- i - The work of David Foster Wallace and post-postmodernism Charles Reginald Nixon Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of English September 2013 - ii - - iii - The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2013 The University of Leeds and Charles Reginald Nixon The right of Charles Reginald Nixon to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. - iv - - v - Acknowledgements (With apologies to anyone I have failed to name): Many thanks to Hamilton Carroll for guiding this thesis from its earliest stages. Anything good here has been encouraged into existence by him, anything bad is the result of my stubborn refusal to listen to his advice. Thanks, too, to Andrew Warnes for additional guidance and help along the way, and to the many friends and colleagues at the University of Leeds and beyond who have provided assistance, advice and encouragement. Stephen Burn, in particular, and the large and growing number of fellow Wallace scholars I have met around the world have contributed much to this work's intellectual value; our conversations have been amongst my most treasured, from a scholarly perspective and just because they have been so enjoyable. I would like to thank the staff and colleagues at the Harry Ransom Center in the University of Texas, Austin for their kindness and diligence as I spent a month in their company, reading Wallace’s papers. The AHRC funded this thesis, without which I would have neither started nor finished this project; thanks to them and to those who helped me to receive their award. Mum and Dad, as such great people will, have been massively supportive, so thanks to them and the rest of the clan in Bolton and beyond. Kate Wicker has watched this project grow to absorb so much of my time and attention – thank you for sticking with me anyway for so very, very long – and now Laurel has come along and given me a brilliant burst of energy to get this whole thing finally done. - vi - - vii - Abstract This thesis uses the work of David Foster Wallace to exemplify two definitions of the term 'post-postmodernism'. I examine the literary connotation of 'post-postmodernism' – thus far, its predominant critical application – identifying the key characteristics of its form and addressing the centrality of Wallace's writing to its study. I extend this by showing how the term post-postmodern identifies a clear historical period and its cultural practices. Through detailed analyses of Wallace's work, I show the overlaps between post-postmodernist literature and the historical and cultural logic from which it emerged. This detailed argument not only allows me to establish the significance of Wallace's writing as both reflection of and critical intervention into the contemporary period, it also allows me to establish a contextualized significance for the study of 'post-postmodernism' in a variety of contexts and forms. My study takes in a variety of literary genres from Wallace's corpus, in order to produce a comprehensive reading of the implications of his work. It is organized around the central thematic strands of post-postmodernist literature, complemented by briefer discussions of the style and form such literature takes. These are all presented such that they establish that Wallace's writing is a primary exemplar of post-postmodernist literature; but also that his writing demonstrates a broader critical understanding of the term. Each set of readings is carefully contextualized to allow me to show the contiguous nature of the multiple uses of the term post-postmodernism. In my conclusion, I turn to address the broader significance of the detailed and multivalent definition of post-postmodernism that this thesis produces. - viii - - ix - Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... v Abstract....................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents........................................................................................ ix Introduction: The work of David Foster Wallace and post- postmodernism ................................................................................. xiii 0.1 Introduction: Defining the post-postmodern ...................................xiii 0.2 The term 'post-postmodern' ...........................................................xiv 0.3 The post-postmodern era...............................................................xvi 0.4 Post-postmodern identity ..............................................................xxii 0.5 Post-postmodernist literature .......................................................xxvi 0.6 The characteristics of post-postmodernist literature .....................xxx 0.7 Chapter summary ...................................................................... xxxiii 0.8 Conclusion: Ambitions .............................................................. xxxvii Chapter One: David Foster Wallace's figures of depression................... 1 1.1 Introduction: Suicide and the author ................................................ 1 1.2 Undoing the death of the author ...................................................... 3 1.3 The inferring of the author................................................................ 7 1.4 Reading 'David Foster Wallace' ....................................................... 9 1.5 'The Planet Trillaphon as It Stands in Relation to the Bad Thing' ........................................................................................... 16 1.6 'The Depressed Person'................................................................. 27 1.7 'Good Old Neon'............................................................................. 34 1.8 Conclusion: Depression and The Pale King .................................. 50 Chapter Two: Wallace at the level of the sentence................................. 59 2.1 Introduction: Zeno's Paradox ......................................................... 59 2.2 'Authority and American Usage' – paratexts .................................. 62 2.3 'Authority and American Usage' – sentences ................................ 66 2.4 The Broom of the System .............................................................. 73 2.5 'The Soul Is Not a Smithy'.............................................................. 80 2.6 Conclusion: Paradoxes .................................................................. 88 - x - Chapter Three: Metafiction, post-postmodernism and ethics ...............91 3.1 Introduction: The ethical turn..........................................................91 3.2 The importance of the ethical claims of Wallace's work.................93 3.3 Postmodernist (meta)fiction and ethics ..........................................98 3.4 The Pale King's Leonard Stecyk and his ethics ...........................103 3.5 The Broom of the System and ethics ...........................................111 3.6 Lane Dean Jr and ethics ..............................................................127 3.7 Conclusion: Implications for the post-postmodern .......................137 Chapter Four: Footnotes and interpolations .........................................147 4.1 Introduction: Doubling ..................................................................147 4.2 Wallace's 'academic' writing.........................................................149 4.3 Information and endnotes in Infinite Jest......................................156 4.4 Footnotes and the author-figure in 'Host' .....................................164 4.5 Ontology and epistemology in 'Oblivion'.......................................169 4.6 Conclusion: Parodying footnotes in The Pale King ......................175 Chapter Five: Representative gaps ........................................................181 5.1 Introduction: Literary post-postmodernism and women ...............181 5.2 Who does 'the post-postmodern' include? ...................................184 5.3 Depictions of women in Wallace's longer fictions.........................193 5.4 'Back in New Fire' as post-postmodernist failure..........................205 5.5 'Back in New Fire' and sexuality as a theme in Wallace's writing.........................................................................................211 5.6 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and post-postmodernist approaches to heterosexual relationships..................................220 5.7 A final hideous man......................................................................225 5.8 Conclusion: Seeing marginality everywhere ................................236 Chapter Six: Gaps, skips and loops in stories and characters ...........241 6.1 Introduction: Presence and absence............................................241 6.2 Heading 'Westward'......................................................................244 6.3 Toward the Infinite........................................................................253 6.4 Infinite wants ................................................................................256 6.5 Conclusion: