This is WaterThis 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
Publishers Weekly - Little, Brown Plans Wallace Book for Spring
Hachette Book Group- This is Water
Nonsuch Book - This is Water thoughts and a giveaway
Reviews:
Village Voice Blogs - This Is Water: David Foster Wallace's Kenyon Commencement Address, One Sentence at a Time
Acoustic Phenomena - Is this Water?
Christian Science Monitor - This is Water
Mark Follman.com - This is David Foster Wallace NYT Sunday Book Review - Great and Terrible Truths.
Newsday.com Bookends - This is Water
Mother Jones - David Foster Wallace's Best Advice
The Globe and Mail, Globe Books - This is your choice
The Daily Iowan, Art Brief - Surely, they jest
New York Observer - Life Lessons From a Depressed Person
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.
