That my anguish and sadness is so great after hearing of the death of David Foster Wallace should indicate the effect his writing has on a reader. His books become obsession; one story of his reveals more innovation and intelligence than the last five years’ worth (maybe even ten years’ worth) of Booker winners and this alone has led me to an addiction to his writing. His love of footnotes becomes your love of footnotes, his complex and delightful stories changing the way you look at fiction. He is impossible to label: did he write meta-fiction (by his own admission, probably, but it’s more complex than that)? Was he a fiction writer or an essayist (his essays read like the best short stories, and vice-versa)? One thing is certain: that he was the most exciting, original and daring writer of the last 20 years. Easily and irrefutably.

He wrote like a scientist, with an exact knowledge of the correct structure of language and sentences, with a natural talent for story and with a perfect use of footnotes and endnotes. His masterpiece, Infinite Jest, has 981 pages of narrative and another 100 of ‘Notes and Errata’. His stories also have many footnotes, his footnotes even have footnotes, but there is no compromise on plot or story. His scientific tendencies are integral to the job at hand – that of telling stories.

David Foster Wallace is the sort of author that you can’t stop recommending to friends. Only last week I was urging someone to read his excellent collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (a review of which can be found here). In light of this I urge anyone reading this to pick up one of his books, you will not be disappointed.

It’s not my place to talk about David Foster Wallace’s death, or postulate as to what happened and why, but one thing is for sure: despite his almost-perfect oevre, there was always a slight hint that something even better was coming along next. This is now gone, and the world of literature has become altogether less innovative, less exciting and much, much smaller.