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David Foster Wallace

This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life Hardcover – April 14, 2009

by David Foster Wallace (Author)

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In this rare peak into the personal life of the author of numerous bestselling novels, gain an understanding of David Foster Wallace and how he became the man that he was.

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.

Print length

137 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Little, Brown and Company
Publication date

April 14, 2009
Dimensions

4.75 x 0.75 x 6.75 inches
ISBN-10

0316068225
ISBN-13

978-0316068222
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"David Foster Wallace's unbelievable graduation speech...will inspire you."―Daily Candy

"We read Wallace because he forces us to think. He makes us consider what's beneath us and around us--like water."―Alicia J. Rouverol, The Christian Science Monitor

"Think of it as The Last Lecture for intellectuals."―Time

"None of the cloudlessly sane and true things he had to say about life in 2005 are any less sane or true today...[This is Water] reminds us of [Wallace's] strength and goodness and decency--the parts of him the terrible master [the mind] could never defeat, and never will."―Tom Bissel, New York Times Book Review

"Striking...is [Wallace's] evocative insight and humor."―Mark Follman, Mother Jones

About the Author

David Foster Wallace was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1962 and raised in Illinois, where he was a regionally ranked junior tennis player. He received bachelor of arts degrees in philosophy and English from Amherst College and wrote what would become his first novel, The Broom of the System, as his senior English thesis. He received a masters of fine arts from University of Arizona in 1987 and briefly pursued graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University. His second novel, Infinite Jest, was published in 1996.

Wallace taught creative writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College, and published the story collections Girl with Curious Hair, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Oblivion, the essay collections A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and Consider the Lobster. He was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Whiting Writers' Award, and was appointed to the Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. He died in 2008. His last novel, The Pale King, was published in 2011.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (April 14, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 137 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316068225
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316068222
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.75 x 0.75 x 6.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #14,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #50 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
- #556 in Personal Transformation Self-Help
- #635 in Motivational Self-Help (Books)

Customer Reviews:
1,222 ratings

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David Foster Wallace

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David Foster Wallace wrote the acclaimed novels Infinite Jest and The Broom of the System and the story collections Oblivion, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and Girl With Curious Hair. His nonfiction includes the essay collections Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and the full-length work Everything and More. He died in 2008.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

1,222 global ratings

5 star		81%
4 star		10%
3 star		5%
2 star		2%
1 star		3%

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saadatorama

Excellent essay, very giftable

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 20, 2023

Verified Purchase

This DFW essay was very meaningful when shared with me after my mom’s passing. I keep this around as a reminder this is water.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 24, 2022

Verified Purchase

And I hate using those words but they are the only ones that come to mind. I wish I could have been there to hear the speech live, to know him when he was alive… but reading this… the impact will continue on.

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Peter Aldino

Important answer to a vital life question

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 15, 2022

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A short read of a big idea / reminder of what we should be looking at in ourselves every day, every moment. Meditate on this!

2 people found this helpful

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Aleister Browney

These Are Words To Live By

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 14, 2019

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I honestly do not even know where to begin in describing this book. Fosters concise insights into the human condition are a revelation. I've purchased this book several times as a gift for friends, family, and co-workers because of my belief in the usefulness of this book. That's a funny way to describe a book isn't it? Useful. Certainly books can expand the mind and offer new ways of thinking about things, but often the enlightenment they offer is not practical. Plato's Republic is bound to give you plenty to think about and illuminate your understanding the human condition, but how can you truly put those lessons to use in the modern era? This is Water is a guide to life. Foster offers scenarios we are all familiar with and our reactions to them. He then proposes an alternate approach to these mundane activities that can relieve the stress and tension they so often create. My two takeaways from this book would be mindfulness and humility. Mindfulness in understanding that you are not alone in how you feel and that unknown circumstances you could sympathize with may be at factor in your interaction with others. Humility in that you do not know everything and that you are not the center of the universe. The ideas in This is Water are bound to be so obvious that you might dismiss it altogether, but that's the point. Foster explains how often it's the things right in front of us that we take for granted and the solution is putting that understanding in the forefront of our thoughts more often. William S. Burroughs famously said "The job of the artist is to show you what you already know." And in my opinion Foster satisfies that function.

26 people found this helpful

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WayneChicago

Fragmented scraps from an author that demanded his readers digest the whole hog.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

A moving 22-minute speech when delivered by David, the audio track readily available on your favorite online video channel.

A well-documented and easily Google-able text, entire speech, on the internet.

And now, for those that require hardcover or digital books to slow down their reading, to create "atmosphere" in order to better appreciate the words of Mr. Wallace, there is this book, with one or two lines per page, 140+ pages, hardbound, for your pleasure. Like reading a fortune cookie, one might read a page a day to savor the zeal of the graduation speech. Conversely, one could sit and read the entire book in less than the time it took David to say it, aloud, at Kenyon College. The extremes are allowed by this book.

I pity those that say they enjoy the speech broken into a few words per page to allow them to "slow down" and "appreciate the words". They must be ones to take ten dollars each day out of an ATM machine to control their spending. Perhaps these same people eat with a miniature fork to better enjoy food.

For the rest of us, who have self-control, the question is not of expense (this book is, unquestionably, the most expensive method for taking in this speech--the others are free); not of efficiency (the work being so short, we all have the time); not of pretty, bound baubles with eventually yellowing pages, broken-glue bindings and housing silverfish while aging on a sagging bookshelf (the bibliomaniacs among us will cringe); but of how best to take in the message. How best to connect with the author's intent.

Do newsroom soundbites reflect the context of a Presidential speech? Would Twitter's 140-character tweets do justice to the Gettysburg Address? Sadly, the answer is that the true context of words is held in the sentences in which they are homed; those sentences next dwell in paragraphs; paragraphs build themes.

And the overall message is lost in shattering a flowing speech into publisher-determined, bite-sized "nibbles", like smashed M&Ms that will leave one licking their fingers to get the last crumbs of chocolate from the bottom of the candy dish.

David Wallace, whether in Jest, King, Broom, or any of his essays and shorts, is best kept whole--the way he demanded it. The enforcer, Mr. Wallace was, of leaving things as he intended them. Only with a fight would he cut pages, re-work styles, or even change punctuation; the fragmentation of a monumental speech would be disallowed by the author. This is evident in any profile of Mr. Wallace, and in particular the DT Max biography (which is money much better spent if one wishes to "know" this author) Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace

To hear David's words, from his mouth, with his intonation and inflections, is priceless. Fortunately, that speech is archived elsewhere, as ubiquitous as butterflies in the springtime. And, best of all, it's free.

15 people found this helpful

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Ashley Cerafice

Hugh Jackman buys this book for people

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 31, 2022

Verified Purchase

I bought this book for my husbands birthday after hearing on a podcast that Hugh Jackman buys it for people because it’s a quick, easy, profound read. My husband loves it and I feel very clever.

4 people found this helpful

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Xue Ying Gan

Inspiring Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 12, 2022

Verified Purchase

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: 'This is water.

One person found this helpful

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Brookd.

Great thoughts, waste of paper

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

What a waste of paper and space this book is. Not for what is written in it - DFW is great as always, but this book just has one sentence written on each page. So much blank space, so much wasted paper. Save yourself some money and just download the video or text of this speech. This should be included in another book of his essays, not sold as its own book. There is barely enough here to fill a chapter, let alone a book.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Richard Sharpe

Short but brilliant.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 14, 2017

Verified Purchase

I'm in the process of reading everything the man wrote in his tragically curtailed life. This essay is thought provoking and, as ever, brilliantly written and, to use one of many words Ihabe learned from the man himself, slightly pleonastic.
Go on, look it up.

3 people found this helpful

Scotty13

Poetry as Prose

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 6, 2012

Verified Purchase

You will be able to read this little book in an hour or two, but such is its power, its message will hang around in your mind for weeks, months or maybe longer. Beautiful and haunting. A wise author who has left a gem of a book for the curious reader to dip into, again and again.

7 people found this helpful

Mr. J. W. Smith

Loved this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 29, 2019

Verified Purchase

Great and profound prose on living a good life in the 21st Century really enjoyed it very much thank yo7

M

This is water

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 25, 2016

Verified Purchase

Best commencement speech ever. Short, simple yet the most profound advice one could give. Very much enjoyed this book. It's short too so doesn't take much time. I definitely recommend it.

2 people found this helpful

goya

Great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 9, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great little book which can be easily lifted for another read time and again.

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