Here and There is a short story written by David Foster Wallace. Released in 1987, it is the sixth short story in Wallace's collection Girl with Curious Hair and takes the form of a dialogue between a man named Bruce and his therapist.
Characters[]
- Bruce - an electrical engineer
- Bruce's therapist
- Bruce's ex-girlfriend
- Bruce's aunt and uncle
Plot[]
After briefly discussing how he kissed his ex-girlfriend's photo, an electrical engineer named Bruce and his therapist begin a session of fiction therapy while Bruce's ex-girlfriend talk about how the relationship actually ended. Bruce begins this by discussing a trip through Maine that he took but soon veers towards his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. According to both of them, Bruce interrupted a romantic evening because he had an idea "for a truly central piece on the application of state variable techniques to the analysis of small-signal linear control systems" which led Bruce to lock himself in his dad's office for two days. Once he emerged from this room, Bruce began working on an epic poem about "variable systems of information and energy-transfer" and became obsessed with it.
While Bruce's ex-girlfriend talks about how Bruce became more and more distant from her, Bruce begins talking about a trip to visit an aunt and uncle in Maine. While there, Bruce's aunt told him that the house's old stove was acting up. Bruce set about working on it but soon became overwhelmed and disoriented with it (as most of his electrical engineering work was theoretical). Bruce's fiction therapy ends with him standing in front of the stove holding wires contemplating exactly how to fix it with barely any idea of how to do it.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oblivion | David Foster Wallace | 2004 | A short story by the same author with similar themes |
| Works of David Foster Wallace | ||
|
Novels | ||