This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

by David Foster Wallace

Book Overview

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,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316068225
• ISBN13: 9780316068222
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.8" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

It's more than just a book with a speech in it...

All, you are missing the point of the book with only one line per page. You are supposed to interact with it and write your own thoughts down. It's a tool as well as a speech.

Beautiful book

Honestly, I couldn't disagree more with the negative posts. I think this brief, beautiful looking book is a wonderful tribute to David Foster Wallace's brilliant mind. This speech was spread throughout the internet, yes. But I, for one, think this is piece of writing is something worth collecting and pondering. And publishing it in a book form gives it the stature it deserves. That may sound old-fashioned, but even in the internet age, that's still the role of a book publisher. And I am happy to have this on my shelf to be able to hold onto it for years to come.

Exactly what I was expecting

Before buying this book I knew exactly what it was: David Foster Wallace's 2005 Kenyon Commencement speech. I actually read the speech online before I had read any of his books (now I've read them all save for Everything and More). and was hoping they would publish, which they did, and I think they did a very good job. I've recommended the speech to some of my friends and now I'll be able to do one better and give it to them as a gift. It seems silly to give this book a 1 star. Rate on content, not on something unknowable like the motivation of the publishers.

Graduation gift

The point of packaging DFW's commencement address (freely available on the web, yes) is to serve as a graduation gift, not as a bogus DFW-oeuvre expander. Outraged that there's only one sentence per page? How many sentences do you think were in the graduation gift bestseller of 20 years ago, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" by Dr Seuss? Granted, no pictures here to compell sub-literate, drug-addled, and sex-obsessed post-adolescents it's aimed at to turn the page, but still. . . A fine exploration, in compact form, of questions every adult leading Thoreau's life of quiet desperation should/needs to ask him/herself. And it's funny, compassionate, loving, and--knowing now what was to become of Wallace--fundamentally very serious. A beautiful work.

Slow Down

My initial reaction was the same as the other reviews, huge rip off. But what the editors have done changes for the better the experience of reading what I already thought was an amazing speech. Most of us read the speech on the internet , which because of the medium is always cursory. The book makes us slow down and reflect on the message, and it's not trite or trivial or obvious (except in the sense that any observation that is clearly true seems trite). It's ten bucks very well spent- I bought a bunch of copies for gifts.