This is Water

David Foster Wallace's illuminating and frank appraisal of what it means to live with awareness, gloriously, expansively, given as a commencement address to students at Kenyon College in 2005. It is amongst much else an insight into the generous mind of this remarkable writer, offered in his typical, witty, profound and erudite style. How do we keep from going through life unconsciously, comfortably entrenched in habit? How do we remove ourselves from the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? This brief little treatise magically captures an insight into Wallace's self-reflection and the rigour he constantly applied to himself in order that he strive to become a better human being. Zadie Smith wrote that he was "A visionary, a craftsman, a comedian and as serious as it was possible to be without accidentally writing a religious text. He can do anything with a piece of prose, and it is a humbling experience to see him go to work on what has passed up till now as 'modern fiction'. He's so modern he's in a different time-space continuum from the rest of us. Goddamn him."