It is awful to hear that David Foster Wallace has apparently taken his own life. Really not happy with that. I don't have anything constructive. If you like reading and you haven't read Infinite Jest
, you should. There's an investment of time and attention (about a kilo), but it's the best novel that I know of. The cover copy says it's a comedy but, though there's a lot of funny in it, it's ultimately sad. It will be sadder going forward. His sober-gonzo travelogue reporting is all-funny, see the essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, especially the title track. Hmm, that title has suddenly gotten a little weightier.
He was raised on literary and general cultural irony but concluded that the ironic position risked disengagement from the reader and isolation from reality. Which reality might be painful. Which pain might be Too Much.
