literature

Learning how not to think

by Doug LeMoine on 31 July 2009

If you haven’t read David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement address at Kenyon, you should. It’s humble and real and warm, and truly great. It’s also very difficult to read. After his suicide, it’s impossible not to hear the echoes of Wallace’s internal conversation, the darkness and doubt and obsessive thoughts that he clearly struggled to [...]

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Haruki Murakami / The act of passing through

by Doug LeMoine on 30 September 2008

I’ve always loved Haruki Murakami. I share his tastes in music  —  Miles Davis, the Rolling Stones  —  and I’m easily taken in by his smoky bars, rainy nights, noir pacing, puzzling plot twists, and spare, reserved prose. His books are filled with cool, crisply imagined situations that are eerily layered with shadows and mystery, and that shift subtly [...]

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