Re:“The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]
by lisper on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @02:39PM
(#12746444)
> Prose like this is exactly why writing in the first person can be so powerful.
Indeed. And if the piece had been written in the first person I would agree with you, but it's not. It's written in the third-person.
Re:“The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]
by tptacek on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @02:42PM
(#12746480)
If you've ever seen the movie Stranger Than Fiction, which is cutesy but good graded on the curve for cutesy movies, that's the narrative mood DFW seems to be going for: the detached narrator who is not in fact entirely detached. The third person perspective is often meant to be partially ironic, as is (when he uses it) the first person.
Re:“The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]
by lisper on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @02:59PM
(#12746657)
You should read this:
Re:“The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]
by tptacek on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @03:00PM
(#12746669)
I'd already replied to it. :)
(I'm kind of speaking in general about DFW's writing, not about this particular piece, which I am not a fan of.)
Re:“The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]
by munificent on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @05:06PM
(#12747659)
Ha, fair point.
In this case, the viewpoint is an interesting omniscient third person where you kind of feel like you're in the head of the character, but not quite exactly. Are we reading a third-person narrative that is maintaining ironic distance from the character, or a first-person narrative where the character is referring to herself in the third person?
Re:“The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace (1998) [pdf]
by sixo on Wednesday October 19, 2016 @11:06PM
(#12749505)
On a couple occasions I've tried narrating vignettes from my own life in a detached omniscient candid way, which a) makes me feel ridiculous, like I'm making fun of myself, but b) is sort of therapeutic, like I'm forgiving myself for my head being full of stupid vanities which look very small from a little distance.
So maybe that's the angle?
As the sentence drags on longer and longer, you feel the narrator trying to glean just a bit more of your focus and attention. Her unwillingness to end the sentence and give you a moment to retract and catch your breath shows how desperate she is for connection and makes you literally experience the same feelings of those around her.
All of the little qualifiers and clauses show how acutely self-conscious she is, always amending and curtailing her expression of herself. It also shows how self-aware of her own negativity she is. Many of the extra clauses go out of their way to show that she is aware of the positive aspects of things.
But that in turn just reinforces our perception of her as depressed because we see that while she is aware of all of these positive things—having a support system, the expertise of her therapist, etc.—we also know she is depressed and her depression must be profound to persist in spite of all those good things she laboriously lists.
Prose like this is exactly why writing in the first person can be so powerful. You get to read the story, and the way the narrator experiences the story, and the way the narrator chooses to tell you how they experienced the story, and the unintended (from the narrators' not author's perspective) things that sneak out around what the narrator is aware of choosing to say.