I like the note on the class on logic. In the safe capsule of school you put in effort, you get a good result, it is like what life promises to be when one is young, before you learn human existence is devoid of logic and the universe is chaotic and violent, and only entropy reigns. If Donald Hertzfeld would animate this essay, with Pittman as the narrator, this would reach more people, as it should.
This guy was a genius. Hearing his thoughts is like watching a movie in which I see distorted fragments of myself depicted in great detail. They're distorted fragments because they don't depict any exact experience of mine but convey the base of every experience of mine. He summed up a lot of aspects of being human in less than an hour and thirty minutes.
The heavenly vision abandoned.. The disease of self-absorption. The insight of the recognition of this. The pain of walking and running in circles. The choices at the beginning. The selfishness. The choices.
Late, but I don't think this was at all autobiographical. DFW was, in no way, someone who was prone to manipulative behavior, power-seeking affect, or actively engaging in behavior which contradicted more inner intentions / purpose (i.e., DFW was certainly not the type to spend hours and hours at a meditation class for the purpose of engineering a level of respect and awe in a group of strangers). After listening to the reflections on David's life made by his friends and, particularly, an interview with his sister, I think it becomes fairly obvious that this was exactly the disposition / way of interacting with the world he very actively avoid, even condemned (in his own head, at least). His writing, especially his novels (BOTS and IJ, in particular), only further validate just how totally wrong and deluded this mode of thinking is, for relationships and for leading a life fulfilled, i.e., one which doesn't hollow your mind to evermore real states of ego loss and dissolution. I think he uses this and other characters in his novels who self-inflict pain and discomfort via some addiction or misguided behavior as poignant symbols for the costs of a society which he accurately anticipated would only grow more and more miserable because of its supporting such navel-gazing behavior, selfishness, and ultimate effect of detaching its people further and further from that which connects us to who we are. Anyways, people always assume his characters were some sort of immature projection of who this guy was; they weren't, but getting one's head around how curious he must have been of the human experience to understand someone who he wasn't so deeply and intimately is, I think, kind of challenging.
@@cornelius6624 Well said, thank you for sharing. I agree. In "This Is Water" he pauses for a moment to remind the cheering audience that "this is an example of how NOT to think."
@@KennethHunn projection of his own faults, he couldnt have written this without being prone to manipulation, also everyone he dated said he was a fucking nightmare liar and manipulator, love dfw tho, forgive him everything
I was listening to one of his interviews in the background in my living room while playing guitar, this came on next because of autoplay and it slowly turned into a very revelatory, necessary experience that really really fucked me up.
I was also thinking about that experience the next day while playing drums along to a specific song that I had been learning for the past week and when I went to hit replay I realized the name of the song was Fraud. It all seemed so serendipitous and gut wrenching that I started crying and laughing at the same time.
My favorite DFW - honest to a fault. He reveals some deeply set fears and anxieties about modern life and where we (were) are heading. His books are just the right amount of complexity while being essentially long essays. (His essays are brilliant too).
you sound so much like DFW it's almost haunting. love this story. so much about self awareness and the horrors of fitting in. In the 90s there was much about fitting in about being that yuppie and that this was reaching the pinnacle of societal acceptance. And how that need to fit in drove so many of us nuts. Because it wasn't who we were.
In infinite Jest an undead wraith who had killed themselves, and who experiences time differently, visits a character in a hospital and discusses the sitcom Cheers. In Good Old Neon an undead wraith who had killed themselves, and who experiences time differently, visits a character in a car and discusses the sitcom Cheers. Soon in your own life David Foster Wallace who is now an undead wraith, who had killed himself, and who experiences time differently, will visit you wherever you are and discuss with you the sitcom Cheers. Just you wait.
He's going to tell me what a bitch and a hack psychologist Lilith is for being insensitive to her patients who are incapable of loving. "David," I would say, "fuck them, they deserve being ridiculed if they are so weak that they have to pay money to a hack bitch to prop them up against something against which there is no propping up." .
@@GravelordNEEToI think he was trying to make a point about how widespread the feeling of being incapable of love is in the population. The reference to Cheers works well to illustrate that point because with the statement referred to by DFW, Lilith, by expressing her contempt for her patients who feel that way, is revealing that she too is incapable of love. I was sarcastically pointing out that if you feel you are incapable of love there is nothing a psychologist can do for you. Was I being cruel or insensitive to people who are incapable of love? No, because my other point is that I too am incapable of love but refuse to succumb to it as a weakness by degrading myself before a psychologist in order to ultimately do nothing but help them live in self-righteous wealth and luxury. But I think that I am incapable of love because so many people in the population are unlovable. Why are they unlovable? Because they are incapable of love. It is a vicious social downward spiral. That is why there is so much violence today. Reminds me of the scene in the movie, Barfly, in which Wanda, portrayed by Faye Dunaway, asks Henry Chinaski, portrayed by Mickey Rourke, whether he hates people. "No." He says. "But I feel better when they are not around." If you still think that I severely misunderstood what DFW was trying to say, please explain to me what you think he was trying to say. I am willing and open minded enough to be taught. I am also going to listen to it again.
@@navigator3744 yes, people are unlovable insofar as they are incapable of love, which is a vicious cycle. But a virtuous cycle also exists, where people can become lovable to others as they become capable of loving others.
It so much to dig from this piece how it is when you're severely depressed, what you can or rather not do about it . Thank you for giving an example, mr. Wallace, whereever you might be
Anyone listening to this without prior knowledge of what DFW sounds like, and without further knowledge of this reading's origins, would assume as a practical matter that it was the author's spoken voice and none other, And in this case, that is a great and good thing. Well Done! -MB
For anyone out there like me who first discovered this story through this RUclips video: try reading the original text sometime. I recently bought a copy of Oblivion just for this story after getting obsessed with it here, and reading it on paper really deepened the experience for me. There's a lot going on I never would've noticed just listening, including a couple of textual oddities that don't show up at all in this reading (not the fault of the reader, who's excellent -- it'd be impossible to translate this stuff to audio). Just to name one example that feels pretty significant to me: on the last page of the story, there's a footnote(?) that simply reads "[→NMN.80.418]." "418" is obviously referencing Neal's batting average; I read somewhere that "80" is likely his high school graduation date, and "NMN" might be his initials. Given all of the talk about formal logic throughout the story, this detail seems pretty important, at least in my interpretation.
Another thing that struck me in the text was all the subtleties of the medium of text. DFW uses "that that" "do do" etc. throughout the story which to me enforced the distressed yet lucid stream of consciousness of the writing (and brilliantly the stream in question is observed in the book, that impossibly vast and powerful torrent of thought.) Another was the one real footnote near the end, continues down this lucid stream while tying in one instant after another of the car crash as analogues to his thoughts, giving the impression that time is slowing down, and also strongly illustrating the aforementioned speed of thought, which all culminates in the words "THE END" at the end of the page. It's not quite the end, though, but when I was reading the footnote, and slowly being lead through the infinitely thin slice of 'present' creeping forward at a snail's pace, buttoned by "THE END" on the end of the page, was the climax of the book as far as the tension I felt reading. All of this is to say, this placement of "THE END" at the end of the page, but not at the end of the story, I can only imagine was noticed and either deliberately placed or deliberately left in, because of the impact on the reader. I enjoy audiobooks, but you miss the innumerable subtle yet mindful decisions like these which inform the experience.
You have an incredible voice for this. That you so much for posting this and sharing. Never heard this short story of his but you damn well made the first impression spot on.
thank you for reading this and posting it, really touching, I could barely get through it without welling up when reading it so this audio is seriously necessary.
This is a beautifully written story. Just everything about it. The confidence he has about understanding himself when he doesn't at all, but what is laid out in the narrative are the unconscious processes that led him to the suicide...But DFW does it in a gentle and humorous way and with these excursions into the wondrous.
While engaging, I find the personal struggles of the character totally unrelatable, in sharp contrast to most readers. This is of course because there is something terribly wrong with me that isn't wrong with anybody else.
Your struggles sound worse than most readers. I just hope your alright. (Again, no one wishes to be you). From, most Readers (with more solvable problems)
I hate when I have a thought about what this guy’s writing and he just calls me out 3 sentences later. I love him though. He was a genius who’s heart was bigger than his brain.
Do Infinite Jest :D. Haha jk, maybe do one of his more unknown pieces like this one. harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-01-0059425.pdf
Thanks for sharing, I've never read this one. I'll get right to it. I've tossed around the idea of reading chapters from IJ, but I'm hesitant to do anything that already has an audio version readily available. Plus, as much of a B it was it do Good ol' Neon, IJ would be a B and a half.
+Wombie hey man, you’re a perfect match to DFW, this is so much better than any audiobook I’ve come across I haven’t even paid attention on who produced the narration, believing it’s a full on commercial enterprise, only to be disappointed since it’s just *a* guy on yt, but disappointed because I’d want DFW entire bibliography in your voice. Not saying you should do more, but let’s just say if you did it would be a fine and worthwhile thing not at all unappreciated
i'm so glad this is here. i was relieved finding this after spending hours on youtube solving the crisis in the middle east. i'm still not done with wutang57. he really got my goat with that thing he said about the ancient hittites.
How are we ever to know that this and everything in between, including his passing, was not part of the grift? To leave us all with the impression of a pained literary genius? Ah, but this is why I love him so.
The thing about formative experiences is that we assiduously avoid them. Daredevils don't doubt in this way if only because they act conciously to break the pattern. "One must want to experience the great crises of the body and the soul"- Friedrich Nietzsche
Really good reading. Really amazing story. Really glad I got to hear this one as a voice between my two ears where my brain sits. At its best Wallace's fiction tends to be about a kind of intimacy, and I feel like I just had a really eerily intimate experience. Thank you.
You all seem like interesting, smart people. I would like to feel I had something in common with some of you besides this You Tube post. If there was time to explore each others background, I'm sure we would find a bunch of things we could nod in agreement to. But we don't have the time and I wouldn't know where to start. This is like sitting next to someone on a flight and having a great conversation, then saying goodbye, No contact info, no e-mail exchange. But, it was great while it was going on. Do you hear what I'm saying?
"Single serving friends", sometimes we are, sometimes we get. Gotta find collaborative projects. Anyone from Budapest, up for playing/singing Oberst songs?
i'm a fraud for listening to this and not reading it. sigh... excellent narration. i love how he says "YOU know what i mean", his depression seems to come thru here, he feels like what he's saying is redundant, but it couldn't be further from the truth, the man was brilliant. unfortunately dfw turned that brilliant mind in on itself, as a weapon to tear himself down, it's really makes you wonder why he wasn't smart enough to know that advances in medicine, and the progress of humanity would be something to stick around for, but as he said so many times, a person in this condition can't live outside the demons that shadow and torment him. dfw loved to explore the darkness, places most of us don't dare go, he was like an explorer who made discoveries that we marvel at. and it does make you wonder if his own suicide was a performance, the darkness of that thought is too ironic. and yet, i really enjoyed listening to his coup de grace in total darkness. surreal.
Just a psychologist's insight. What happened to Neon in his therapy sessions could be described as I metaphorically call "transfection", it happens when the patient instead of benefiting from the therapeutic sessions, proliferates the content into counterproductive deeper introspection out of therapy sessions. It happens a lot to highly conscious individuals, and in that case, it's valid to tell the psychologist that you are undergoing transfection, good therapists can adjust to that. On the other hand, sometimes therapy isn't for everyone, especially when this process seems to make one more prone to an exaggerated over-analysis when out of the sessions.
I liked this novel, so I though: "Am I telling someone the most important thought I have?'. So, I risked and did it! 🤭 (Now I'm waiting for the results😲). And I must listen this novel again, as I do not remember where neon was mentioned 😋
I fucking love when books have local shit that puts it close to me. I attended UW- Eau Claire. Another hit like that was Franzen's book Freedom being set in the Twin Cities-- just felt real, and I suppose the Midwestern concerns of both authors really paints well in my mind-- the little sayings etc. Wallace's essay "View from Mrs. Thompson's" has good Midwestern-isms that I've been around my whole life. Also loneliness-- having to redirect my desperation to be seen and heard into genuine attention, playfulness, and interest rather than some creepy accidental tryharding-- these authors hit on loneliness and I appreciate it. My internal monologue is so much like Wallace's writing-- but I'm self conscious about that because so many feel that way and so I'm just derivative, or-- Wallace was just very good. But then I'm another unthinking hypetrain passenger with his "unique" experience, and glomming onto something because well-- sometimes you're just desperate for something worth waking up to, and don't know how to fill up the next forty years-- again-- a topic Wallace treated ably. Fuck me
You put into words a lot of how I feel, especially how you talk about turning your "desperation to be seen and heard into attention, playfulness, and interest rather than some creepy accidental tryharding." Couldn't have said it better myself.
being so self deprecating is just masking how much you care about yourself. its the selfish behaviour of a self centred person, that you need to have the last word on everything thats wrong with you. and im just projected my stuff onto you i have no idea whats going on. i have it too it sucks man
How did I never come across this person before? How did I find him finally? Some strange web link brought me to a site with a photo of him and some goats and it spoke in the present tense as if he were currently thinking.
“That period passed on its own ...” I’d love to know if he’d truly intended that. This was haunting for me (& likely anyone who read the Maxx book) as it’s UNDOUBTEDLY ... precisely what drove him to do it. Considerations pondered this specifically and hewn SO CLOSELY to his life (too much factual autobio in it) can’t be read as an exercise or flight of fanciful prose. This *was* his suicide note, IMO.
Wonderfully written, and I think this story describes the life of the author. Maybe he wrote this short story in order to show us his true statue, a statue which is not erect or impressive, but rather crumbling and helpless
Притча об устройстве человеческого сознания. Когда я впервые прочла это, у меня было ощущение, что я заглянула в сердцевину чёрной дыры и увидела сингулярность.
I think the primary function of therapy is not that it works, really but that it gives the person _the sense that they're doing something about it, at least_ - Maybe that is enough. But given the _price_ of those guys it is a pretty big piss-take.
Had he actually studied "A Course in Miracles" (mentioned around the 3:39 mark), he might not have taken his own life, since through its teaching, he might've recognized the destructive voice in his head for what it was - an hallucination. He might've learned, too, that another Voice was always there to guide him away from pain and misery but for the asking. I wish his brilliance was still here with us.
@@dirtycelinefrenchman I understand why my assessment comes off as reductive. I'll add a point for the purpose of clarity: Salvation is reducible to a single mistake - the belief in a separate will. The hateful voice that arose from this mistake is the ego. It was this voice that directed DFW to attack his own body. This is why I say in a reductive way that "had he actually studied 'A Course in Miracles", he might not have taken his own life" because the Course is all about undoing that one mistake. Food for thought. Be well.
Great reading. Just one note: DFW clearly loved the word “banal,” but it’s pronounced “buh-NALL.” The end of the word rhymes with “wall,” and not “canal,” like how it looks
i just wanted to scream STOP JUDGING YOURSELF NONSTOP! he seems like such a truly great guy in so many ways. just so bummed we lost him and i didn't know he existed until yesterday : (
@@schmetterling4477 perhaps, just seemed like a troubled soul. Never read any of his books but watched some of his round tables with other writers and he really seemed like a nice guy there.
@@schmetterling4477If someone doesn’t understand your statement, it’s probably because what you said was cryptic and vague. What does “he never grew up” refer to? And why would you think that every stranger online is beholden to your weird idea of comprehension and maturity?
@@schmetterling4477an overly simplistic dichotomy that doesn’t reflect the complexity of reality. Plenty adults do both, many fret out of habit, and do out of necessity. You think “adults” don’t have existential crises? Or commit suicide?
The sense that one is a fraud, separated from reality and social norms, an object of zoo-like curiosity, is a hallmark of depression. The speaker in this piece attributes his feelings to a change in how men are perceived in society but this is rather a depressed person’s attempt to rationalize outsized psychic pain. So much of Wallace’s work is a struggle to find meaning in mental illness. To use his tremendously logical mind to bridge the chasm between rational thought and spiritual pain. Very sad but incisively human.
Good analysis. As a fiction writer, DFW did extensive research into his subject matter and also drew heavily from his personal experiences when constructing stories. This story in particular seems biographical. You might even consider it to be one of his suicide notes. Check out also: The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing
In the big picture, DFW contributes vastly much more than what the world did for him. He tried desperately to be true to those who must have told him early on, surely, that you must be smart and work hard. Care for others. Be engaged, deeply. These are all good values, whether religious or cultural or otherwise. This introspection drew him inevitably into class, and guilt, anger at absurdities, and ultimately wondering why he devoted himself to a world that only rewards being smart and working hard accidentally, by luck and happenstance. I understand why he wanted escape in drugs and other things, and why he ultimately did what he did. But: To just label him a tragedy for not ending his personal story another way, maybe by suffering through the natural decline and decay to come, is to deny how important what he said was.
@@notsocrates9529 the narrator of this story explicitly discusses how little this diagnosis contributes so it was startling to scroll down and see this as the top comment
I wanted to read this story on paper. Then I also thought it would be nice to take it with me for a walk today. I don't listen to audio books, I'm quite harsh regarding them, but I really enjoyed this. You have a good voice, cadence and acting enough to deliver a good performance. I'm impressed by the hard work put onto this: how was the process? did you read it outloud to yourself a bunch of times from beginning to end util you got the hang of it? or kind of went with it? how long it took you to nail it? Thanks a lot :_)
I appreciate it!! Glad you enjoyed it. Basically, I read the story for the first time like normal and loved it and related to it, and i thought it would translate to audio pretty well. I checked to see if there was already a version on RUclips, and there wasn’t. Then I decided to record it and just hopped right in and started recording. I basically recorded it all in one session, with some breaks, and if I flubbed a sentence (which happened constantly) I would just repeat that sentence until it was passable, then I’d just move on. I ended up with about 4-5 hours of audio and edited it down to the final version. It didn’t really require too much work figuring how to read a particular part because it’s written so well, it was just a matter of pronouncing everything correctly.
This is my go to sleep narration
He was too smart for his own good. But he was just smart enough for our own good.
Great words.
I like the note on the class on logic. In the safe capsule of school you put in effort, you get a good result, it is like what life promises to be when one is young, before you learn human existence is devoid of logic and the universe is chaotic and violent, and only entropy reigns.
If Donald Hertzfeld would animate this essay, with Pittman as the narrator, this would reach more people, as it should.
really does feel like a dissection of only a single moment's flood of thoughts
This guy was a genius. Hearing his thoughts is like watching a movie in which I see distorted fragments of myself depicted in great detail.
They're distorted fragments because they don't depict any exact experience of mine but convey the base of every experience of mine. He summed up a lot of aspects of being human in less than an hour and thirty minutes.
One of the most introspectively insightful people to articulate his observations. He teaches us how we all think by saying what he thought
I really wish he stayed with us and kept writing toward hope in spite of the feeling of fraudulent despair
Roberto Villafana
Except there was nothing left to say after he exposed it. :(
Yes!
Jazzpp
What a beautiful ending... May we all have the strength to silence the less real parts of ourselves. Rest in the instant of Peace eternally!
Perhaps my favorite DFW piece. No other story I've ever read has so perfectly grasped and articulated so many of my feelings.
The heavenly vision abandoned.. The disease of self-absorption. The insight of the recognition of this. The pain of walking and running in circles. The choices at the beginning. The selfishness. The choices.
You are describing being a teenager. You are welcome.
I break down and weep every single time I read this story. Undoubtedly the single most honest and autobiographical thing DFW ever wrote.
Late, but I don't think this was at all autobiographical. DFW was, in no way, someone who was prone to manipulative behavior, power-seeking affect, or actively engaging in behavior which contradicted more inner intentions / purpose (i.e., DFW was certainly not the type to spend hours and hours at a meditation class for the purpose of engineering a level of respect and awe in a group of strangers). After listening to the reflections on David's life made by his friends and, particularly, an interview with his sister, I think it becomes fairly obvious that this was exactly the disposition / way of interacting with the world he very actively avoid, even condemned (in his own head, at least). His writing, especially his novels (BOTS and IJ, in particular), only further validate just how totally wrong and deluded this mode of thinking is, for relationships and for leading a life fulfilled, i.e., one which doesn't hollow your mind to evermore real states of ego loss and dissolution. I think he uses this and other characters in his novels who self-inflict pain and discomfort via some addiction or misguided behavior as poignant symbols for the costs of a society which he accurately anticipated would only grow more and more miserable because of its supporting such navel-gazing behavior, selfishness, and ultimate effect of detaching its people further and further from that which connects us to who we are. Anyways, people always assume his characters were some sort of immature projection of who this guy was; they weren't, but getting one's head around how curious he must have been of the human experience to understand someone who he wasn't so deeply and intimately is, I think, kind of challenging.
@@cornelius6624 lol. Ok bro.
@@cornelius6624 Well said, thank you for sharing. I agree. In "This Is Water" he pauses for a moment to remind the cheering audience that "this is an example of how NOT to think."
@@KennethHunn projection of his own faults, he couldnt have written this without being prone to manipulation, also everyone he dated said he was a fucking nightmare liar and manipulator, love dfw tho, forgive him everything
@@KennethHunn HAHAHAH that always cracks me up!
I was listening to one of his interviews in the background in my living room while playing guitar, this came on next because of autoplay and it slowly turned into a very revelatory, necessary experience that really really fucked me up.
I was also thinking about that experience the next day while playing drums along to a specific song that I had been learning for the past week and when I went to hit replay I realized the name of the song was Fraud. It all seemed so serendipitous and gut wrenching that I started crying and laughing at the same time.
@@garrettlemieux4620 i wish i knew more people like you. who appreciate david foster wallace and slint.
@@esobrev ❤️
My favorite DFW - honest to a fault. He reveals some deeply set fears and anxieties about modern life and where we (were) are heading. His books are just the right amount of complexity while being essentially long essays. (His essays are brilliant too).
you sound so much like DFW it's almost haunting. love this story. so much about self awareness and the horrors of fitting in. In the 90s there was much about fitting in about being that yuppie and that this was reaching the pinnacle of societal acceptance. And how that need to fit in drove so many of us nuts. Because it wasn't who we were.
In infinite Jest an undead wraith who had killed themselves, and who experiences time differently, visits a character in a hospital and discusses the sitcom Cheers. In Good Old Neon an undead wraith who had killed themselves, and who experiences time differently, visits a character in a car and discusses the sitcom Cheers. Soon in your own life David Foster Wallace who is now an undead wraith, who had killed himself, and who experiences time differently, will visit you wherever you are and discuss with you the sitcom Cheers. Just you wait.
He's going to tell me what a bitch and a hack psychologist Lilith is for being insensitive to her patients who are incapable of loving. "David," I would say, "fuck them, they deserve being ridiculed if they are so weak that they have to pay money to a hack bitch to prop them up against something against which there is no propping up."
.
fuck cheers
The Peace Project Uh, wow... I think you *severely* misunderstood what DFW was trying to say in that part of the story.
@@GravelordNEEToI think he was trying to make a point about how widespread the feeling of being incapable of love is in the population. The reference to Cheers works well to illustrate that point because with the statement referred to by DFW, Lilith, by expressing her contempt for her patients who feel that way, is revealing that she too is incapable of love. I was sarcastically pointing out that if you feel you are incapable of love there is nothing a psychologist can do for you. Was I being cruel or insensitive to people who are incapable of love? No, because my other point is that I too am incapable of love but refuse to succumb to it as a weakness by degrading myself before a psychologist in order to ultimately do nothing but help them live in self-righteous wealth and luxury. But I think that I am incapable of love because so many people in the population are unlovable. Why are they unlovable? Because they are incapable of love. It is a vicious social downward spiral. That is why there is so much violence today. Reminds me of the scene in the movie, Barfly, in which Wanda, portrayed by Faye Dunaway, asks Henry Chinaski, portrayed by Mickey Rourke, whether he hates people. "No." He says. "But I feel better when they are not around." If you still think that I severely misunderstood what DFW was trying to say, please explain to me what you think he was trying to say. I am willing and open minded enough to be taught. I am also going to listen to it again.
@@navigator3744 yes, people are unlovable insofar as they are incapable of love, which is a vicious cycle. But a virtuous cycle also exists, where people can become lovable to others as they become capable of loving others.
It so much to dig from this piece how it is when you're severely depressed, what you can or rather not do about it . Thank you for giving an example, mr. Wallace, whereever you might be
One of my favorites, great writing and narration
Anyone listening to this without prior knowledge of what DFW sounds like, and without further knowledge of this reading's origins, would assume as a practical matter that it was the author's spoken voice and none other, And in this case, that is a great and good thing. Well Done! -MB
David Foster Wallace was an incredible writer and your narration voice is just amazing!
For anyone out there like me who first discovered this story through this RUclips video: try reading the original text sometime. I recently bought a copy of Oblivion just for this story after getting obsessed with it here, and reading it on paper really deepened the experience for me.
There's a lot going on I never would've noticed just listening, including a couple of textual oddities that don't show up at all in this reading (not the fault of the reader, who's excellent -- it'd be impossible to translate this stuff to audio).
Just to name one example that feels pretty significant to me: on the last page of the story, there's a footnote(?) that simply reads "[→NMN.80.418]." "418" is obviously referencing Neal's batting average; I read somewhere that "80" is likely his high school graduation date, and "NMN" might be his initials. Given all of the talk about formal logic throughout the story, this detail seems pretty important, at least in my interpretation.
Thank you so much for clarification ^^
Another thing that struck me in the text was all the subtleties of the medium of text. DFW uses "that that" "do do" etc. throughout the story which to me enforced the distressed yet lucid stream of consciousness of the writing (and brilliantly the stream in question is observed in the book, that impossibly vast and powerful torrent of thought.) Another was the one real footnote near the end, continues down this lucid stream while tying in one instant after another of the car crash as analogues to his thoughts, giving the impression that time is slowing down, and also strongly illustrating the aforementioned speed of thought, which all culminates in the words "THE END" at the end of the page. It's not quite the end, though, but when I was reading the footnote, and slowly being lead through the infinitely thin slice of 'present' creeping forward at a snail's pace, buttoned by "THE END" on the end of the page, was the climax of the book as far as the tension I felt reading. All of this is to say, this placement of "THE END" at the end of the page, but not at the end of the story, I can only imagine was noticed and either deliberately placed or deliberately left in, because of the impact on the reader.
I enjoy audiobooks, but you miss the innumerable subtle yet mindful decisions like these which inform the experience.
This shit is uncomfortably relatable. Thanks so much for uploading
You have an incredible voice for this. That you so much for posting this and sharing. Never heard this short story of his but you damn well made the first impression spot on.
thanks for reading this for us!
Wow. Just wow. He treated himself effectively with writing this piece. It just eventually wore off. What a master writer!
thank you for reading this and posting it, really touching, I could barely get through it without welling up when reading it so this audio is seriously necessary.
Thank you for reading this. I was gonna ask if anyone else cried but I think I know the answer. I'm still crying.
This is a beautifully written story. Just everything about it. The confidence he has about understanding himself when he doesn't at all, but what is laid out in the narrative are the unconscious processes that led him to the suicide...But DFW does it in a gentle and humorous way and with these excursions into the wondrous.
That's a good drawing of him in the thumbnail.
Wallace nails the idea of what makes us unhappy in modern society.
Thanks for the audio, thanks for all the work it took, thanks for the link. And your reading was just great.
Thank you so much for reading to us
Your voice suits this absolutely perfectly. Thanks for the reading.
beautiful. what a trippy personal experience I had with this.
I’m loving this.. good recommend by a new fb friend. 🫶🏻🧐
This is everything I've needed to hear and have been babbling on about for so long. LOVE LOVE LOVE this.
Brilliant and totally accessible to one and all...DFWs gift to us.
While engaging, I find the personal struggles of the character totally unrelatable, in sharp contrast to most readers.
This is of course because there is something terribly wrong with me that isn't wrong with anybody else.
Your struggles sound worse than most readers. I just hope your alright. (Again, no one wishes to be you).
From,
most Readers (with more solvable problems)
There's nothing wrong with you. You don't relate with a fraudulent, self loathing, suicidal, and transdimensional wraith.
@@_pijn_ I think he's being sarcastic
@Eddie Murray lol
: ) lol
I hate when I have a thought about what this guy’s writing and he just calls me out 3 sentences later. I love him though. He was a genius who’s heart was bigger than his brain.
Great work, you have an amazing voice for dfw's style of writing.
+Tom Tang thanks! I'm planning on doing another DFW in the future, still trying to decide which one.
Do Infinite Jest :D.
Haha jk, maybe do one of his more unknown pieces like this one.
harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-01-0059425.pdf
Thanks for sharing, I've never read this one. I'll get right to it.
I've tossed around the idea of reading chapters from IJ, but I'm hesitant to do anything that already has an audio version readily available. Plus, as much of a B it was it do Good ol' Neon, IJ would be a B and a half.
Agreed 100%.
+Wombie hey man, you’re a perfect match to DFW, this is so much better than any audiobook I’ve come across
I haven’t even paid attention on who produced the narration, believing it’s a full on commercial enterprise, only to be disappointed since it’s just *a* guy on yt, but disappointed because I’d want DFW entire bibliography in your voice.
Not saying you should do more, but let’s just say if you did it would be a fine and worthwhile thing not at all unappreciated
Is it a "short story"? This carries so much weight. This is just fantastic. Really deserves it's own publishing.
I couldn't believe this was on youtube. Thanks so much for putting this up!
lmaooooooooo
@Duncan Vermillion yes, and he got clamedia
Such an incredible piece of writing. Good read Bradley
I have to admit.. I have my doubts about this work.. But when it hits the ending man.. Excellent
And ur voice is epic mate
This is just beautiful.
i'm so glad this is here. i was relieved finding this after spending hours on youtube solving the crisis in the middle east. i'm still not done with wutang57. he really got my goat with that thing he said about the ancient hittites.
What a gem! Brilliant narration!
you had the spirit within you, speaking in His tongue. blessed medium!
remember friends, when that voice starts going at it in your head, say to it: "Not. Another. Word."
This is another great one. I especially love the ending for some reason.
"Am i happy?." Is a question that dictates its own answer.
Those who search for happiness are doomed to never find it.
It depends on how you define happiness, I think.
How are we ever to know that this and everything in between, including his passing, was not part of the grift? To leave us all with the impression of a pained literary genius? Ah, but this is why I love him so.
Your narration is perfect man.
Sounds like the inner mental gymnastics of an alcoholic, speaking as one who would know...
Great job. A very outstanding and emotional reading
i literally said "oh my fucking god" aloud when this reading finished
The thing about formative experiences is that we assiduously avoid them. Daredevils don't doubt in this way if only because they act conciously to break the pattern. "One must want to experience the great crises of the body and the soul"- Friedrich Nietzsche
The great crises of the soul are the only time any real person transformation occurs. The rest is just deception and illusion.
Poor guy... Amazing and breathtaking but tragic. Makes me thankful that I'm kinda dumb!
Maybe his best short
Agreed.....
It's the best short story ever written really
You re the best DFW reader bro! You shoud pitch yourself to Audiable
Great reading Wombie. Thank you for making this content.
Wallace was the quintessential sad man. Wish he had realized that there was so much to live for.
Really good reading. Really amazing story. Really glad I got to hear this one as a voice between my two ears where my brain sits.
At its best Wallace's fiction tends to be about a kind of intimacy, and I feel like I just had a really eerily intimate experience.
Thank you.
Man, thank you so much for uploading this!
You all seem like interesting, smart people. I would like to feel I had something in common with some of you besides this You Tube post. If there was time to explore each others background, I'm sure we would find a bunch of things we could nod in agreement to. But we don't have the time and I wouldn't know where to start. This is like sitting next to someone on a flight and having a great conversation, then saying goodbye, No contact info, no e-mail exchange. But, it was great while it was going on. Do you hear what I'm saying?
"Single serving friends", sometimes we are, sometimes we get.
Gotta find collaborative projects.
Anyone from Budapest, up for playing/singing Oberst songs?
Just wanted to say I love you for loving Oberst
Abrazo, Amigo! =)
Nah, I'm full of bs
Lifted is one of the best albums, period.
i'm a fraud for listening to this and not reading it. sigh... excellent narration. i love how he says "YOU know what i mean", his depression seems to come thru here, he feels like what he's saying is redundant, but it couldn't be further from the truth, the man was brilliant. unfortunately dfw turned that brilliant mind in on itself, as a weapon to tear himself down, it's really makes you wonder why he wasn't smart enough to know that advances in medicine, and the progress of humanity would be something to stick around for, but as he said so many times, a person in this condition can't live outside the demons that shadow and torment him. dfw loved to explore the darkness, places most of us don't dare go, he was like an explorer who made discoveries that we marvel at. and it does make you wonder if his own suicide was a performance, the darkness of that thought is too ironic. and yet, i really enjoyed listening to his coup de grace in total darkness. surreal.
tomitstube the progress of humanity's something worth living for? did you get that line from two hundred years ago lol
@elchema agreed
Just a psychologist's insight.
What happened to Neon in his therapy sessions could be described as I metaphorically call "transfection", it happens when the patient instead of benefiting from the therapeutic sessions, proliferates the content into counterproductive deeper introspection out of therapy sessions. It happens a lot to highly conscious individuals, and in that case, it's valid to tell the psychologist that you are undergoing transfection, good therapists can adjust to that. On the other hand, sometimes therapy isn't for everyone, especially when this process seems to make one more prone to an exaggerated over-analysis when out of the sessions.
Меня настолько поразила эта история, что я рассказала о ней всем своим знакомым.
I i.d. with that
I liked this novel, so I though: "Am I telling someone the most important thought I have?'. So, I risked and did it! 🤭 (Now I'm waiting for the results😲).
And I must listen this novel again, as I do not remember where neon was mentioned 😋
Excellent reading.
I fucking love when books have local shit that puts it close to me. I attended UW- Eau Claire. Another hit like that was Franzen's book Freedom being set in the Twin Cities-- just felt real, and I suppose the Midwestern concerns of both authors really paints well in my mind-- the little sayings etc. Wallace's essay "View from Mrs. Thompson's" has good Midwestern-isms that I've been around my whole life.
Also loneliness-- having to redirect my desperation to be seen and heard into genuine attention, playfulness, and interest rather than some creepy accidental tryharding-- these authors hit on loneliness and I appreciate it. My internal monologue is so much like Wallace's writing-- but I'm self conscious about that because so many feel that way and so I'm just derivative, or-- Wallace was just very good. But then I'm another unthinking hypetrain passenger with his "unique" experience, and glomming onto something because well-- sometimes you're just desperate for something worth waking up to, and don't know how to fill up the next forty years-- again-- a topic Wallace treated ably. Fuck me
You put into words a lot of how I feel, especially how you talk about turning your "desperation to be seen and heard into attention, playfulness, and interest rather than some creepy accidental tryharding." Couldn't have said it better myself.
being so self deprecating is just masking how much you care about yourself. its the selfish behaviour of a self centred person, that you need to have the last word on everything thats wrong with you. and im just projected my stuff onto you i have no idea whats going on. i have it too it sucks man
Love your reading!
This is excellent! Thank you so much for recording this story :)
Touching drawing, as an illustration!
How did I never come across this person before? How did I find him finally? Some strange web link brought me to a site with a photo of him and some goats and it spoke in the present tense as if he were currently thinking.
I have never felt more personally attacked in my entire life jesus christ.
Great narration - thank you for doing this
“That period passed on its own ...”
I’d love to know if he’d truly intended that.
This was haunting for me (& likely anyone who read the Maxx book) as it’s UNDOUBTEDLY ... precisely what drove him to do it. Considerations pondered this specifically and hewn SO CLOSELY to his life (too much factual autobio in it) can’t be read as an exercise or flight of fanciful prose. This *was* his suicide note, IMO.
Maxx book?
Thank you for sharing.
Man never thought I'd feel closely related to this guy with what his saying.
Wonderfully written, and I think this story describes the life of the author. Maybe he wrote this short story in order to show us his true statue, a statue which is not erect or impressive, but rather crumbling and helpless
Thank you for posting this (and also the link to the text)
thanks for the narration.
Притча об устройстве человеческого сознания. Когда я впервые прочла это, у меня было ощущение, что я заглянула в сердцевину чёрной дыры и увидела сингулярность.
So fucking relatable. Thank you so much for reading this.
Thank you for this. I like your reading voice.
so great, thank you for sharing.
I really enjoyed that (and following along) - thanks for that, man.
This makes me miss David Foster Wallace.
So very much.
I love him too
Great reading man !! Thank you so much for doing this.
This is you reading, Wombie? I thought this was David Foster Wallace reading!
Dr. G had some intersting observations
Genius on the Spectrum
I think the primary function of therapy is not that it works, really
but that it gives the person _the sense that they're doing something about it, at least_ - Maybe that is enough.
But given the _price_ of those guys it is a pretty big piss-take.
Had he actually studied "A Course in Miracles" (mentioned around the 3:39 mark), he might not have taken his own life, since through its teaching, he might've recognized the destructive voice in his head for what it was - an hallucination. He might've learned, too, that another Voice was always there to guide him away from pain and misery but for the asking.
I wish his brilliance was still here with us.
I disagree with your reductive assessment but agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment
@@dirtycelinefrenchman I understand why my assessment comes off as reductive. I'll add a point for the purpose of clarity:
Salvation is reducible to a single mistake - the belief in a separate will. The hateful voice that arose from this mistake is the ego. It was this voice that directed DFW to attack his own body. This is why I say in a reductive way that "had he actually studied 'A Course in Miracles", he might not have taken his own life" because the Course is all about undoing that one mistake.
Food for thought. Be well.
Man that 30:00 mark hit me like a ton of bricks. Exactly why I’ve never gone to a psycho analyst. That would be the result
Great reading. Just one note: DFW clearly loved the word “banal,” but it’s pronounced “buh-NALL.” The end of the word rhymes with “wall,” and not “canal,” like how it looks
i just wanted to scream STOP JUDGING YOURSELF NONSTOP! he seems like such a truly great guy in so many ways. just so bummed we lost him and i didn't know he existed until yesterday : (
He couldn't. He never grew up. If you don't understand that, then you have some growing up of your own to do.
@@schmetterling4477 perhaps, just seemed like a troubled soul. Never read any of his books but watched some of his round tables with other writers and he really seemed like a nice guy there.
@@schmetterling4477If someone doesn’t understand your statement, it’s probably because what you said was cryptic and vague. What does “he never grew up” refer to? And why would you think that every stranger online is beholden to your weird idea of comprehension and maturity?
@@QEsposito510 It's not "my idea". It's how adults work. Adults don't fret. They do. You are still fretting.
@@schmetterling4477an overly simplistic dichotomy that doesn’t reflect the complexity of reality. Plenty adults do both, many fret out of habit, and do out of necessity.
You think “adults” don’t have existential crises? Or commit suicide?
The sense that one is a fraud, separated from reality and social norms, an object of zoo-like curiosity, is a hallmark of depression. The speaker in this piece attributes his feelings to a change in how men are perceived in society but this is rather a depressed person’s attempt to rationalize outsized psychic pain. So much of Wallace’s work is a struggle to find meaning in mental illness. To use his tremendously logical mind to bridge the chasm between rational thought and spiritual pain. Very sad but incisively human.
That’s a pretty lame and pretentious thing to say
Good analysis. As a fiction writer, DFW did extensive research into his subject matter and also drew heavily from his personal experiences when constructing stories. This story in particular seems biographical. You might even consider it to be one of his suicide notes.
Check out also: The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing
In the big picture, DFW contributes vastly much more than what the world did for him. He tried desperately to be true to those who must have told him early on, surely, that you must be smart and work hard. Care for others. Be engaged, deeply. These are all good values, whether religious or cultural or otherwise. This introspection drew him inevitably into class, and guilt, anger at absurdities, and ultimately wondering why he devoted himself to a world that only rewards being smart and working hard accidentally, by luck and happenstance. I understand why he wanted escape in drugs and other things, and why he ultimately did what he did. But: To just label him a tragedy for not ending his personal story another way, maybe by suffering through the natural decline and decay to come, is to deny how important what he said was.
@@aliensdidit8452 A word salad that communicated nothing. DFW fans are awful to witness, they need to learn brevity.
@@notsocrates9529 the narrator of this story explicitly discusses how little this diagnosis contributes so it was startling to scroll down and see this as the top comment
Apart from being baby in the womb you can never be known in totality, after you leave only the keyhole remains known
I wanted to read this story on paper. Then I also thought it would be nice to take it with me for a walk today. I don't listen to audio books, I'm quite harsh regarding them, but I really enjoyed this. You have a good voice, cadence and acting enough to deliver a good performance. I'm impressed by the hard work put onto this: how was the process? did you read it outloud to yourself a bunch of times from beginning to end util you got the hang of it? or kind of went with it? how long it took you to nail it?
Thanks a lot :_)
I appreciate it!! Glad you enjoyed it.
Basically, I read the story for the first time like normal and loved it and related to it, and i thought it would translate to audio pretty well. I checked to see if there was already a version on RUclips, and there wasn’t. Then I decided to record it and just hopped right in and started recording. I basically recorded it all in one session, with some breaks, and if I flubbed a sentence (which happened constantly) I would just repeat that sentence until it was passable, then I’d just move on. I ended up with about 4-5 hours of audio and edited it down to the final version. It didn’t really require too much work figuring how to read a particular part because it’s written so well, it was just a matter of pronouncing everything correctly.
Amazing! Great voice!
How did I not know about this man?