As he put it: “You get to decide what you worship.” But before we get giddy with po-mo relativity, he reminds us that nine times out of ten we wor- ship ourselves. Out of this double bind, the exit signs are hard to see, but they’re there. When the praying mar- ried man puts his hands together, the gesture might be metaphysical, but he’s seeking a genuine human con- nection, which, in Dave’s stories, is as hard to find as any God. Love is the ultimate value, the absurd, impossible thing—the only thing worth praying for. The last line is wonderful. It reads: “And what if she joined him on the floor, just like this, clasped in suppli- cation: just this way.
— Zadie Smith at a memorial service for David Foster Wallace in October 2008.
