A little late

David Foster Wallace killed himself Friday. His book Broom of the System, was one that helped me to reach a place I couldn't really describe or imagine until I read it, and things became clear.
That's what we hope all literature can do for us, or any art for that matter, bring us to point of clarity, understanding or anything that makes us feel more than the banality.
There is a section in the book, and I'm trying to remember from twenty years ago, what exactly the context was, because my copy got lost as it was part of a box that was lost in the mail when I moved back to Cleveland from California. Instead of my box of movie books and other favorites, I got the box I had sent, but the contents were a shipment of books about the history of the the Boy Scouts.
When I brought the box to the post office and explained this to a series of indifferent employees, apparently they felt the best action would be to send the intact box to a boy scout troop, who then contacted me and asked me why I had sent them the books.
So, anyway there is a character in the book that grows enormous because she wants to take up as much room in the world as she can so that she pretty much can prove that she exists and is worthy of the space. That was a significant and powerful analysis for me, and for that I have always been fond of DFW, and am sad that he felt compelled to eliminate himself physically from this world.