The Great White Shark of Pain

I’ve been meaning to write a post on David Foster Wallace but hadn’t gotten around to it, mainly because I hadn’t gotten around to reading The Pale King yet. Well, now I have an excuse - D.T. Max has just written Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (reviewed today in the New York Times). Eventually I will read Max’s biography, but I do remember the New Yorker article on which it was based, which is well worth the read.

The other reason I hadn’t posted on David Foster Wallace is because, even four years after his suicide, I am still deeply saddened by it. I’d enjoyed DFW’s work and admired him as a person, not just as an artist. Unfortunately, I don’t have even a shred of his immense talent, so when I try to say something meaningful about his work or his death, I am at a loss for words. Fortunately, he was not. In his brief life he left behind a couple of novels and a boat load of essays and short stories, all of which I can load up on my Kindle and read and re-read. When I’m not feeling too depressed.

As noted in The Times review,  DFW referred to clinical depression as “The Great White Shark of pain.” What an apt metaphor!  I should’ve made that the title of my blog. Or, if ever I have a career as professional wrestler or mixed martial artist, that is totally going to be my nom de guerre.

Since we are discussing depression and its metaphors, Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon is an excellent book on the subject. Both memoir and research, it gives you a raw and painful understanding of this crippling disease. I read it about 10 years ago and it’s really stuck with me.