Wallace’s 1999 collection of short stories takes us to some uncomfortable places (and as always, is eerily prescient).
In this week’s discussion we talk about his ‘juvenilia’ coming-of-age story Forever Overhead, his famous piece The Depressed Person, and a smattering of the titular brief interviews.
We kinda fucked up the format on this by trying to talk about everything. But salvaged some bits about nostalgia, the blurred lines between narcissism and depression, therapy culture, and why metafiction is played out.
quick blather and disclaimer
Cam: Did you guys go through the Eminem phase first? When you were like 15? Or like 13?
Rich: Yeah, of course I did.
Cam: Yeah, did you?
Benny: Somewhat, not usually — so I never got fusion for that.
Cam: Like some of his main songs?
Rich: Benny was more of a Tchaikovsky guy.
Benny: What was that — Bach at two times speed guy. It was crazy.
Rich: Fuck it. Fuck you.
Cam: What did you say about Deutsch? Did you say he listened to it fast?
Benny: Yeah, he listened — that was the inside.
Rich: Is that real?
Cam: Okay. Yeah, we should listen to that three times.
Benny: Yeah.
Rich: That’s insane. Why would he do that?
Benny: It’s so funny.
Cam: Well, that’s quite a good answer.
Benny: I’ve done it a few times though.
Cam: Do you like Bach only at two times?
Benny: Yeah, it really brings out some of the motifs.
Cam: All right, shall we?
Benny: Alright boys, what do we think?
Cam: Do we want to go through each thing and talk about them? Or do people want to just start with the ones they want to talk about the most, and then we’ll see where we get to?
Benny: Let’s just go through each one and see if we have something to say, and if we don’t have anything to say, we’ll just move on.
Rich: Yep.
Cam: Sounds good.
Rich: Hi, Rich here. So there are 23 different stories in this collection — or even more if you count each of the brief interviews separately — so I think it was actually a mistake for us to try and talk about each of them. The discussion ended up being super fragmented and messy and not that interesting. Our next recording we had a much tighter focus and we had a really good chat, so perhaps you might want to skip straight ahead to that one. But I’ve chopped this down to two stories in particular from this first section where there’s, I think, that was actually worth salvaging — which is Forever Overhead and The Depressed Person. So you can check those out in this episode. I just wanted to do a little note just in case there’s any weird continuity stuff going on. All right, here it is.
Forever Overhead: mainlining nostalgia of late childhood
Cam: Is the 13-year-old diving board one?
Rich: Yeah, this is my favourite one. I think this one’s really fucking good.
Cam: Yeah, no, it’s amazing. What do you think, Benny?
Benny: Yeah, I liked it. To be honest, I’m confused about the ending. Is it ambiguous on purpose?
Rich: Yeah, me too.
Benny: I’m actually not sure if I’m having trouble understanding what happened or if it’s left ambiguous on purpose. Does he jump? What happens?
Rich: I think he does. I think that’s what the “hello” means — the very last sentence, the last paragraph. It implies that he’s like taking the step, and saying, like — I don’t know, I was interpreting it as like hello to adulthood or something like that, because it’s a sort of rite of passage, transitional thing. But I actually don’t like the ending. I really like the whole story, but I don’t like the last five lines, or the last five paragraphs. Gets too abstract and purple, and I think he did not stick the landing on that one.
Cam: Just coming from Virginia Woolf, come on.
Rich: The rest of the poem strikes a nice balance where it’s super poetic but you know what’s happening. And then at the end it just seems almost a bit like word salad. I don’t want to say that it is word salad, but we could go through and try and interpret it.
Benny: Yeah, it broke style.
Cam: Well, just to answer Benny’s question around did he jump or not — I mean, my interpretation of it was yes, and like it’s inevitable, like you kind of have to jump no matter your choice. And that’s kind of demonstrated in what he talks about with time, and the bee that moves, keeps flapping its wings just to stay still. There’s no stopping time. And even when he thinks time’s stopped and then he gets woken up by someone yelling out to jump, and then he suddenly realises time’s been gone. It’s just this inevitable march forward to adulthood or death or the beginning of something or religion — whatever you’re sort of jumping towards.
Benny: I see. So “step into the skin and disappear” is like step into this role that’s determined for you in some sense — like you can think about it all you want but you’re gonna end up jumping because that’s the way of the world. And so it’s like stepping into your body, your skin, which is gonna do this thing, and your head just has to wrap itself around that fact.
Rich: The skin is about the patches of dead skin on the board. So it’s like this really cool —
Cam: Double entendre, I suppose.
Rich: I don’t think so. It’s like he’s talking about the two black spots of skin.
Cam: No, I think you’re right. I didn’t notice that, but you’re right. Around the black ovals, the vague black ovals.
Rich: But it’s beautiful, right? It’s saying you follow in the footsteps of all who have come before you. Everyone has been at this juncture and everyone’s done this. It’s really gross because it’s like tiny bits of torn-up skin that have blackened in the sun. But it’s like, yeah.
Cam: I think Benny’s right though. I think you can read it the other way. I mean, Wallace loved wordplay and languages.
Rich: But what’s the other meaning?
Cam: Or like — yeah, maybe not. But “into your own skin” — like step into your —
Benny: Your role. Like step into this role that everyone before you has done and that you’ve added to.
Rich: Yeah, I guess so.
Cam: Like being yourself, in your skin. It’s definitely mainly the step into the black ovals.
Rich: So you’ve redeemed it for me, actually, Cam. Because yeah, it’s like the board will nod and you will go. So it’s about the inevitability of all of this, right?
Benny: This one I think will stick with me. Whenever you have something tough to do I’ll be thinking about the little kid climbing up to the diving board, yeah.
Cam: It’s a great metaphor, right? Just being on this board. But like the literal reading of it — what I quite liked about it is it felt very real, like it felt very relatable, and almost like a memory, like your own memory. Because it’s written in second person, right — like you do this, you do that. So you really kind of run this boy’s thoughts through your mind and kind of feel like you’re living them. I actually remember being scared on a diving board once as well. But even the small details, you know — he sort of climbs the ladder and it’s denting his foot.
Benny: Yeah, yeah. You’re like, wow, this hurts more than I thought it was gonna hurt. Why don’t they put fucking steps on this thing?
Cam: And then like the fat woman in front of him smushed into a bathing suit, and just noticing that sort of thing.
Rich: Hairy animal men. I remember when I was a kid — I mean, I don’t remember, but now I do — thinking like men are some different species. And then yeah, the disproportionate boys, all necks and legs and knobby joints, shallow-chested and vaguely birdlike — like, I’m like, yeah, that’s exactly what it was like to be a child in a world of adults. It’s so weird.
Cam: Yeah. And then he’s like, see this big man in the changing room, naked, just like, here he is.
Benny: And you can’t even believe how big people are. You’re like, there’s no way I’ll ever be that big. You’re looking at your tiny little arms and tiny little wobbly knees and elbows, just thinking, how are humans this big? It’s bizarre.
Cam: And I liked how he’s in this queue that he can’t exit, he says. Once he’s in it. And metaphorically, of course, that’s kind of inevitable in order, once you’ve made a decision.
Rich: It’s so relatable, everything about it. But it’s hilarious to me that the central olfactory image is jizz — like the smell of jizz being reminiscent of chlorine, like a chlorine swimming pool.
Cam: Yeah.
Rich: And it’s like a perversion of Proust or something with the madeleines, where it’s like, and now every time I smell the chlorine pool, I remember when I came in my pants in sixth grade or whatever.
Cam: I always remember opening a fresh bag of Burger Rings — I’m not sure if they have them outside of New Zealand or Australia — kind of had that faint smell as well. The chlorine juice smell.
Rich: I’ve never thought about the chlorine comparison, but it’s a pretty good comparison.
Cam: Have you never thought about chlorine? Just embarrassing.
Rich: No, I don’t think I’ve consciously noticed that before.
Cam: You ain’t sniffing, you’re just enough, mate. The other thing is around when he’s in the line at one point — I forget where it says — at some point there’s more people behind you than in front of you. When you take that metaphorically, kind of existentially, around life — in terms of him going to adulthood, but you’re still young as a 13-year-old — but at some point in your life, you realise that the line in front of you is shorter, and it’s kind of depressing.
Rich: I think this is some of his best writing that I can remember.
Cam: It’s quite direct and straightforward for Wallace as well.
Rich: Yeah.
Cam: I don’t know when he wrote this. I think he might have written this quite early on. It’s almost like what he was trying to achieve later.
Rich: Yeah. I think it strikes a nice balance because it’s not on the nose or anything. You have to think about it a little bit to be like, oh yeah, it’s coming-of-age type thing.
Cam: Yeah, but I just mean in terms of all that postmodern shit and footnotes.
starting to get sick of DFW’s tics and the metafiction schtick in general
Rich: I have kind of a meta comment around that, which I might as well say now — which is that I think some of his tics actually get pretty annoying with overuse. If you’re reading a collection of short stories, you kind of want different voices and styles and stuff. And it’s pretty annoying when he does the same things in all of them — like the parenthetical clarifying what the object of the sentence is, especially when it’s really obvious. And it’s just like — I don’t know, it’s funny to think that that’s like a thing that a character in the story might do. Yeah.
Cam: That’s very well seen. I mean, there have been heaps in The Depressed Person — I do do a bit more of that now, because sometimes it’s vague, and I don’t know what to do about it.
Rich: But he does it when there’s no other interpretation. Well, he does it in Infinite Jest, and you know, the footnotes, and the basically pointless footnotes. And yeah, I actually had the first experience reading this book where I was a bit annoyed with it and being like, okay, that’s clever, like maybe do it once or do it twice or something, but don’t just keep doing the same thing because it’s not that funny, and it makes all the characters become like the same character as well. You should be coming up with different stylistic tics for different characters.
Cam: Yeah, and I suppose this story was a relief of that.
Rich: Like this, rather than all the self-referential multiple layers of irony, self-conscious stuff.
Cam: Well, I think sometimes this sort of stuff is in Infinite Jest, right? There’s little parts that are just quite plain stories.
Rich: Yeah, there are.
Cam: I wondered if this was an allusion. John Barth is one of the fathers of postmodern fiction and wrote the story Lost in the Funhouse, and for the first time started doing these things of pointing out that it’s a story, and pointing out that this is a metaphor and stuff. And one of the things he did was when the characters dive into a pool, then one of his asides was like, this would be a great chance to point out that this could be a metaphor of like diving into — I don’t know, I can’t remember if it was the id or something. And Wallace actually wrote a short story in direct response to that.
Rich: Was he a fan of that or mocking it?
Cam: He first became a huge fan of it. And then he realised — this was his whole new sincerity thing — then you realise, actually, this is just the author trying to be clever himself and isn’t giving anything to the reader. And it’s just this kind of solipsistic thing.
Rich: The Barbie movie was doing that kind of metafiction nonsense, where it was like Margot Robbie says she’s not that attractive and then the narrator is like, oh, we realise that casting Margot Robbie for this role is not exactly bolstering her argument here, or something like that. It’s like, shut the fuck up — like just commit to the script and to what you want to say, and don’t be hedging everything and trying to preempt criticism.
Cam: I mean, it’s a hard balance, because sometimes that’s fun and cool, and then sometimes it’s self-indulgence.
Rich: It reads as lack of confidence to me. You can always hide behind a layer of, oh, I pointed it out — I pointed it out first, so you can’t say that it’s hack, or you can’t criticise it.
Cam: Well, like, Wallace kind of does that — and then he also does, like, “I’m aware that this is maybe what I’m doing”, and then he just uses double binds that you can’t get out of.
Rich: Well, yeah, he just stops after a certain number of layers of reflexiveness so that everyone else is lost, right? But like — I don’t know, it can be dazzling, but I don’t know, maybe it’s just because we’ve been reading so much Wallace that it’s not what you always want in a story.
Cam: Too soon. You go back to Woolf.
Rich: No, I fucking love the guy. It’s fantastic. Maybe short story collections shouldn’t be read all in one go or something. I don’t know. I mean, I have read half the book as well, so I’ve probably read a bit more than you have.
Cam: I was wondering that as well.
Benny: There is an element of that, yeah.
Cam: But I think, like, some authors — I imagine they say, this collection is meant to be read together, like it’s a book, and the former whole. And maybe this one does as well.
Rich: But is that true? Because all of these stories — well, a bunch of them — are published in Harper’s or wherever. So it’s not like he actually architected them all to come together. I’m sure they’re thematically similar.
Benny: I would like to know if he wrote all the brief interviews with hideous men. Like, was that originally published somewhere as its own thing, just the transcripts? And then are all these other short stories random other pieces that were published elsewhere? Because it’s an interesting choice to mix in brief interviews with other essays if they have nothing to do with one another.
Cam: That makes me feel like there’s meant to be an overarching theme that maybe they don’t all fit perfectly with. I mean, I think I heard Zadie Smith say one of the themes of this book is running someone else’s thought procedure, which kind of happens whenever you read anything — that’s kind of what reading is. But like she said, the emphasis on this is quite strong, that’s what we’re doing with brief interviews of these guys, running their thoughts through us. And even in Forever Overhead, that’s what we’re doing with this young kid.
Rich: There’s some amazing attempts at transferring subjective experience, yeah.
Rich: The Depressed Person, you are like that — I mean, obviously, we got to talk about that.
Benny: Yeah, we should probably pick up the pace here because we’re 20 pages in.
Cam: Alright, so what was the next one?
Brief Interview #11 (the guy who keeps leaving his gf because she is worried about him leaving her again)
Rich: What’s this archetype called — like a kind of, it’s this guy who’s just, like, I don’t even know how to describe it. Like really manipulative with his feelings.
Cam: Oh, that’s right. He leaves her because she’s so anxious about him leaving her.
Benny: About him leaving, yeah.
Cam: And she’s wrong, and he thinks she’s wrong — ultimately why he leaves her.
Benny: “Me leaving is not the confirmation of your fears about me — it’s because of that ruthless lie.”
Cam: Yeah, I felt this both simultaneously true and capturing a thing that happens, and a demonstration of total manipulation and toxicity and narcissism as well. I felt like it captured both.
Benny: But I mean, so to be fair to the guy, I mean, it is exhausting to be with someone who’s continually questioning whether it’s a romantic partnership or just a normal friendship relationship. It’s exhausting to be with someone who’s constantly worried.
Cam: No, no, great — no, that’s what I was saying. Like I think occasionally true. But then the recursion is like, well, why is she like that? And it’s probably because of his behaviour. This is chicken and egg problem, right?
Rich: No, it is. There’s like hints in the story this is the fifth time that he’s done it or something. He’s like, oh, I know that you might feel it’s because of all the other times — didn’t exactly make you feel secure. So it’s like, okay.
Cam: Yeah, but like potentially those are justified as well, right?
Benny: That’s true. He says, like, it’s not like I’m saying given our history I deserve a whole lot of trust right off the bat. So that’s a good point. Yeah, he’s obviously done some shit to her.
Rich: Yeah, no, this guy is a piece of shit. He’s like, oh, maybe it’s gaslighting, I guess, or something, right? Like making her think it’s her fault.
Cam: I think it’s not obvious to solve it. Like, yep, he’s probably gaslighting; yep, she’s probably difficult. It’s kind of hard to get the chicken and egg, and maybe they perpetuate each other. Or you could just read it one way or the other, and probably he’s just gaslighting.
Rich: I think it is pretty straightforwardly someone transforming themselves into the victim and not owning their own behaviour, right? So even at the end, he’s like, oh, now you’re all upset — well, have you thought about how that might make me feel? Spare some thoughts that I might be pretty torn up about it too. It’s just, yeah.
Cam: I think you’re right, but I think there’s also, as kind of Benny was saying, you also have to think for this guy as well, if this was happening — of like this person being so unreasonable.
Benny: Well, but if he caused it I think that subverts my argument, right? Like, yeah, I don’t —
Rich: No, I don’t think that’s — there’s like lots of clues in here that that’s not the case, but I don’t want to argue it. But yeah, I don’t think it’s meant to be like that.
Benny: Yeah, I think I agree with that. I take back my earlier — I hear your point.
Rich: The recursion in here is clever. He’s blaming her for reacting to his bad behaviour, but claiming that her reaction to his bad behaviour is the root cause of his bad behaviour. So they’re kind of arguing about what the first mover is, or something — like chicken and egg type thing.
Benny: Yep.
Brief Interview #3 (the airport shaggy dog story)
Rich: Then we got this airport arrival story.
Benny: Yikes.
Rich: This is basically like a shaggy dog joke, right?
Benny: Yeah.
Cam: “So then what happened?” you really gotta ask.
Cam: I actually was gonna say this last time — I agree that these guys are hideous men, but there’s something about these stories where I think you kind of relate to aspects of it. I could kind of imagine being in that situation or doing that. And that’s the hideous part of us. And there’s something male about it, and something even when you’re aware of it, then you’re still slightly sympathetic to it. And yeah, this tragic story of this woman showing up, who’s been left, this person, by this guy — and your heart goes out, and like his heart genuinely goes out to her. He feels terrible for her, and when he says like “men are shit”, he means it. Like this is horrible. And then it’s, like, but you can’t turn it down.
Rich: Then he uses her for his own sexual gratification.
Cam: It’s because she’s the girl with the tits, right? Yeah. And like, you’re like, yeah, that’s so true. He keeps referring to her as “the girl with the tits”, right?
Cam: What’s the shaggy dog joke? Is that like kind of a Norm Macdonald joke?
Rich: It’s where you tell a long story and then it ends with like a silly — yeah, exactly, like a no-punchline type story.
Cam: Is there a literal shaggy dog that’s an example of this?
Rich: Probably, yeah. I don’t actually know.
Cam: Yeah, like the dog was shaggy or something.
Rich: Yeah, Delicious Tacos has this amazing one that I always think about. But yeah, I won’t try and retell it.
Cam: Speaking of brief interviews with hideous men — that we sometimes sympathise with while simultaneously knowing they’re hideous.
Rich: Oh yeah, no, I agree with you that we’re meant to see — well, we’re not meant to, but you probably see little bits of yourself in here, right? Like, we have manipulated someone, at least thought about it, or been capable of it, or whatever. And you’re like, yeah, you can recognise.
Benny: Or just that duality in situations where, you know, you’re like, yeah, you genuinely sympathise with someone, you’re trying to have a serious conversation, but you can’t help recognise certain physical features or something, right? You’re just like, yeah, you know — like at least 20% of your brain is just like, oh, like —
Cam: Yeah, like there’s some hot girl with the tits who’s telling you something heartfelt and you can’t get out of it, but a part of you is looking at the big tits and kind of thinking about that, and kind of thinking maybe I’d just rather her stop talking about it — while knowing how much of an asshole that makes you.
Brief Interview #31 (how a great lover really pleases a lady)
Cam: Alright, so this next one was about the great lover, was it?
Benny: This was in Infinite Jest, right? Basically, not the precise form of the story, but this theme was in Infinite Jest.
Cam: Oh, yeah, sorry — Orin.
Benny: Yeah, exactly.
Cam: Orin was probably more of the guy that this guy was complaining about, right?
Benny: Yeah, exactly. No, Orin was this guy. And I’m trying to remember — dude, I can’t even remember the book — who are the two guys talking on the mountain for the duration of the book? I think it was Marathe talking about Orin who was making this point, if memory serves. Saying that he’s — I don’t know why I have that association, but —
Cam: I think it was also the narrator at one point, like when Orin was with the girls. Anyway, maybe let’s just lay it out. So Orin was obsessed with pleasing women, but it was this kind of selfish reasoning.
Benny: It was like a selfish —
Cam: To be an amazing lover. And then this guy’s complaining about those types of toxic guys, and he’s just saying, well, just think about yourself, because that’s less selfish. Yeah.
Benny: I think this is a genuinely interesting insight that Wallace has had, honestly, that I haven’t heard anyone else make. And I think these archetypes exist for sure.
Cam: Well, one of my close friends — like, shout out if he’s listening — but I always remember he was always the guy that this guy was complaining about. He’s focused on, like —
Benny: Wait, what do you mean shout out if he’s listening? Do you guys share these episodes with people?
Cam: No, no, no. We might eventually. We’ll tell you that.
Benny: Oh shit, you’ll tell me and then not care if I say don’t do it? I’ll just let you know — we’re all public now.
Cam: Have to blank out the N-word from earlier.
Rich: Yeah, we won’t ask you, we’ll tell you that.
Cam: But I kept thinking of that guy, man.
Rich: Wait, is he seriously like this? Because this is the caricatured version of it, right?
Cam: Well, it wasn’t — I mean, he wasn’t explicitly always going on, but you could kind of tell that was where his pride was, like his notches were like how much he could make her come, like with his tongue and stuff. And you could tell there’s a bit of showing off — you know, early 20s. And yeah, it took the same form of the guy who pulled lots of ladies that maybe was less good in bed or something, but it was still the notches.
Benny: I think I have a bit of this in me, to be honest. I view myself as some percentage this person.
Cam: Sure. Ken is the great lover.
Benny: Or at least wanting to be that way. Like, I understand the impulse, I guess.
Cam: Yeah, I’ve just accepted not being the great lover. I used to embody it a little bit.
Benny: You’ve just reverted to the first guy, the Joe Six-Packs, as he calls them.
Rich: The insight here is that, yeah, you should be thinking about the other person’s pleasure. But it’s only selfish if you won’t perform for them in the same way and let them feel special and let them feel like they’re a great lover and they can give you pleasure. Right?
Benny: Yeah, like you’re still just serving your own selfishness.
Cam: Well, there’s also like — you want them to feel pleasure but you also want to feel impressive and like being the one that’s caused the pleasure and being the great lover, right? And like as soon as that starts faltering to like something she might want that goes against the image of yourself — well, okay, here’s maybe an example. Like, lots of girls have vibrators, right? And, you know, if you’re concerned about the woman’s pleasure, just making sure — you might use that to help. But, you know, the guy would rather it be them achieving like, you know, 50 orgasms, than some vibrator. But there doesn’t seem something completely wrong about that either.
Rich: Yeah, it’s about the disguising of acts of service — the disguising of your ego as acts of service, right? And not being honest about what your motivations are for wanting to serve somebody. It’s really about you, not about them.
Cam: And part of the depressing worldview is, like, maybe it’s just impossible to ever escape that. Kind of seems to be all what the story’s saying. It’s like either you, or the guy that’s just straightforwardly obsessed with getting your underwear — like, is it possible to be genuinely altruistic, or if you just want to seem that way, is that the same thing?
Rich: There’s a good nugget of actual advice in here, I think — which is, if you want to be a really good lover, try to give the other person pleasure, but then also make sure they feel like they’re giving you a lot of pleasure, and they can feel like a sex god or, you know, sex nymph or whatever you want to call it. You know, hamming up a little bit if need be, or whatever. The same thing that women have probably been doing since forever, right? Stroking the fragile egos of their male lovers.
Cam: There’d be a good brief interview about not performing in the moment and the girl having to deal with your insecurity but having to do it in a particular way. Yeah, I can imagine that’d be a good self-hit.
Rich: My friend was telling me about it.
Cam: My friend.
Cam: It would be very relatable, with self-hit.
Rich: Yeah, how much of this book is David Wallace telling on himself?
Cam: Oh, definitely. Probably.
Rich: It’s got to be a decent chunk.
Cam: But, like, embellishing.
Rich: This guy has got a turbo case of pathological self-consciousness, right?
Cam: Oh, fuck yeah.
Rich: It’s insane. Like, it makes me feel normal. It’s awesome.
Benny: Yeah, it’s insane.
Cam: And it’s great because we get some great stories about it from it. But, you wouldn’t want to be like that.
Rich: Yeah. I think the big undercurrent here throughout the book, from what I’ve read too, is kind of the narcissism of being that way. I think he’s talked about it in other books — a lot of self-loathing and self-criticism is basically narcissism in disguise, where you think that people are thinking about you all the time when they’re just not, because everyone’s got their own lives to lead, and they don’t care.
Rich: And if you’re too obsessed with how you’re perceived in the world, it starts to blur into narcissism.
The Depressed Person: sincere or a satire of self-obsessed narcissists?
Cam: Well, yeah, I think that’s the theme of The Depressed Person. As you know, and maybe we should just keep on that for a little bit.
Benny: Yeah, maybe we should just get there.
Rich: I might not have that much longer, so should we —
Cam: Well, why don’t we keep riffing off that comment there on The Depressed Person?
Benny: Yeah, just dive into it.
Cam: Because that seems to be the big takeaway here. I mean, I did wonder, like, one reading is maybe she’s not depressed and she’s just narcissistic — like, if there’s a difference. And she’s faking.
Rich: So can I just say my little spiel about this? Because I had this funny experience reading this where — thank you — well, now I feel self-conscious.
Cam: If you must talk about yourself, you can. Well, I feel good about myself for allowing you to.
Rich: Yes, that’s a good guy. Yeah, so I found this incredibly boring, like devastatingly boring, and I sort of tapped out. And I tried to read it again. I was trying to think about — I mean, I obviously thought it was autobiographical on account of how he topped himself, and I thought it just doesn’t feel — it was not how I imagined David Foster Wallace’s depression to be. I couldn’t imagine him having the gumption to be like constantly calling up friends, or even like any depressed person. It seems it doesn’t really accord with my perception of depression. So I was bamboozled by it, and then I read a bit of commentary on it, and I realised that it’s meant to be a satire of people who purport to be depressed but are kind of hiding their narcissism behind it. So yeah, he was making fun of this particular person. And then it all makes sense now. So he might have even been in denial about his own depression. He was, like, roasting depressed people in this story.
Cam: Well, one of my reactions is, yeah, this seems to be one of the few times where he’s not sympathetic to the character at all — and maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, “at all” — but it’s certainly they’re coming across as not a good person. And it’s like, holy shit, they’re like fucking depressed, like how could we not. And yeah, like maybe they’re not depressed and they’re narcissistic. I don’t think — I think that’s definitely one read. I think another read is just narcissism is not quite synonymous, but a huge part of depression. And they’re very symbiotic, or whatever. And maybe this person is more narcissistic than depressed. I mean, I’ve seen — and maybe they’re just narcissists — but I’ve seen this in some people, of wanting constant reassurance and using their sadness to sort of get that. And maybe it’s mainly narcissists, but these people are kind of as well. And it’s this tragic double bind of, like, this person’s no fun to be around, and that makes them depressed, and then they seek reassurance, and then you feel really sorry for them, and then they do something that reminds you of why no one likes hanging out with them in the first place, and they annoy you. I think there’s aspects of that.
Rich: So it is an accurate portrayal as well, right?
Cam: I imagine like his other portrayals of depression weren’t so focused on this, like with Kate Gompert in Infinite Jest.
Benny: But I think there is an element of depression where you can’t help — I mean, almost definitionally, being depressed has something to do with being caught inside your own head, right? And so in some sense — I mean, narcissism is a very loaded term, but just in the sense of being constantly trapped, thinking about how sad you are and how much the world sucks and wanting to escape that — that’s a state where you’re not thinking about other people, you’re thinking about yourself. So in that sense, I can see the bijection between narcissism and depression. It’s interesting, because I finished the story and I was also a bit at a loss about how to interpret it, so I also looked up some commentary on it. And I found some people claiming that it represented their depression extremely well — like at least one essay where the person was like, wow, it would — it was hard for me to put into words how I was feeling when I was depressed, and David Foster Wallace has done that. So now I’m not sure whether to think — was this person just narcissistic all along, or, like, what was going on here. And I mean, I do agree with the general critique that it’s rare to find a depressed person who’s constantly calling their friends every night. So in that sense I think that’s some evidence in favour of just pure narcissism. But certainly there’s an element of, you feel like maybe you want to talk to people but you’re afraid to bug them, and so you’re scared to, you know. And even then if you do find a little bit of space to talk to them, you kind of hedge a bit. You’re like, you know, if I’m ever being annoying just tell me to fuck off and that’s fine, you know. And you’re still unable to sort of open up in this way.
Cam: And you kind of mean that, but you kind of don’t.
Benny: Yeah, like you want them to tell you, of course, that they’re always there for you.
Cam: Yeah, like you don’t want them to actually tell you to fuck off. No, yeah, I definitely related to that, in a milder sense. I think there’s probably different types of depression, and there’s this kind of narcissistic type as well that’s demonstrated here. And it’s maybe just narcissism, but at the end of the day this person is probably suffering. So you can call it something else if you want, but there’s this non-sympathetic aspect to it where this person does not care that this other person that was suffering and just killed himself — they have no —
Benny: Which you find out in a footnote, right? It’s just kind of funny.
Cam: I know. And that’s kind of interesting. But I think, again, it’s kind of annoying with all these footnotes, but it’s kind of fitting for this person who’s narcissistic. And then it’s just like this footnote, like, by the way — yeah.
Benny: No, it is, yeah. Like the important details are actually shoved into the footnotes.
Cam: By the way, this person killed themselves.
Benny: And the rest of it is just about her psychology, yeah.
Rich: Yeah, I forgot to set up the context for my reading was the same as yours, Benny. That I’d heard about this story before, and I heard people say like, oh, if you want to understand what it’s like to be depressed, you have to read this story.
Cam: Was it about this story or about Wallace? Because he’s got another one called The Bad Thing, and then he’s got Infinite Jest, obviously.
Rich: So I’m possibly confusing it. But then, yeah, afterwards I read — it has its own Goodreads page, and people were like, oh, this is so apt. And so when I started reading it, I was like, oh, here we go, classic Wallace, he’s perfectly finding his way into someone’s head and sharing this subjective experience. And it seems like I buy it, and it seems pretty plausible, and it’s interesting, all the double binds and so on. And then it gets grotesque because it just goes on and on and it becomes so repetitive.
Cam: It’s a bit long.
Rich: And she becomes like a caricature.
Cam: But that does capture, I suppose.
Rich: And that’s when I sense it becoming, turning into a parody or a critique or something, something other than an accurate, perfectly accurate representation, where it’s like a bit barbed and maybe slightly mocking the subject — where he normally doesn’t do that. Or, I mean, not normally, but he doesn’t necessarily always do that. So in that sense, you know, people could read it differently, right? They could get so caught up by the accuracy of the depiction at first that they don’t notice when it starts actually kind of mocking the subject, or pointing out what a fucking awful person they are.
Cam: It is kind of sad in a sense, though. It’s kind of accurately pointed out how awful this person is, but it would be terrible — you wouldn’t want to be them. And Wallace himself obviously suffered with depression, so shit, even he’s just fucking calling it out.
is identifying with this character a massive self-own
Rich: Don’t you guys think that if you copped to identifying with this person, where you’re like, oh my God, this exactly explains my experience of depression — that that would be a massive self-own? Because it’s about this person who, like, their mom and dad argued about their orthodontistry or something. And then they go to this thing about releasing their inner child, and they’re fixated on it, and they harangue their friends, and like their therapist kills herself and they don’t even care. And don’t you feel like that would be embarrassing?
Cam: That’s part of it though as well. It’s like — there’s a very, I mean, if you want to be really honest, like there’s a really negative aspect, a narcissistic aspect, about depression. And like these days, you know, it’s this kind of, like, oh you know like —
Rich: I’ve never had depression, so I don’t really know, but I’ve been thinking of it as more like the Kate Gompert thing, where you just feel a crushing weight on your chest and you can’t do anything and nothing feels good. And I haven’t been thinking about it like this.
Cam: Well, I think this person potentially feels like that as well, but I think — I related to aspects of this. When I’m in down periods, I want to reach out to people, I know I’m bugging them, and I know I need that — it’s like reassurance — and I’m aware of that dynamic, and I made it clear. And like this realisation that no one’s actually thinking about you all that much, and you’re very alone, and then you try to bridge that by bothering people. I definitely related to that. But yeah, other descriptions focus more on this kind of, like, trapped cage of every atom in your body feeling sick.
Benny: Yeah, I don’t know. I would like to talk in person to someone who’s suffered pretty major depression and see how much they relate to this. I’d be curious. I mean, I do agree that when you just lay out the facts like that, it sounds like a major self-own. But then again, I mean, you know, depression is very complicated. Like, I don’t know — I don’t think anyone knows, you know, exactly where it came from or what the causes were. And so, yeah, it could be something as silly as your parents fighting over your orthodontistry when you’re a kid.
Rich: Do you guys think it could have been cut? Because, like, I honestly struggled so hard to read it. I found it so boring, because he makes all of these points right up top — including the bit about feeling bad about calling people, and you know, like all those kind of insights — he makes these points fairly quickly, and then it just goes on and on and on. And all I could think was, it’s meant to be some kind of metafictional device, where the form of the story itself is meant to be hammering home the relentless drudgery of being depressed, and wading through muck and mire. And I’m like, okay, I get it, but it’s not very fun to read. I feel like you could read the first few pages, just two or three pages, and then be like, okay, I got all the insights.
Cam: Yeah, you’re probably better off reading a little bit and then discussing about it. And you’ve kind of got that a lot for life. But yeah, I think you’re right. That’s the reason for, like, as Zadie Smith’s interpretation of this book — that you’re running the procedure of someone else’s mind. And this is this particular person’s mind, and that is all these recursions and repetitions and loops.
Cam: Anyway, actually what you just said then reminded me — one quick thing about The Depressed Person that was funny. It was also kind of poking fun at psychotherapy and therapists, and therapist talk — like, you know, there’s always, like, capitals — like “part of her support team”, or “support system”, and just shit like that. Doesn’t seem to help all that much.
Should everyone really go to therapy?
Benny: Have you guys been paying attention to Abigail Shrier’s criticisms of therapy? She’s been on the recent podcast circuit talking to people about her — like on Honestly — and it’s worth listening to. I think, even woke stuff aside, I think there is a general culture of, like, everyone should go to therapy, like you’re a healthy happy person, you should be going to therapy because everyone needs someone to talk to. That’s a good pushback against that sort of thinking. Freddie deBoer has a similar critique. He puts it in different ways, but he also makes this criticism. It’s not good to have a culture that just valorises therapy.
Cam: I’m definitely sympathetic to that. I feel a bit hard to remove from culture wars because part of it feels gendered, that it’s kind of a feminised way of dealing with things. It’s the classic — part of a toxic masculinity is just keeping your emotions and not being honest with them. But part of that’s good, being a bit stoic, but it can go too far, and therapy can be good as well. I think there’s nuance, but I’m definitely sympathetic to the over-reliance of it. You can see jokes now: if he doesn’t go to therapy, it’s not worth dating. Part of me feels like it should be the opposite. No, he’s going to therapy, but something’s wrong with him.
Rich: I feel like The Depressed Person is the proto version of this, right?
Benny: Yes.
Rich: Her problems all stem from what I would meanly describe as fake trauma — of constantly victimising herself over nothing.
Cam: Yeah, I think that’s right, but the irony of it all is that it causes genuine suffering and trauma. It’s very hard to get out of.
Rich: Yeah, no, but that’s what I’m saying. It’s like this argument that — I don’t know about Abigail, but maybe the argument that I’ve heard that I agree with is that the cruelest thing that you can do to people is convince them that they are perma-victims and continuously pick scabs and continuously search for reasons why you are oppressed, or why you ought to feel angry or aggrieved.
Cam: Yeah. There’s also this incentive thing with therapists, right, where you kind of keep coming back, and it could enable toxic behaviours. And everything’s so ideological now as well. Like, I got a friend who’s studying therapy. He left his old — fuck, the guy that came over to your house, Rich — Harry. He’s gone back to uni and is studying therapy. But even he’s just saying, the ideology there is pretty strong, and he’s not a culture-war warrior at all. Like, if anything, he’s a leftie, but he said it’s like — there’s fuck-all guys. And there’s a censorious thing where you’re not allowed to. He goes to a therapist because part of it is — I think it’s recommended you kind of go, to feel it out — and he brought it up to a therapist and she kind of disclosed to him that this is what she’s really worried about. You kind of can’t be honest about certain —
Rich: Have you guys ever been to therapy before?
Cam: Yeah, once. And then I was worried I was going to kill myself, so I never went back. I’m only half joking, man.
Rich: It’s the ultimate diss when your therapist kills himself.
Cam: Oh yeah.
Benny: Jesus.
Rich: At my lowest point, I found a therapist and emailed them and I was like, I need some help, can I make an appointment? Set up an appointment. And then the next day I felt marginally better, and I was like, nah, I don’t need this. I just cancelled it.
Cam: Yeah, I fucking wish I did that.
Rich: So I’ve still got a perfect record.
Rich: It’s real healthy behaviour. But honestly, maybe it is. I’m fine now. What if she’d kept me on the hook for ages?
Benny: Yeah, I found it totally useless, too — as just one data point. Like, I thought it was super —
Rich: Did you go for an extended period of time? We just had a couple of sessions.
Benny: I went throughout the summer because I was dealing with — I mean, it’s possible also that I was going for relationship stuff. Because the summer was rough for me — I was just trying to figure out if I wanted to stay in this long-term relationship. So it’s possible that just wasn’t the right issue to go to therapy for. Like, I don’t know.
Cam: That seems like a classic issue to go. I mean, here’s one of my problems though — and maybe it’s self-serving — but I feel like sometimes you’ve got, like, smart friends, moral friends. Like, you can get a lot of the value from them. Now, there’s this thing where they’re not professionals, so maybe you’re not getting everything you need and a professional do that. But like, I don’t know, the average therapist isn’t necessarily going to be like a super impressive person, right? Maybe you get something really good, but the average anybody’s not that impressive. And I mean, this was what good old Neon deals with, right? Where the kid’s smarter than the therapist and can always outmaneuver them. Then you kind of need to meet your match to get any value.
Rich: Yeah, or if you have any kind of introspective practice at all — like you’re capable of writing down your feelings in a journal or meditating or anything — then I’m not sure if you had a fairly conventional breakup and you have access to your own emotions and you can put names on them and stuff. I feel like you can kind of do that work yourself, and then it would be maybe hard for a therapist to add much value. As well as the fact that mostly it’s just fine to feel sad and angry and all the rest, and it will just eventually resolve over time because things mean-revert. And it’s only pathological if it doesn’t mean-revert, right?
Cam: That said, I think you could lead good ones that could really help and just help kind of coach you and see what your hangups are. Although it probably can help — the median case of going to therapy maybe doesn’t, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure research shows just exercising is really strong, and dancing is maybe up there. By the way, Benny, good job, keep it up.
Benny: Dude, I saw — are you pulling that from Twitter somewhere? I forgot where I saw that. But maybe a little suspicious, because the error bar — it was like dancing was an order — it was like so much more than anything else, I was like, yeah, also —
Cam: I know, it’s crazy. I mean, it’s just that motherfucking dancing, man.
Rich: Dancing, rock climbing, Popperian epistemology — the top three.
Benny: Yeah, so I’m the happiest motherfucker around. Also, I mean today — did you actually read how the study was done? Like, I’m assuming — did they actually make people go dance who were not feeling good, or did they just look at people who danced and say, how good do these people feel?
Cam: Yeah, well, I’m not sure if it was causal or associative.
Benny: Because, yeah, I mean, if it’s associative — like, who do you think’s dancing? Like, the people going out to dance are happy.
Cam: Dancers are happy. You just need to watch Lord of the Dance, and I get that. I did think of David Foster Wallace in that movie. He goes to that fucking Christian square dance and shit, and there’s just this moment of him — he’s kind of lost in it, feeling good.
Benny: Although wasn’t the consensus that he was actually in rehab? Like, in that — I was just his excuse, that the movie got it wrong, that the movie’s interpretation — like, he told David Lipsky that he was going. Oh, that’s too much. We don’t like PDAs around here.
Cam: PDA, bro.
Benny: For us — I’m single. You’re not allowed to do that until I also have a girlfriend.
Having a cute baby as cure for depression
Cam: End up with another baby.
Cam: That’s the cure to depression, man.
Rich: This is the cure of depression.
Cam: Wife and babies.
Rich: Little cute baby.
Benny: Honestly, I’m sure it is.
Rich: Sorry, I interrupted.
Benny: You’re living for someone else, right? I mean, that’s got to be the best cure for depression out there.
Rich: Well, it’s hard to be narcissistic when you’re —
Benny: Yeah, you’re going to look after this little human.
Rich: It’s very important that you keep someone else alive and happy. Do you agree?
Benny: Yeah.
Rich: Yeah, she agrees.
Cam: Sometimes I forget you have a baby, since we talk so long without your baby. And then when I see it, I’m like, oh man, your life is actually so much different than mine right now. Even when you come and stay, when you hang out, it feels like your life is similar, man.
Rich: Well, I forget as well. I forget. It’s nice, actually. Why was it — like, as she sleeps through the night, I’ll wake up in the morning and just be like, ah. And then I’ll be like, oh shit, I’ve —
Cam: Whip up the computer. Fucking hell, man. Do some writing.
Rich: No, I just remember that I have a child. It trips me out.
Cam: Yeah, that’s what I mean. Then you’re like, oh shit, the baby.
Rich: No, it’s not like, oh shit, I got a responsibility, like she probably needs to be fed or changed. I’m just like, oh my God, I procreated. I forgot about that. I spent my whole life not having a child. It takes a while to sink in. It takes at least eight months and counting.
Benny: I’m sure. Damn.
Cam: Do you quickly want to do Wagon? Or you got to go?
Benny: I gotta go. I mean, I didn’t read past The Depressed Person, so I don’t know what you guys are talking about, to be honest. Yeah, alright, see you boys.
Rich: See you later.
