could learn heart surgery in 20 minutes?

This is the kind of overblown BS about authors, especially ones who hang themselves, that turns folks off literature.

Or at least the serious study of it.

The man wrote novels.

You want the real stuff, read Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. Both deeply weird men, neither of whom killed himself.

DFW was the kind of man who killed himself. I.e., a murderer.

I'd just like to point out a few things here:

1. When WWI happened, Wittenstein volunteered for the Italian front with the Austro-Hungarian army, ostensibly to meet his death; I understand this was not the only time he contemplated ending his own life.
2. That there is turn-off, overblown BS about authors and that W&K were both "weird" and neither killed himself; are both true; I fail to see the connection between.
3. Labeling someone who commits suicide as a "murderer" is at best trivial, (like when FOX calls suicide bombers "homicide bombers"---while technically true, it omits the detail of interest---viz., that they did it to themselves) and at worst just plain false ("murder" is a complex legal concept, and not every instance of life-taking, notably suicide, counts). If you have the mental enzymes to digest, e.g., Wittgenstein, I suspect you realize this already.
4. How does W&K being weird and not killing themselves make their writing the "real stuff"? (What does "real stuff" even mean here?)
   
5. Most importantly, even if you had been near the mark about any of the above, your post is just plain mean! Obviously, a lot of people were affected in complex and subtle ways by DFW's suicide, myself included. (I never met him.) To waltz in and bluntly tell everyone that they're crazy for being sad is cruel. For this, you should be ashamed.

I completely respect your right to your opinion, even if I don't find it intelligible; just don't be an ass, ok? Just because you can say something doesn't mean you should, etc.

-Erik

could learn heart surgery in 20 minutes?

To happily change the subject...

That was a reference to what a great observer DFW must have been. Of course it was a hyperbolic statement, but it made a great point.

He seemed not content to create a fictional character without (seemingly) learning everything that such a character would know if, in fact, that character were real. Another poster elsewhere in the fray referred to his encyclopedism. I often wondered how easily that came to him.

Was he a freakishly sponge-like observer of everything or was he a manic researcher, or was it both. It's uncanny. It's impressive. It's a lot like his character Hal Incandenza.

Fuck off.

Just. fuck. off.

You're showing an obsession here, Richmond, and what ever upsets you about DFW's suicide speaks to issues you can't talk about except to blame him for foul deeds comprhensible only in your set of moral perogatives. It would be one thing if you took the time to speak at length about your rationale, but you haven't yet despite being taken out behind the woodshed and spanked . It's likely that you haven't a single idea in your pesky little head about what it is you want to say about David Foster Wallace. Perhaps you've a religious objection to suicide , some left over Catholic instruction that views self-deliverance as a sin. If you brought that to your remarks , you'd at least be intellectually coherent. Wrong all the same, but coherent. All one gathers here is that you're a name dropper who wants to talk about writers but hasn't the patience to actually read the work they compose; hence, your second use of the names Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein without giving the slightest hint of what their respective writings were about or how either of them are relevant to the life, death and writing of David Foster Wallace. You tip you're hand with "dude speak", Ace, bluffing a familiarity with remarks like the two writers "You want men who Lived Big, go read these dudes" .

Dude, you're naked in the town square.