Profiles in Class

Yesterday, Nate Silver had a rather nasty interview with conservative tool John Ziegler, which Andrew Sullivan commented on and reminded me that Ziegler had been profiled by David Foster Wallace a couple of years ago. The profile is a fascinating piece, delving into the attitudes and assumptions that drive right wing talk radio in, to my mind, a fair and even handed manner. Rereading it online (it’s also available in expanded form in Wallace’s Consider the Lobster), I suddenly wondered what Ziegler had thought of the piece – it wasn’t exactly a flattering portrait of the man. Well, ask and the internet shall provide.

The whole “editorial” is an exercise in extraordinary bad taste and ignorance, from Ziegler admitting that he didn’t know who Wallace was to talking about the children that Wallace didn’t have and finally beginning a sentence with the always problematic phrase, “I know that it is considered bad form, or worse, to speak ill of the newly dead, but …” It goes a long way towards proving that Wallace’s insightful, considered profile and Silver’s interview with Ziegler, in all it’s ignorant, profane glory, is far from an exception to this man’s personality: he’s an unadulterated asshole, through and through.

The only good that this did, as far as I know, is bringing me to finally read Rolling Stone’s masterful (I want to say “wonderful,” but it’s too achingly sad and human for such an adjective) profile of Wallace’s last days and his heretofore little known problems with depression. It was something I had kind of been avoiding, but I’m glad I read it. It’s a very well done profile of one great artist’s struggle with an illness that weighs on too many people.

Go read the Wallace profile of Ziegler from the Atlantic. Read Ziegler’s reaction to Wallace’s suicide. Read the Rolling Stone profile of Wallace. And then you let me know who you believe is telling the truth.

Writer Redux

I have to say, I was very saddened this morning reading the title of Aaron's post. I can count on one hand the number of times I've felt similarly saddened by the death of artists I'd never met. I read pretty much all of DFW's work during my first year in graduate school, which coincided with meeting and becoming friends with Aaron (who turned me onto him -- I'd previously only read Infinite Jest).

He was among my favorite living writers, and was young enough that his best work may have yet been ahead of him. Not anymore to be sure, which really is the legacy of suicide -- the foreclosed promise of unfinished effort.

David Foster Wallace

One of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, has apparently committed suicide. The article doesn’t speculate why, which is appropriate – who can possibly know? I obviously didn’t know Mr. Wallace except as an author of amazing skill and range. His gigantic 1996 novel, Infinite Jest is a great book, worthy of its comparisons to Pynchon and DeLillo. His essays, however, were equally accomplished, exploring subjects as diverse as lobsters, cruise ships and John McCain. That last essay, recently published in its own paperback volume, is really worth checking out. Wallace gets at the essential strangeness of McCain and the way he presents himself. It’s an excellent read.

It’s strange when people we don’t know, but have had an impact on us die. I’ve read a lot of Wallace’s writing. It’s meant a lot to me over the years. On a human level, I feel sorry for his wife and his family – but I didn’t know them, so that kind of sympathy can only be distant and general. But I did read his writing, and I do feel very sorry for the world that there won’t be any more.