Two ways of looking at a cruise ship

Most of the work I've read by David Foster Wallace, who killed himself last week, has been his journalism and nonfiction. I never read his fiction, but of course was quite aware of his singular place in American arts and letters, especially in the 1990s. I've had friends whose opinions I respect both slam and praise him, and I think that in itself is a sort of accomplishment. But there is one thing about him that has never set well with me. In one of my magazine writing classes at Columbia, we were assigned to read Wallace's impressive January 1996 folio "Shipping Out," a long essay about the cruise ship industry and the nature of vacation, relaxation and modern American life. It was a big hit in class, as it should be because it is really very insightful and well-written. At the same time, in another class, we read some James Agee, and I was impressed enough to check out of Butler Library a volume of his collected journalism pieces. Included was a feature for Fortune magazine from September 1937 entitled "Havana Cruise," a long essay about the then-fledgling cruise industry. In subject matter and approach, these two articles are very very similar. I've never been able to square how a writer as well-read and knowledgeable -- not to mention as obsessively enamored with footnotes of all shapes and sizes -- failed to include at least a passing mention of Agee's work. I'm not suggesting there is any wrongdoing of any sort, I just can't figure it out. That said, the two articles are really very interesting in presenting what I would call the modernist and postmodernist approach to narrative journalism. With a caveat that I haven't really sat down and read through them in nearly ten years, I remember Agee's story is earnest, serious, obsessed with "breaking news" and the idea of the new. Wallace's is a bit more fun, full of jokes and asides, and seems more interested in hashing out ideas and experiences in an effort to connect seemingly random and inconsequential themes into some kind of bigger coherence. What they both share is a bit of self-indulgence (Agee's sometimes pretentious verbiage [too much Joyce]; Wallace's distractions into pop culture ephemera and jumping into rabbit-holes of his own whim) and an overwhelming sense of dread (especially well done in Agee's piece. He had a much better sense of drama). Both are excellent reads.