This collection could probably more accurately be called “David Foster Wallace Writes About Things”. It is truly for the die-hard fan who can’t read enough DFW and has resorted to looking at pictures of old books he took notes in and restaurant napkins with scribbles on them. They may have even sunk to watching/reading “Though of Course You End Up Finding Yourself”. The desperation in Wallace’s readers that make publishing this collection so lucrative is a testament to DFW as a writer, but none of the pieces here are Wallace’s best. In fact, they are far from. Which is to say, they are still good. Many are fun, some are arduous and academic, one is absolutely terrible, and they all cover a range of topics that keep the casual non-fiction reader on their toes. If you’re at the point in your career as a David Foster Wallace reader when you find you absolutely need to read something new, pick up “Both Flesh and Not”. If you’ve yet to read his entire collection, save this one for later.
Also, as a sort of side note, I could not have read the last essay of this collection at a better time (“Just Asking” pub. The Atlantic). Trump recently made the truly unAmerican decision to ban immigrants/refugees from certain countries with predominantly Muslim faith. The essay is very short and worth quoting in its entirety at such a time:
“Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea one such thing? Are you up for a thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”? (Lincoln) In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?
In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?
Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours? Why now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the inevitability of sacrifice—either of (a) some portion of safety or (b) some portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so incalculably precious?
In the absence of such a conversation, can we trust our elected leaders to value and protect the American idea as they act to secure the homeland? What are the effects on the American idea of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, PATRIOT Acts I and II, warrantless surveillance, Executive Order 13233, corporate contractors performing military functions, the Military Commissions Act, NSPD 51, etc., etc.? Assume for a moment that some of these measures really have helped make our persons and property safer—are they worth it? Where and when was the public debate on whether they’re worth it? Was there no such debate because we’re not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have we actually become so selfish and scared that we don’t even want to consider whether some things trump safety? What kind of future does that augur?”
