It’s on my to-read list, but starting is daunting. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (the essay collection) was amazing. I think about it often.
its a wonderful read but sometimes dfw just seems unecessarily hostile to the reader.
I see a lot about David Foster Wallace and "it meant a lot to me personally at once time" but very little about its objective merits (which are real to be clear).
On top of that I liked all the drug stuff and the kind of dystopian world created in the book.
The essay on why we consume mass media was insightful at the time and particularly prescient given the rise of influencers, streaming, and short form video.
The essay “Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Discipline, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness” influenced me greatly. It made me realize how much pure artistry and mastery there is in the world. And most of it goes entirely unappreciated.
Incarnations of Burned Children was an amazing piece of literature in a harrowing and terrifying way. To this day, years later, I experience extreme l’appel du vide when carrying hot water around my children.