David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He was widely known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which Time included in its All-Time 100 Greatest Novels list (covering the period 1923–2006). Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011. It was based on a short story or at least included much of this story, called Backbone, which Jamie excerpted and brought for us to read at this May 12 session. A biography of Wallace by D. T. Max is projected for publication in 2012.
David Foster Wallace gave a famous commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005. Many have commented about this address stating that it showed some of the difficulties Wallace was having at the time. He did fight depression for a long time including many medications and electroconvulsive treatments. He was being treated for depression with a drug called Phenelzine after many other drugs had failed. He tried to wean himself off the drug due to its side effects. Eventually the drug was stopped, but his depression returned and this time it would not respond to this drug. The depression became very severe and Wallace took his own life by hanging on September 12, 2008
Here is that commencement address. See if you think the signs of his depression was there.
http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace-kenyon.html
The story, Backbone, prompted a very astute discussion, in spite of its strangeness. The premise of a boy who has a goal of being able to press his lips to every inch of his own body aroused several ideas in the group. This premise seems to be one of self-discipline versus self-obsession. It begs the question when does self discipline become obsession. Several members thought that professional athletes often ride this fence beam precariously. An example would be Tiger Woods whose outlet became even more unhealthy.
Several in the group asked whether our society can accept someone who is so different and allow him to be like this. In some ways, the boy is like many with Asperger's Syndrome with the compulsions and obsessions. It was felt that in psychology compulsions can be sublimation as long as the person with these ideas can function. An example would be Michael Phelps who as long as he is allowed to be in the swimming pool 5 hours a day and can function with these compulsions, can actually excel at his chosen endeavor. Then he is sublimating, not obsessing. Therefore compulsion/sublimation may in some cases equal genius. However, if you can't let the compulsion go, then it may become dysfunctional and neurotic.
Andrew Weil wrote a book called, Are We All Addicted?. Many of these issues are discussed in his book.
One member astutely asked where was the mother in this story. She was absent and in reading more about the story, the father was absent emotionally. Is deprivation of nurturing a reason for this boy's strange goal. I also found some of the portrayal of the psychologist interesting and would enjoy reading more about her.
If indeed, you were intrigued by this short story, then seek out David Foster Wallace's book, The Pale King which contains some of the ideas from this story and from other stories. The following website has a link to the story.
http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews/2011/02/28/david-foster-wallace-backbone/
At this site there are comments from the New Yorker which published the story on March 7, 2011. There are other online comments and a link to the entire story. In reading some of these comments I noted that our group was fairly astute and came up with many of the ideas about the story that others did.
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