This morning a student in Literary Journalism and American Belief sent along an essay at the Ploughshares blog that seems to bring together my two fall classes under one roof. In “The Bricklayer, the Atheist, and David Foster Wallace,” Mark Hengstler goes a long way summarizing a couple of parable-like stories the Wallace tells in over the course of his work: one about a bricklayer from Infinite Jest, an other about an atheist and a believer drinking together in the Alaskan wilderness, which is found in Wallace’s Kenyon commencement address, known these days as “This is Water.”

As I say above, the post is heavy on summary and light on argument, but I think it’s worth a read.