The old trope of never remembering a word spoken by your graduation ceremony's commencement speaker is so ingrained in educational culture, even commencement speakers themselves can't resist it.

J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, pulled that very joke when addressing Harvard's class of 2008. Al Gore did the same at Johns Hopkins in 2005. "Unless I've just tricked you into remembering, my bet is that 30 years from now you won't have any idea what was said here," the former vice president quipped.

The 2005 graduates of Gambier, Ohio's Kenyon College may or may not remember a word from author David Foster Wallace's address. It's safe to say, however, that many of them thought back to his parting message upon hearing last September that the writer had killed himself.

"It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms nearly always shoot themselves in ... the head," Wallace told graduates in his first and only graduation address. "And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger. And I submit that this is what the real, no-s--- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out."

Wallace then expounded on the harsh textures of daily life and its "default settings" -- the hassle of waiting in grocery lines prime among them -- as among the most difficult of challenges to overcome. Life's most crucial task, he offers, is learning to redirect those "default settings" to think about life and the world without getting so caught up in your own thoughts.

"It is about making it to 30, or maybe even 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head," he said toward the end of his speech. "I wish you more than luck."

That Wallace, who suffered from clinical depression for 20 years, used a noose instead of firearms to end his life at 46 seems a minor detail less than three years since his speech crashed headlong into his legacy. The address has since been discussed and argued on blogs and fan sites, considered by some as a stark reminder of how hard it is for even the most intelligent among us to take their own advice, or a dark example of the author's literary brand of hardened irony, or possibly a primer for survival given the current economic climate.

Fans who first read the speech free on the Internet three years ago charged Little, Brown and Co. with exploiting Wallace's literary corpse last month after it published the speech as This Is Water , a one-sentence-per-page book retailing for $14.99. Others defended the publisher's move, calling it a fitting summary of Wallace's wisdom in an ideal medium.

What hasn't been debated is the publisher's decision to publish the speech during graduation season -- around the time, that is, when most people shop for graduation presents.

Betsy Burton, owner of Salt Lake City's The King's English Bookshop, hedged her recommendation. She lauded Wallace for preparing graduates for the mundane in everyday life, as opposed to the clichéd glory so many speakers aim for. "It's a revelatory book, in a sad way," Burton said. "On the one hand, it's a wonderful thing to give to graduates, because it's the truth. On the other hand, it's not the whole truth."

Placed in the context of the author's depression and alongside his other work, including the novel Infinite Jest , Burton said her overall impression of Wallace is that of a misanthrope. "Depression is hard to deal with," Burton said. "But I don't think he ever met a person he liked -- unless he struggled them into his imagination, which he excelled at. You can tell after reading this that although he can tear away the brush to what's meaningful in life, there isn't that much there for him."

Marlene Bittner, a publicist with Little, Brown and Co., said Wallace's editor would not comment regarding the book. Wallace's last novel, The Pale King , will be published by the company in spring 2010.

Christopher Schonberger, editor of the New York-based Web site Gradspot, found himself overwhelmed by Wallace's speech. Launched two years ago, the site at www.gradspot.com made the compilation of "all-time best graduation speeches" one of its first projects. Schonberger said This Is Water 's ideal audience is not graduating students, but young professionals at least a year post-college.

"If you take some of those lines about suicide in retrospect, there are things about it that can be upsetting," Schonberger said. "But as a lens of perspective, this would be incredible for people to read at the one-year mark. People, especially young people, know there's a truth about life that you have to learn by yourself. To see someone distill it as artfully as this is pretty amazing."

Burton expects to see Wallace's speech reach cult status among college and 20-something readers. "People at that stage in their life love the dark stuff, and they believe in it," she said. "One of the great pleasures of growing older is realizing that life isn't always that dark."