times
Play Magazine, August 20, 2006
Transcript of
commencement address for Kenyon College, Spring,
2005
"'Borges':
Writer On The Couch" New York Times Book Review, November 7,
2004
"Tense
Present: Democracy, Usage And The War Over Usage" Harper's, April,
2001
"John Updike, Champion
Literary Phallocrat, Drops One; Is This Finally The End For Magnificent
Narcissists?" New York Observer, October 13,
1997
"Tennis, Trigonometry, Tornadoes: A Midwestern Boyhood" Harper's, December, 1991
Fiction:
"The Compliance Branch" Harper's, February, 2008 (excerpt "from a work in progress")
"Good
People" The New Yorker,
February 5, 2007
"Incarnations
Of Burned Children" Esquire,
November 1, 2000
"Brief Interviews With Hideous Men" Harper's, October, 1998
"The Depressed Person" Harper's, January, 1998
"Nothing Happened"
Open City, No. 5,
1997
"The Awakening Of My Interest In Annular Systems" Harper's, September, 1993
"Rabbit Resurrected" Harper's, August, 1992
"Everything Is Green" Harper's, September, 1989
See also this video
of Wallace's Charlie Rose interview from 1997.
*- Wallace was never satisfied with
Rolling Stone's heavy editing of
his article. The full version can be read in Consider
The Lobster or the standalone McCain's
Promise.
--Max
Fisher