@joeclark I hate when people respond to critical internet comments with "Having a bad day?" BUt this really sounds like you're having a bad day. Been there, hope it gets better.
*Starts chant* Polly! Polly! Polly!
OKay, I don't get the payoff at 6:30. Can someone explain?
My favourite kinda racist anthropomorphized claymation fruit singing group will not be ignored. Also, Morris Day & The Time(I know) and James Brown.
Where I live we are currently getting 3.5 to 4 hours sunlight. Sunrise was at 11:28 and sunset will be at 3:11. The light is coming back after tomorrow, at six minutes a day. With all do respect, Balk, screw you.
@jolie I still can't tell if that quiz was meant as satire or not.
Okay, I am completely stumped by the cover. Someone explain??
I can't tell if this is a parody or not. CHOIRE????
@Stacy Reading it again, I take your point in defence of Franzen actions as a means of keeping the actual memory of his friend alive, as opposed to the memory of the public figure. I remember hearing the eulogy of friend where the speaker said "he was kind to all, blah blah blah" and thinking at least that half the people in the room had been royally fucked over by the deceased. So yeah, you've made an excellent arguement here, and I can sort of wrap my brain around Franzen's motivations when I view them through that lens. I still think he misses an opportunity for compassion and undermines some of his friends insights into the condition of depression, but I imagine it's because he's fucking furious, which is a totally natural response to mental illness stealing someone you love. I don't know why Franzen has to make it so public and snide, and so much about him, but he's only human, I suppose, and he doesn't have to be any more selfless because he's well known. Thanks for your thoughtful response.
@Stacy @Stacy @Choire Sorry, this "half-witted, hero-worshipping jackal" wasn't putting forth the arguement that DFW was a saint. as much as his writing had capacity for deep compassion, it also had the capacity for cruelty ( he admitted as much himself). And because I *didn't* know him, it wouldn't surprise me if he could have been every bit as pretentious as Franzen appears to be here.
What I object to is the systematic delegitimization of mental illness as a real, sometimes, untreatable thing that is so profoundly awful to live alone with (and you live it alone, despite anyone's "investment of love"), so isolating, so crazy-making, that sometimes your brain can convince you that the only relief is death. From what I gather, DFW underwent Electroconvulsive Therapy, Talk Therapy, and courses and courses of anti-d's to try and get out of the place he was in. Those don't strike me as the actions of someone who thinks suicide would be a super awesome way to be remembered as a genius or to "get back" at people for not loving him enough. Those strike me as the actions of a desperate man who would do anything to get better.
Okay, so you're mad your friend killed himself? Yeah, I get that. But he did not do it to hurt *you*, or his wife, or to spite the world, or to create a legacy. He did it because he was ill. And that illness is real, even if *you* haven't had it. I don't "know" Wallace, but his body of work went a long way in extending some compassion to the mentally ill that I had not previously seen. It painted depression for what it is—something that attacks, rather than something people just need to "shake off". Something ugly, rather than romantic. I happen to think he drew the line between compassion and permission far better than anyone who would jingoistically tell a clinically depressed person "it gets better" . Because he was brave enough to not try to explain away or make smaller what is a fucking unimaginably painful condition.
That Franzen takes from that that his friend was "dishonest" tells me he missed a large piece of his humanity entirely, and that he continues to perpetuate the idea that mental illness does not kill makes him far less honest a writer than DFW was even if every word of "A Supposedly Fun Thing..." was a complete and total fabrication.