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44th out of 179 books
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39 voters
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This is Water
Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. The speech is reprinted for the first time in book form in THIS IS WATER. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and ach...more
Hardcover, 137 pages
Published
April 14th 2009
by Little, Brown and Company
(first published 2005)
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FURTHER UPDATED REVIEW (consolidation of general remarks of mine from review comment threads for this book/speech):
Is This Speech Depressing?
I have to respectfully disagree and say that I found this to be uplifting in a really serious way--like my version of a Chicken Soup For The Soul sense of uplifting (er, uh, something)--which is a feeling of redemption via facing messy truths and feeling my own thoughts to be extremely validated by his beautiful ideas and phrasings. ...more
Is This Speech Depressing?
I have to respectfully disagree and say that I found this to be uplifting in a really serious way--like my version of a Chicken Soup For The Soul sense of uplifting (er, uh, something)--which is a feeling of redemption via facing messy truths and feeling my own thoughts to be extremely validated by his beautiful ideas and phrasings. ...more
view all 49 comments
This may come as a surprise to people who know me, but I never read this before it came out in book format. I knew it existed, but like most of the occasional and short pieces by DFW I held off on reading them. At the time his writing came out so infrequently, that I always wanted to have things of his to read at some point in the future, when I would really want something new of his. Of course that has changed to their being nothing new to release, except for unpublished things that might see...more
This is the most depressing thing that I have ever read in my life. I have never felt as hopeless as I did reading this. It is written beautifully, and it is a catharsis, but the fact of the matter is that it is not cheerful and it did not in anyway increase my desire to wake up tomorrow morning. I can give no actual good reason that people should read this book. The most that I can do is fall back on Cioran and say that the purpose of the philosopher is to remove depression from the everyday ve...more
Sto scoprendo, leggendo e conoscendo questo grande, che preferisco i suoi racconti da giovane.
Come negli ultimi - Oblio in testa - il tema è il dolore, la depressione, il caos di una società - la nostra, l'Occidente opulento, grasso ed annoiato; ma nelle prime raccolte, come ne "La scopa del sistema", c'era una... freschezza, forse una speranza, che dava ai suoi racconti una carica di vitalità che poi non ho più trovato.
Chissà...</p>
Come negli ultimi - Oblio in testa - il tema è il dolore, la depressione, il caos di una società - la nostra, l'Occidente opulento, grasso ed annoiato; ma nelle prime raccolte, come ne "La scopa del sistema", c'era una... freschezza, forse una speranza, che dava ai suoi racconti una carica di vitalità che poi non ho più trovato.
Chissà...</p>
Anche in questo caso, abbimo un grande scrittor
...more
This is water by David Foster Wallace is the commencement David Foster Wallace made to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyan college. It is not a typical commencement speech. Most commencement speeches do not talk about the day to day life that students will soon have to embrace once they graduate. He talks about the “boredom, routine and petty frustration” that comes with everyday life, and a way to deal with it all. The speech he gives is persuasive because he pinpoints truths about livi...more
some good points and clever observations, though I don't necessarily agree with everything said, and I think the author states some statements as fact and uses only his power as a known literary figure to back them up. Like, at one point he starts talking about how everyone "has to worship something", and it makes more sense to worship "God, or Allah" or some other deity, because otherwise you are just going to worship money or our bodies, or something else that will inevitab...more
Every once in a while, you have a brush with greatness. I was lucky enough to take several classes with Dave Wallace when I was a student at Illinois State University (as an undergraduate and a graduate student). This was before he won his MacArthur Grant (what some people refer to as "the genius award")--after that his popularity skyrocketed. He was a complicated, shy, and extremely generous person, as well as one of the most intelligent people I have ever met.
Years lat...more
Years lat...more
My review might just be longer than this book. This Is Water is one of the two posthumous publications of David Foster Wallace and one memorable speech he gave to the liberal arts graduates of Kenyon College. This is also the only speech he ever gave to students, but this is beside the point. This Is Water is available for free online, but the presentation offered in the book makes it a lot easier to conceptualize...if that justifies anything. All right, it doesn't. Faithful to his reputation of...more
The following quotes are taken from This is Water, by David Foster Wallace. Page numbers are provided from the hardback published by Little, Brown in 2009, ISBN: 978-0-316-06822-2.
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There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys. How's the water?"
And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and ...more
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There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys. How's the water?"
And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and ...more
"Here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship wil...more
Despite great ambition and initial commitment I have faltered in my quest to complete Infinite Jest. Infinite Summer is a great concept and I deeply and sincerely wish Infinite Jest resonated with me. It would be one thing if I didn’t enjoy it but found it meaningful but I neither enjoy it nor find meaning in it so it’s going on the shelf. That being said I could see the flashes of brilliance in Infinite Jest that everyone talks about when they mention David Foster Wallace. So, in a compromise w...more
Only 3 stars for this, but that shouldn't be taken as an evaluation of the text itself, which is amazing.
You can read the whole thing online for free – just search for "David Foster Wallace Kenyon Commencement Speech" – and I highly recommend that you do so. It's the most immediate and direct explain of the philosophy that underpins DFW's writing, and as such it doesn't have the obsessive, brain corroding power of Infinite Jest or Oblivion. It’s not as digression crazy as...more
You can read the whole thing online for free – just search for "David Foster Wallace Kenyon Commencement Speech" – and I highly recommend that you do so. It's the most immediate and direct explain of the philosophy that underpins DFW's writing, and as such it doesn't have the obsessive, brain corroding power of Infinite Jest or Oblivion. It’s not as digression crazy as...more
As I came here to post my review of this book, I stumbled onto reviews posted by others. The general perception seemed to be a sense of sadness. Perhaps it's because of what Wallace did ultimately. But I read this speech differently.
I read it as a generous gift delivered by a deeply troubled and pained person of unusual intelligence. And while this is an address to graduates, it seems to me that he speaks, in a way, to try to convince himself too. He says,
"...there a...more
I read it as a generous gift delivered by a deeply troubled and pained person of unusual intelligence. And while this is an address to graduates, it seems to me that he speaks, in a way, to try to convince himself too. He says,
"...there a...more
This was one of those rare gems you find at the bookstore, where you can move cover to cover in one sitting and reach complete bliss, like picking a random window to peek in when you're twelve years old only to find a pretty woman dressing.
At first it smacked of normal commencement speech fodder and I was disappointed. How could the author of Infinite Jest, one of my favorite books of all time, create something so mediocre seeming. But it turned out to be a speech about mediocrity,...more
At first it smacked of normal commencement speech fodder and I was disappointed. How could the author of Infinite Jest, one of my favorite books of all time, create something so mediocre seeming. But it turned out to be a speech about mediocrity,...more
Hey, look at me! I finally read a DFW book all the way through!
No matter that this one is all of 7000 words, a commencement speech that would have made a lot more sense as an article in The New Yorker than dressed up as a $15 self-help book. There was some good stuff in here but the melodramatic format of this book sets it up as the easily scoured suicide note everything becomes after the fact. Remember when you first listened to In Utero after the news of Cobain's death? "It's ...more
No matter that this one is all of 7000 words, a commencement speech that would have made a lot more sense as an article in The New Yorker than dressed up as a $15 self-help book. There was some good stuff in here but the melodramatic format of this book sets it up as the easily scoured suicide note everything becomes after the fact. Remember when you first listened to In Utero after the news of Cobain's death? "It's ...more
This work is the manuscript of David Foster Wallace's (DFW) commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. It wasn't the best commencement address I've ever read (or heard), and the book explains that it is the only one DFW ever gave. He waxes philosophical throughout, which makes certain parts of the work dense. However, he takes his philosophical musings and brings them down to a practical level, making them much more relatable and easier to understand.
The work its...more
The work its...more
I feel like an exception to the rule in that this is actually the first of DFW's 'works' that I ever read, and what spurred me on to the reading of his books.
Re-reading it in this new 'book', it's even more haunting than that initial read was. Being more familiar with David Foster Wallace through his other writing as well as reading / watching various interviews allows me I feel to say just how much of him comes out in this commencement speech. I think he both hints and expounds on v...more
Re-reading it in this new 'book', it's even more haunting than that initial read was. Being more familiar with David Foster Wallace through his other writing as well as reading / watching various interviews allows me I feel to say just how much of him comes out in this commencement speech. I think he both hints and expounds on v...more
It is impossible for me to read this without an awareness of the circumstances of David Foster Wallace's death. I feel really sad reading it, but I also feel very grateful for his generosity.
His speech feels like a plea not only to others, but maybe to himself. Exercise the freedom to make conscious choices. Try to stay alert. Beware of going on automatic, and making unconscious choices. Do not be a slave to your mind.
His speech prompted me to think about postmodernism. Tho...more
His speech feels like a plea not only to others, but maybe to himself. Exercise the freedom to make conscious choices. Try to stay alert. Beware of going on automatic, and making unconscious choices. Do not be a slave to your mind.
His speech prompted me to think about postmodernism. Tho...more
The content was interesting, but the format was a bit annoying. I know that David Foster Wallace fans will buy pretty much anything with his name on it, but I don't think this works as a small book with one sentence per page. (You can read it online here and elsewhere if you like.)
I can relate to some of what he had to say - trying to think positively and be open to the positive instead of hating the world, life, and everyone in it because you are annoyed.
"thinking t...more
I can relate to some of what he had to say - trying to think positively and be open to the positive instead of hating the world, life, and everyone in it because you are annoyed.
"thinking t...more
Simple, inspiring, and thought-provoking.
We all have bad, monotonous days. Sometimes, we can't even recall what we did on a day like that. Or instead, we find ourselves angry about how it didn't go as we thought it should, we aren't getting what we want, it didn't meet our expectations and on and on and on...
David Foster Wallace, in this commencement speech to seniors at Kenyon College in 2005, explains how we all have the power and freedom to see the world differently. ...more
We all have bad, monotonous days. Sometimes, we can't even recall what we did on a day like that. Or instead, we find ourselves angry about how it didn't go as we thought it should, we aren't getting what we want, it didn't meet our expectations and on and on and on...
David Foster Wallace, in this commencement speech to seniors at Kenyon College in 2005, explains how we all have the power and freedom to see the world differently. ...more
It might have something to do with timing - but then again, doesn't everything have something to do with timing - but this is the second time I've "read" this book, and it meant a lot more to me this time than the first time.
Let me explain. The reason the word "read" is in bunny ears is because the first time I heard this book. maria read me the book, sat in a car park, outside Plaza Bonita, waiting for the mall to open. It was a perfect Sunday morning. It was a p...more
Let me explain. The reason the word "read" is in bunny ears is because the first time I heard this book. maria read me the book, sat in a car park, outside Plaza Bonita, waiting for the mall to open. It was a perfect Sunday morning. It was a p...more
There's not many books/talks/speeches that I think about more than this. The idea of living a conscious life - to actively think about what I'm thinking about is fascinating and requires real discipline. There are several sections of this very quick read I think about a lot - avoiding anger from the mundane, not letting thoughts of money or power or appearance consume me, etc.
"The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able...more
"The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able...more
I read this on my phone while at a graduation ceremony with a less compelling commencement speaker. In that context, it's amazing to think what an audience would have made of it. Wallace calls out every cliche of the genre and then indulges in it. It's similar to his story "Octet": make it clear that he gets it, and then say, well, there something to those belle-lettrists and all telling you to try understanding the person you're sitting next to. It's a lovely little speech.
...more
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In 2005, David Foster Wallace delivered the commencement address to graduates of Kenyon College. It’s the only commencement address he ever made. This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life is the speech he made. This is a small, pocket sized book that can be read quickly, but should be slowly savored to be fully appreciated. He reminded the graduates that a liberal arts education is meant to teach us how to think. He said:
...more
...more
So it's obvious, something all of us should know--but honored more in the breach than the observance, if we look at our own behavior and others'. Give the poor guy a break; suffering with depression as he did, it would have been even harder for him than for the rest of us to climb out of his own pain and think about other people and their backgrounds and circumstances and motivations. I didn't go to my own undergraduate graduation, and have no recollection of my graduate graduation ceremony, but...more
College teaches us how to think. And that's okay. Because, if college didn't teach us how to think and what to think about, we would probably end up like arrogant, ignorant, self-righteous Jo-blow on the street, screaming and yelling at cars or people on their cell phones instead of taking a moment to stop and ask yourself: Now, what about this situation is interesting and how can I analyze this in a meaningful and constructive way? That is, who cares if Jo-blow #2 on his phone is pissing you of...more
This isn't a book - it's a commencement address and takes less than 20 minutes to read. If you've never stopped to think about things like empathy, choices, and mindfulness, this isn't a bad place to start.
A.K.
rated it
I'm not much of a reviewer in any case, but I feel the only possible reaction to D.F.W. is to clutch at one's chest and howl FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK. Take that as you will.
Yay! I finally finished one of his works. The format is perfect--about a sentence per page. It emphasizes that this was a speech given to a wide range of people, and it leaves more time for you to think than a period. At readings, I used to love to listen to DFW read his works aloud--and this is one work that was written to be read aloud, by him. In any case, the example about being at a supermarket and thinking (or not thinking) that everyone around you is a dick is a great example. His referen...more
There isn't musch to say about this book, if that's what you call it. I read it in the book store and, being a little larger than average size Wallace fan (thank you Jonathan),I thought it was fitting and kind of weird something like that would be released so soon after the authors death. As always I find Wallace sincere and powerful, if not a little hopeless. I must say that I agree with another reader who said that the page layout of the book, sometimes as short as a sentence per page, is not ...more
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David Foster Wallace worked surprising turns on nearly everything: novels, journalism, vacation. His life was an information hunt, collecting hows and whys. "I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today," he once said, "of which maybe 25 are important. My job is to make some sense of it." He wanted to write "stuff about what it feels like to live. Instead of being...more
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“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”
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285 people liked it
“If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.”
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47 people liked it
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