Rereading this for the first time in 20 odd years, I think what we lost with the death of David Foster Wallace is the loss of the friendship between David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. It is easy to see the effect this loss has had on Franzen, but it is impossible to see the effect it had on Wallace, we can only assume. Society did not lose a great author, it lost a great friendship.
I keep trying to get through this but I can't do it, it makes the loss too difficult to overcome.