In honor of President's Day and all the work you're currently not doing, I recommend that you read this rather luxurious essay that examines David Foster Wallace's successful career as a journalistâarguably in the vein of Hunter S. Thompsonâas opposed to just a universally revered fiction writer.
Via Salon.com:
In his nonfiction, Wallace most closely resembled another writer before him, a man who was also considered something other than a journalist: Hunter S. Thompson. Both writers took reportage a step further than the literary techniques of Gay Talese, Joan Didion and the New Journalism. Yes, both Thompson and Wallace shirked objectivity, happily injecting their own commentary and asides into factual reportage, but today scores of journalists reject objectivity (Rolling Stoneâs Matt Taibbi, Esquireâs Tom Junod or, to a lesser extent, Jon Krakauer, who certainly makes his own views clear by the end of âWhere Men Win Gloryâ).What Thompson did differently that Wallace emulated (consciously or not) is more about a slippery definition of honesty and truth. An essay Wallace wrote about attending the Adult Video News (AVN) Awards opened the collection âConsider the Lobster.â Itâs a rollicking tour in which the author plays representative for the readerâs disgust and fascination (when a girl meets Wallace and brags about small valves in her new breast implants that allow her to adjust the size of the breasts by adding or draining fluid, she raises her arms to show him and Wallace can only write, âThere really are what appear to be valvesâ).
It's a fascinating read that prompted me to remember some of my favorite DFW essays, and just in time: tomorrow would've been Wallace's 50th birthday.