The Elegant Variation: JE BANACH ON DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

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October 06, 2008

JE BANACH ON DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

Je Banach, whose fiction has appeared in Esquire and is engaged in a collaborative fiction project with Jonathan Lethem, sent us these words on David Foster Wallace's suicide, which we share with you today.

With Great Abandon: The Perils of a Profession
A Note to Writers upon the Passing of David Foster Wallace

From the time we are young, if we are so lucky to have coaches and supporters, we are encouraged to find the one thing that we were meant to do, that we were born to do, and we are encouraged to commit to it with great abandon. We are not told that this thing will find us. That once we begin we will be unable to stop. For those who have committed to writing, who are unable to stop as if they were a junkie, who simply can not and will not stop, ever, the recognition will come easily of the falsity of that pale dream of Author sitting wistfully beneath a willow tree, ruminating on beauty and joy. Writing is lonely. It is gruesome. Hours and hours spent inside one’s own head, following each question to every possible conclusion. A breeding ground for the discovery of things that are grim. That are incomprehensible. This is to say nothing of the process that follows when the pen is laid down. In 2007, when Vanity Fair asked Norman Mailer who he identified with most, he answered Hemingway because “his suicide suggested the unseen perils” of this profession. For those of us who belong to a different generation, if we were asked the same question, we might answer with this same response, but instead of Hemingway there is David Foster Wallace’s name being passed over our lips. The message is clear: There is danger here. But the exchange between writer and reader is a hopeful one. There is, in this place, possibility. To engage in this task with great abandon is not to abandon all else.

Posted at 08:17 AM in Obit | Permalink

Comments

Is Banach running for office or something? I'm noticing a lot of stenatorian phrasing the last couple of weeks, as if by just listening to all these politicans our daily speech is starting to settle into rigidity. I'll let W.S. Burroughs have a say in this: He is not a person, he is a person impersonator.

Posted by: C.O. | October 06, 2008 at 09:43 AM

Give her a break. As a writer, her words certainly resonated with me, and I appreciate the effort (and the rhetoric) put into their expression.

Posted by: Jacob Silverman | October 07, 2008 at 05:06 PM

I know Banach didn't mean any harm, but this post really didn't sit well with me at all.

I discussed it on my blog. Click on my name for a link.

Posted by: Brett Yates | October 07, 2008 at 05:30 PM

Writer as junkie. I like it.

Posted by: LiteraryMinded | October 07, 2008 at 06:03 PM

Dear Brett:

I appreciate your taking the time to consider and discuss my work. It is important to me to allow writing to go through its natural process of being subjected to its varied interpretation. In fact, this exchange (which I refer to above) is one of the most important aspects of writing. However, it would be irresponsible of me to fail to respond to a dialogue that somehow perpetuates the idea that mental illness should be dismissed or ignored. Please note that the piece makes reference and draws its parallels to another writer who suffered from mental illness- Hemingway. For most that is general knowledge. The piece, therefore, does not ignore this facet, it hinges on it. Nor does it suggest that the fate of Hemingway or Wallace can be reduced to one cause or that it is somehow divorced from the mental illness they suffered from. The message is simple and is contained in the last few lines. Anything beyond this may, in fact, be projection which the work will of course be subject to. But it is my hope that readers will draw their own conclusions from the actual conclusion of my letter, which is a hopeful and positive conclusion. Critical dialogue is very important and I hope you continue and others along with you.

Sincerely,
Je

Posted by: Je Banach | October 08, 2008 at 06:45 AM

GaCKkk. Manufacturing automobiles is grueling. Sitting in a room mulling - which I also do for a living - is recreation for the socioeconomically privileged. If some of them also have mental illness and die from it, how this supposedly elevates their mostly trivial work is hard to fathom.

Posted by: J.T. | October 29, 2008 at 07:15 AM

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The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 06, 2008

JE BANACH ON DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 06, 2008

JE BANACH ON DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism