The Unspeakable Failures of David Foster Wallace - Couverture souple

Hayes-Brady, Clare

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1501335847 ISBN 13 : 9781501335846

Editeur : Bloomsbury Academic, 2017

Synopsis

This book examines the writing of David Foster Wallace, hailed as the voice of a generation on his death. Critics have identified horror of solipsism, obsession with sincerity and a corresponding ambivalence regarding postmodern irony, and detailed attention to contemporary culture as the central elements of Wallace's writing. Clare Hayes-Brady draws on the evolving discourses of Wallace studies, focusing on the unifying anti-teleology of his writing, arguing that that position is a fundamentally political response to the condition of neo-liberal America.

She argues that Wallace's work is most unified by its resistance to closure, which pervades the structural, narrative and stylistic elements of his writing. Taking a broadly thematic approach to the numerous types of 'failure', or lack of completion, visible throughout his work, the book offers a framework within which to read Wallace's work as a coherent whole, rather than split along the lines of fiction versus non-fiction, or pre- and post-Infinite Jest, two critical positions that have become dominant over the last five years. While demonstrating the centrality of 'failure', the book also explores Wallace's approach to sincere communication as a recurring response to what he saw as the inane, self-absorbed commodification of language and society, along with less explored themes such as gender, naming and heroism.

Situating Wallace as both a product of his time and an artist sui generis, Hayes-Brady details his abiding interest in philosophy, language and the struggle for an authentic self in late-twentieth-century America.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Clare Hayes-Brady is Lecturer in American Literature at University College Dublin, Ireland. Her primary research is in contemporary American fiction and philosophy. Other research interest include literature and film; transatlantic cultural heritage; gender and voice (both normative and queer); the history of burlesque; adolescence in contemporary fiction; and dystopian narrative.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Bloomsbury Academic
• Date d'édition: 2017
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1501335847
• ISBN 13: 9781501335846
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 234
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
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