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Defending Literary Culture in the Fiction of David Foster

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Defending Literary Culture in the Fiction of David Foster NOVEL AFFIRMATIONS: DEFENDING LITERARY CULTURE IN THE FICTION OF DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, JONATHAN FRANZEN, AND RICHARD POWERS A Dissertation by MICHAEL LITTLE Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2004 Major Subject: English NOVEL AFFIRMATIONS: DEFENDING LITERARY CULTURE IN THE FICTION OF DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, JONATHAN FRANZEN, AND RICHARD POWERS A Dissertation by MICHAEL LITTLE Submitted to Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved as to style and content by: David McWhirter Mary Ann O’Farrell (Chair of Committee) (Member) Sally Robinson Stephen Daniel (Member) (Member) Paul Parrish (Head of Department) May 2004 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Novel Affirmations: Defending Literary Culture in the Fiction of David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, and Richard Powers. (May 2004) Michael Little, B.A., University of Houston; M.A., University of Houston Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. David McWhirter This dissertation studies the fictional and non-fictional responses of David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, and Richard Powers to their felt anxieties about the vitality of literature in contemporary culture. The intangible nature of literature’s social value marks the literary as an uneasy, contested, and defensive cultural site. At the same time, the significance of any given cultural artifact or medium, such as television, film, radio, or fiction, is in a continual state of flux. Within that broad context I examine some of the cultural institutions competing with literature for public attention, as well as some of the cultural developments impacting the availability of public attention for literary concerns. With Wallace, I study his efforts in fiction and essays to establish an anti-ironic mode of literary rebellion, in opposition to the culturally pervasive tone of self-protective irony modeled by television. Franzen opens discussion about the transience of cultural authority, a situation in which the imprimatur of the academy, for instance, confers a cultural significance different in kind but not degree from the imprimatur of a popular televised book club. My study of Franzen in particular demonstrates the impact of iv proliferating sites of cultural authority, addressing the emergence of middlebrow culture and audiences from contested space to authoritative cultural arbiter. The chapter on Franzen also examines the increasing role of corporate interests in the production of cultural artifacts with an eye toward their financial viability more than their cultural impact. And finally, my study of Powers focuses on the animosity between the sciences and the humanities. Powers produces fiction that serves as an indispensable tool for communicating between disparate and otherwise isolated disciplines, and for helping those specialized fields synthesize their information with others. v DEDICATION For Laine, Kyra, and Flynn, and for my mother, who knew before I ever started that I would do this. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the result of years of work and support by a huge number of people. Thanks first of all must go to my committee chair, David McWhirter, who agreed to support this work even though it falls outside the scope of his primary field. His wide-ranging knowledge, his critical readings of my work, and his professional dedication have been valuable beyond calculation and will always be the standard against which I measure my work and my bearing. Thanks also to committee member Mary Ann O’Farrell, whose comments on my work were equally detailed, thoughtful, and helpful, and, in one particular instance, well above and beyond what I could reasonably have asked of her. Thanks as well to committee members Sally Robinson, for agreeing to join the committee long after the project was underway, and to Stephen Daniel, particularly for his engaged participation during my defense. Other faculty members who have been morally, emotionally, and intellectually encouraging, as well as just good friends, are Valerie Balester, Joanna Gibson, Jim Harner, Chris Holcomb, Jimmie Killingsworth, and Jackie Palmer. I also owe huge debts of gratitude and support to my friends who have led the way and who have supported me and waited for me to catch up. Diana Ashe, Patricia Brooke, Maria Papanikolaou, and Ellen Weber remind me regularly that I’ve accomplished considerably more than I think I have and that I have proven myself considerably more than I think I have. They have been my most dedicated boosters, and my life is richer because of them. Les Harrison and Denise Grothues have always vii listened to my self-doubts and anxieties without ever failing to find the right perspective to help me see my way out. Thanks to these and others who have read and commented on my work, including Amy McWilliams, Tom Chapman, Jan Little, and Molly McBride. My co-workers have been supportive all along and I thank all of them for their repeated words of encouragement. I owe thanks to my supervisors and employers for their encouragement and also for their willingness to accommodate the varying and flexible schedule I requested in order to finish: Joy Miller, Dr. Thomas Sturtevant, Mike Wisby, Les Bunte, Sue Shahan, Dr. Arturo Alonzo, Bill May, and Lanny Smith have all, one way or another, made sure that I had the time I needed to do this work. Special thanks goes to Angela Thompson for bearing the brunt of my absence. Thanks, awe, and love go at last to my family. To my wife Laine, whose firm and unwavering support let me know always that I would finish, and as year led on to year she alone saved me from thinking I might not be able to complete this work. To my daughter Kyra, whose love, compassion, thoughtfulness, and intelligence are a never- ending source of wonder, and to my daughter Flynn, whose smile and full-body laugh are infectious and a regular reminder of what’s really important. Thanks also to my brother, Matt, and to my father, who has made me remember that completing this work is, in fact, the achievement I originally thought it was. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................. iii DEDICATION .......................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................... viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION................................................................................... 1 II “YOU ARE LOVED”: DAVID FOSTER WALLACE’S RESPONSE TO TELEVISUAL IRONY .................................................................... 21 Wallace’s Fictional Critiques of an Ironic Worldview .................. 28 Wallace on Television and Irony in Contemporary Mass Culture............................................................................................ 39 The Exhaustion of Metafiction....................................................... 68 Infinite Jest and Radical Realism................................................... 83 III “ANOTHER 20 YEARS OF BORING LITERARY NOVELS AND THE THING'S DEAD”: JONATHAN FRANZEN, OPRAH WINFREY, AND THE INSTABILITY OF CULTURAL AUTHORITY .......................... 92 Oprah’s Book Club and Populist Cultural Authority..................... 97 The Corrections and Populist Cultural Authority .......................... 119 IV “IT’S ABOUT TEACHING A HUMAN TO TELL”: SCIENCE AND THE HUMANITIES IN THE FICTION OF RICHARD POWERS ...... 149 Powers and the Mutual Distrust of the Sciences and the Humanities ..................................................................................... 151 Consilience in Galatea 2.2............................................................. 167 V CONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 194 WORKS CITED........................................................................................................ 196 VITA ......................................................................................................................... 207 1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This dissertation is a study of three contemporary novelists who have demonstrated in their fiction and non-fiction a sharply felt anxiety about the cultural status of literature, and who have argued in their fiction and non-fiction for the relevance of literature in contemporary cultural life. I rely throughout on the critical work of my primary authors and on secondary criticism that argues that literature maintains a precarious cultural significance, and my interests here are two-fold: to explore some of the cultural institutions and developments that compete with literature for public attention, and to examine the fictional and non-fictional responses to those institutions and developments in the works of David Foster Wallace, Richard Powers, and Jonathan Franzen. My rationale for choosing these authors in particular derives from the fact that each of them addresses the contemporary cultural status of the novel in essays, interviews, and the fiction itself. Wallace, for example, takes the position that television’s relentlessly ironic tone has become the tone of the culture at large, essentially eliminating irony from the author’s
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