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David Foster Wallace News and Resources Since March 97

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Home This is Water

This is Water

This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

(David Foster Wallace's Kenyon Commencement Address)

14th April 2009


Reviews and other Articles online:
Amazon Info - This is Water
Hachette Book Group- This is Water
Reviews:
NYT Sunday Book Review - Great and Terrible Truths.
Newsday.com Bookends - This is Water
The Globe and Mail, Globe Books - This is your choice
The Daily Iowan, Art Brief - Surely, they jest
Two responses as a result of NYT piece Great and Terrible Truths above:
Is the new news - DFW, still,
Living Bipolar: Re-Thinking Bipolar Disorder - Commencement or Conclusion?

A couple of versions of the speech:

Marginalia.org Transcription (Working archive.org backup)

Wall Street Journal adaptation: David Foster Wallace on Life and Work

Audio of the speech hosted on YouTube: Part 1 Part 2

Jan 2013 Elizabeth Lopatto's piece about the history of the address, Everlasting Speech.

16/3/09 - Look what arrived...
[Most pages look like this. Not much text, yet effectively paced.]
I like it. It is pretty much as I expected. Text only, mostly a paragraph, or a line, per page. Carefully paginated for emphasis and nicely paced. And you know, it just works.
I've read it three times already. I can see myself picking it up from time to time for a quick read. I actually think it would make a fine gift.
Unsurpisingly, it is somewhat edited and cleaned up from the original speech and is slightly expanded (more like the speech itself) compared to the Wall Street Journal version. This isn't a bad thing.
You can order it here.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 20 February 2013 11:34  

The Howling Fantods