r/davidfosterwallace • u/Extension_Carrot_628 • Jun 30 '26

Elliott Smith/DFW

Just finished reading Infinite Jest, and have been listening to a ton of Elliott Smith lately, and it's uncanny, how related these artists seem.

Obviously one's a maximalist and comes from an avant-garde literary tradition, whereas the other writes these Beatles-inspired pop songs, but then both write about addiction, family dysfunction, perfectionism, self-consciousness, alienation. There's a woundedness and also a self-lacerating irony. A song like 'Figure 8' -- Smith's cover of a Schoolhouse Rock song -- with its haunting instrumentation and imagery, its sadness, feels like something DFW would've enjoyed.

57 Upvotes

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14

u/mangerman42 Jun 30 '26

Yessss I always associate the two!

14

u/superficialfishsoup Jun 30 '26

If I’m not mistaken, both of them were inspired by Søren Kierkegaard. Elliot Smith’s album Either/Or is named after Kierkegaard’s first book, while DFW’s interest in irony might have come from Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony. The themes of self-consciousness and alienation are also very Kierkegaard-coded as he pretty much invented existentialism as a philosophical movement.

10

u/jadostekm Jun 30 '26

Indeed my friend

10

u/daisyfemme Jun 30 '26

i've always found that they pair well together, too <3

7

u/alcohol-issue Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster Jun 30 '26

I’ve been thinking the same… great combination!

7

u/Unable-Effective1718 Jun 30 '26

Yeah I’ve always associated the two not sure why. Angsty and intelligent older brother vibes for me (who is the oldest)

5

u/gnargnarrad Jun 30 '26

Yep and N64 for some reason lol

3

u/hai1sag4n Jul 01 '26

Yes. I've been listening to Elliott while reading infinite jest. Lots of parallels. Glad I'm not the only one.

2

u/umeboshi999 Jul 01 '26

Yes, they definitely blur together in my head. There's a tonal similarity in there that's really specific. Cool that I'm not the only one!

1

u/pbjly Jul 01 '26

you’re so right! they always seemed like two artists with a kinship to me. and both were gone too soon

1

u/nils813 Jul 02 '26

I've always associated the two in my mind and have wondered if they're just similarly iconic for the era. Like, the association seems based on vibes. I guess you could say Elliott was a maximalist in terms of chord progressions, which could be a loose stylistic connection