This is water
2009
- conduct of life
- humanistic education
- philosophy
- education, humanistic
- nonfiction
- ethics
- baccalaureate addresses
- education, humanistic
The story
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 achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others. After his death, it became a treasured piece of writing reprinted in The Wall Street Journal and the London Times, commented on endlessly in blogs, and emailed from friend to friend.Writing with his one-of-a-kind blend of causal humor, exacting intellect, and practical philosophy, David Foster Wallace probes the challenges of daily living and offers advice that renews us with every reading.
What it’s like
Plain, unhurried prose on a page with generous margins: this is a short commencement address printed as a slim book, so the reading experience is a single sitting of spoken-sounding sentences that loop back on themselves with dry, conversational humor. The voice is warm and wry, the sentences long and self-correcting, as if a lecturer is pacing in front of you and pausing to check that you are still with him. Nothing is ornamented; the texture is the texture of thought working in real time, with the occasional sharp comic image cutting through the earnestness. The mood is quietly bracing rather than soothing, a clear-eyed tenderness that asks you to notice the ordinary grocery store, the commute, the traffic jam, and see them differently. It suits a rainy Sunday with a mug of tea, a slow reread on a train, or a sleepless late hour when you want company rather than plot. Intensity is minimal: no violence, no sexual content, no fear, just gentle, sustained challenge. Pacing is measured and circular, and the emotional arc moves from wry amusement toward a steadier, more compassionate attention to other people. It is for readers who want philosophy that feels like a friend talking honestly about how to live, and for anyone wanting to slow down and reconsider their daily habits.
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