The Legacy of David Foster Wallace

Description

Considered by many to be the greatest writer of his generation, David Foster Wallace was at the height of his creative powers when he committed suicide in 2008. In a sweeping portrait of Wallace’s writing and thought and as a measure of his importance in literary history, The Legacy of David Foster Wallace gathers cutting-edge, field-defining scholarship by critics alongside remembrances by many of his writer friends, who include some of the world’s most influential authors. In this elegant volume, literary critics scrutinize the existing Wallace scholarship and at the same time pioneer new ways of understanding Wallace’s fiction and journalism. In critical essays exploring a variety of topics—including Wallace’s relationship to American literary history, his place in literary journalism, his complicated relationship to his postmodernist predecessors, the formal difficulties of his 1996 magnum opus Infinite Jest, his environmental imagination, and the “social life” of his fiction and nonfiction—contributors plumb sources as diverse as Amazon.com reader recommendations, professional book reviews, the 2009 Infinite Summer project, and the David Foster Wallace archive at the University of Texas’s Harry Ransom Center. The creative writers—including Don DeLillo, Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders, Rick Moody, Dave Eggers, and David Lipsky, and Wallace’s Little, Brown editor, Michael Pietsch—reflect on the person behind the volumes of fiction and nonfiction created during the author’s too-short life. All of the essays, critical and creative alike, are written in an accessible style that does not presume any background in Wallace criticism. Whether the reader is an expert in all things David Foster Wallace, a casual fan of his fiction and nonfiction, or completely new to Wallace, The Legacy of David Foster Wallace will reveal the power and innovation that defined his contribution to literary life and to self-understanding. This illuminating volume is destined to shape our understanding of Wallace, his writing, and his place in history. Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Samuel Cohen and Lee Konstantinou - Introduction: Zoologists, Elephants, and Editors......Page 12 Part 1: History......Page 28 Paul Giles - All Swallowed Up: David Foster Wallace and American Literature......Page 30 Don DeLillo - Informal Remarks from the David Foster Wallace Memorial Service in New York on October 23, 2008......Page 50 Josh Roiland - Getting Away from It All: The Literary Journalism of David Foster Wallace and Nietzsche’s Concept of Oblivion......Page 52 George Saunders - Informal Remarks from the David Foster Wallace Memorial Service in New York on October 23, 2008......Page 82 Part 2: Aesthetics......Page 84 Samuel Cohen - To Wish to Try to Sing to the Next Generation: Infinite Jest’s History......Page 86 Rick Moody - Tribute Written for Wallace Family Memorial Book, 2008......Page 107 Lee Konstantinou - No Bull: David Foster Wallace and Postironic Belief......Page 110 David Lipsky - An Interview with David Foster Wallace......Page 140 Heather Houser - Infinite Jest’s Environmental Case for Disgust......Page 145 Dave Eggers - Foreword to Tenth Anniversary Edition of Infinite Jest......Page 170 Part 3: Community......Page 176 Ed Finn - Becoming Yourself: The Afterlife of Reception......Page 178 Jonathan Franzen Informal Remarks from the David Foster Wallace Memorial Service in New York on October 23, 2008......Page 204 Kathleen Fitzpatrick Infinite Summer:Reading, Empathy, and the Social Network......Page 209 Michael Pietsch and Rick Moody On Editing David Foster Wallace: An Interview......Page 235 Ira B. Nadel - Consider the Footnote......Page 245 Molly Schwartzburg - Conclusion: Observations on the Archive at the Harry Ransom Center......Page 268 Notes on Contributors......Page 288 Permissions......Page 292 Index......Page 294