Long and anguished monologue at a dinner party from a depressed businessman from the city who thinks his wife is taking too many sleeping pills, anxiolytics, tranquillizers, seratonin-enhancers. He isn’t taking any medication on principle and prides himself on toughing out his gloomy moods. He used to worry that his wife ate too much and insisted she go to Weight Watchers. Then he thought she drank too much, locked away the liquor and complained to the family doctor and minister, tried to shame her into not drinking. After that he worried in case she was having a affair with the family doctor and insisted they find a new GP. Now he thinks the new GP is giving her far too many pills. He wants to send her to a psychiatrist (his golfing buddy) and have her meds reduced and her problems sorted out. He himself has no problems, as far as he knows.
None of us at the dinner party said anything. What could we say? One guest murmured something about wanting to offer the problem wife a lifelong holiday from her controlling husband, but nobody dared laugh.
Windy and cold weekend weather, tried to write some fiction and the library story dried up like a stony riverbed. Is resurrection possible? Some stories just shrivel up and there is nothing to be done. Tried to edit another chapter of non-fiction writing and then gave up and lay on the sofa reading The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht, a magnificent and strange narrative. Dogs snoring all around, a pot of tea at hand.
I don’t know if I dislike editing myself more than I dislike being edited. Here’s the much-missed David Foster Wallace ordering Harper’s NOT to edit his copy:
The deal is this. You’re welcome to this for READINGS if you wish. What I’d ask is that you (or Ms. Rosenbush, whom I respect but fear) not copyedit this like a freshman essay. Idiosyncracies of ital, punctuation, and syntax (“stuff,” “lightbulb” as one word, “i.e.”/”e.g.” without commas after, the colon 4 words after ellipses at the end, etc.) need to be stetted. (A big reason for this is that I want to preserve an oralish, out-loud feel to the remarks so as to protect me from people’s ire at stuff that isn’t expanded on more; for you, the big reason is that I’m not especially psyched to have this run at all, much less to take a blue-skyed 75-degree afternoon futzing with it to bring it into line with your specs, and you should feel obliged and borderline guilty, and I will find a way to harm you or cause you suffering* if you fuck with the mechanics of this piece.)
Love that last line.
Ack – what an uncomfortable dinner party that must have been! Thank you, btw, for the excellent link to the vegetarian recipes.
You’re right — it was an awful evening. But sometimes people arrive at dinner and can’t stop themselves from unburdening and maybe it helped him.
OK, I loved the quote at the bottom because it gives me some validation that sometimes we must write like we talk, and of course I love threats of any kind that have the word fuck as punctuation in it.
You might not want to invite me to dinner because I can assure you I would have said something.
I wish you had been there and had used the word ‘fuck’. I bit my lip for too long and by the time I was ready to say something useful, helpful, witty, pissed-off, amusing etc, we were all saying goodnight.
I loved reading DFW and I am so sad that he is gone. He described the urge to suicide the best in Infinite Jest. I guess I should have known there was a reason he could describe it so well.
I think I would have said something to that guy too. Where was his wife? Oh, I hope she can get the gumption to leave him, but probably not likely.
Much of DFW is so sad, it breaks my heart to read him.
His wife was looking after her sick mother, had no idea what her hubby was telling a crowd of strangers. I hope she gets him to go and see someone to address his control issues but I doubt he will.
Yes. That last line really tied the whole comment all together.
Nothing like an unveiled threat to a potential publisher!
Thanks for your comment today on my blog — I’m here visiting and look forward to reading more. As for Zane Grey novels — how weird that they were about cattlemen fighting dairy farmers! A couple who lived in the house (and inherited it from their family) were the ones who taught the cheese portion of the day!
I would try hard to remember Tradition Ten when I am at dinner parties. But most often, I do open my mouth and express my opinion. And sometimes it is acerbic truth. DFW was one of a kind. I wish that he had stuck around longer.