The autograph of David Foster Wallace impossible Start now by telling you I'm going to talk about a dead man. I use this term lightly because they are apparently convinced that death is neither more nor less than an invention of penicillin. David Foster Wallace is dead, so to speak, he just decided to go elsewhere, leaving this life that evidently felt unbearable and run away, far away. I agree with the fact that there are different ways to leave. He did not do it by saving the lives of three children who were drowning in the Thames. He did so by hanging herself at age 46 at his home in Los Angeles. This is not to judge him, but admits that among the options he chose one of the most sad. If you still do not understand why I'm talking about this guy who killed himself and not the hundreds of others who do it every day, because you do not know who David Foster Wallace (I use this on purpose). Simple: one of the greatest contemporary American writers. Then the fact that I like to or not is another matter. The point is that DFW can no longer write books, or if he will write them for the angels of heaven, and for us ordinary readers of this fourth-rate pianetucolo. And most importantly, can no longer sign autographs. What has this to do now? A factor, because the story I'm about to tell is so gruesome (a posteriori) as true.
Let's step back: as a victim of "SCLO" (compulsive syndrome omnivorous reader), I buy more books than those that arrive later to read. Ergo: finished reading a book to another step, it is ready finished third, and so on, in an infinite spiral, because I read every book I buy two, and so on ... While it is methodical, I do not have a predefined list of the books I read. No steps, no strings attached. So it happens that finished a Eliade way to a lighter Connelly, then I throw up after I drink Jack and Pirandello, and then eat a McEwan between Saramago and Veronesi. I'm going to nose, depending on what inspires me at the moment.
And so I chose a week ago, starting to read "Do not Throw Down" by Nick Hornby. For those who have not realized is a book about suicide. Or rather, four would-be suicides gather on a rooftop and jump down instead of starting to speak, until it passes the desire to jump (assuming they ever had the courage to do so). Well, finished reading the novel, I had to choose one's neighbor. I do not know why, but after fierce heats which saw illustrious victims (Follett, Tomasi di Lampedusa, Svevo) remain undecided between the two titles, which will compete for the role of "the next book to read." The two titles are:
Small suicide among friends, Arto Paasilinna
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
does not matter to determine which book I chose. Does it matter to know why, among the hundreds of books available, I chose one that talks about suicide, and one written by a suicide (of course when I did not know that those same hours in DFW had decided to hang himself, but this does not change anything) . If you are quite shocked you have not heard this: in those days I start writing a story. Guess what 'theme: the suicide of a famous person. Now brace yourselves. The story I have titled the autograph of David Wallace. The beauty is that while I thought of a name for my character commits suicide, I instinctively came to mind this. It sounded good, I do not know why. And I was not even touched on the idea that just add a banal Foster to have the name of a famous American writer. At that moment I remembered I miss the existence of DFW. For the record, at the end of my story, the character is saved by a taxi driver that prevents him from committing suicide to allow his wife to continue watching the TV program that leads to (and could no longer conduct if he had committed suicide). DFW but was not saved by any driver. Of course it was difficult, having been killed in the house. Maybe if I decided to go and throw off a bridge ... Done is there is to go to the asylum. Obviously I do not believe in coincidences. Equally obviously do not know if this story makes sense. All I know is that all this makes me feel closer to David, wherever it is at this time. And it is strange to open the pages of his book and read his words knowing that they are the words of a dead man. And it is strange reading my story and think that David (Foster) Wallace can no longer sign autographs.
Jose Saramago writes: "A writer comes to have patience in life where it's needed to write." Well, perhaps DFW did not have this patience. The patience to look into the quagmire of life invisible to cling to the branch when the last illusion of happiness seemed to have dissolved.
