D.T. Max has written a level-headed biography of DFW. The navel-gazing into the theory and meaning of DFW's works vis-à-vis his mental state strikes me as pretentious. However, I admit to being something of a simpleton when it comes to literary theory. It's probably just over my head.
Taken as a whole, Max's writing is compelling and highlights include snippets of DFW's correspondence with Don DeLillo and Jonathan Franzen.
Max's neutral approach and mostly straightforward writing failed him at probably the most crucial part - the end. In fact, the last paragraph and last sentence specifically, pisses me off:
"The story of 'David Wallace' was now first. In his final hours, he had tidied up the manuscript so that his wife could find it. Below it, around it, inside his two computers, on old floppy disks in his drawers were hundreds of other pages— drafts, character sketches, notes to himself, fragments that had evaded his attempt to integrate them into the novel over the past decade. This was his effort to show the world what it was to be 'a fucking human being.' He had never completed it to his satisfaction. This was not an ending anyone would have wanted for him, but it was the one he had chosen."
For fuck's sake, man. You couldn't pass on that last sentence when it popped in your head? The sentiment is fine, but you couldn't pass on that little trick of a phrase after spending a significant amount of time discussing Wallace's wish for genuine, "single-entendre" writing?
Read this, anyhow.
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