Comments on: The Trick is Keeping the Truth Up-Front

By: Mary Cotter

Mary Cotter — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:29:59 +0000

I am sorry for the loss of your Mom. I lost both my parents and my oldest sister and it doesn’t get easier, just weirder. I have used the commencement address so many times and it really has come in handy during funeral services, especially Catholic ones. Thanks for your post.

By: James

James — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:54:20 +0000

The Kenyon commencement address was my first exposure to DFW, so I was also quick to pick on some of the same themes in the conversation between Steeply and Marathe. I can’t help feeling somewhat haunted by Steeply’s response on p. 108: “What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love?….”

By: OneBigParty

OneBigParty — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:56:03 +0000

Thank you for letting me revisit DFW’s Kenyon College speech. When I stand in those grocery lines, I sometimes just feel like I’m a just nonentity being concerned and worried about other nonentities. To hear of a master spirit of the age like DFW struggling with this, with trying to keep consciousness from being a disease, gives me a much needed boost.

But sometimes I wonder if he cared too much, and this was bad for him in the end. And if he erroneously thought he was “long dead” before he “pulled the trigger,” that he thought of a suicide wish in itself as an indication that he was not fit to live anymore and set into motion a thought process around how he could never be a whole human being again. Whatever he did think, after reading more to confirm 100 times over what I already knew about him being so brilliant, it had to have been ineluctable and rigid beyond any of his powers or the knowledge of his prior accomplishments, and yes, record as an extremely empathic and compassionate human being, to reverse or erase it.

It is a form of heroism that you keep reading and writing and raising your children even though you just lost someone that you loved very much.

By: Dan Summers

Dan Summers — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:08:24 +0000

I just, as in just five minutes ago, finished a visit with a patient in which I referred to my “default setting.” And then I read your comment. But then, DFW has been permeating my life for years.

By: Roxanne

Roxanne — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:17:15 +0000

Nope – not dropping out. I stopped and had decided to go over some of my notes and make some posts. Get a grip, feel the pain, and re-group. You know, hungy, angry, lonely and tired. That’s me most of the time. I’m DFW’s book personified I think. But I guess we all are – and I think too much anyway. That’s what everbody and I mean everybody tells me.
Posting helps.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:31:34 +0000

Get moving to where? The end? The good part?

Not to be campy or a hippie-ish, but it may help to think of John Lennon’s suggestion that “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” as you read DFW. You are in the good parts, there is no reason to get moving to something else. Try to feel the characters a bit and they start to grow on you.

Also, I think the seemingly annoying details are there because sometimes life has a lot of details.

I hope this helps. I’d hate to see you drop out at pg. 260.

By: Roxanne

Roxanne — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:02:45 +0000

I hate to say it but at about page 260 I am getting bored. Not frustrated, just bored. All these little tidbits just aren’t doing it for me – it seems like a lot of talk about nothing. Or a lot of talk about the obvious – but then there is that line that freaking blows you away. Is that enough? Just wondering if I’m alone. Lots of talking about dope and addiction – the veil is sort of obvious – but then he does take it quite a way – including it in the “Material” or dope paraphernalia. But – come on – let’s get moving! I’m so impatient.

By: claire ziller

claire ziller — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:43:42 +0000

I gave a copy of the Kenyon commencement speech to my therapist. She’s already using “default setting” in her daily jargon. When your therapist adopts DFW, it’s just another sign of his briliance.The best part of reading IJ is rereading earlier DFW works; I even dug out my old Harper’s essay on language–a fantastic read.

By: Olja

Olja — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:53:52 +0000

P.S. And thank you, Eden, for your moving and interesting post. Best wishes.

By: Olja

Olja — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:47:30 +0000

Thank you for the comment.

I keep thinking about DFW’s questioning of postmodernism, and about him in relation to both the literature related aspects of the term and the postmodern concept in general, especially after seeing the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsziSppMUS4 ) where he speaks of being interested in “using postmodern formal techniques for very traditional ends”. Sometimes I wonder what do his works and interviews reveal to us about his world view – the postmodern, traditional or beyond postmodern aspects of it, and how these influences intertwine to combine his own personal “map”…

This is however an issue I intend to keep in mind and try to explore in the future.