Table of Contents 0. Introduction..................................................................................................... 4 1. Terminological issues ...................................................................................... 6 2. Placement of David Foster Wallace ................................................................. 8 2.1 Critical literature on David Foster Wallace .................................................. 9 2.2 Starting point and purpose of this thesis ................................................. 11 3. General aspects of the postmodern era, epistemology ................................. 13 4. Literary postmodernism ................................................................................. 16 4.1 Philosophical orientation, complication of authorship ............................... 16 4.2 Foregrounding structure, breaking the narrative illusion .......................... 19 4.3 Pastiche, parody ....................................................................................... 20 4.4 Disjunction, interruption, fragmentation .................................................. 21 4.5 Temporality and temporal disorder .......................................................... 25 5. Post-postmodernisms .................................................................................... 26 5.1 Performatism ............................................................................................ 27 5.2 Digimodernism ......................................................................................... 29 5.3 Hypermodernism ...................................................................................... 30 5.4 Metamodernism ....................................................................................... 32 5.5 New Sincerity ........................................................................................... 33 6. Mental disorder and postmodern literature ................................................... 35 7. Mental disorder in the works of David Foster Wallace ................................... 41 7.1 Autism spectrum disorders ....................................................................... 41 7.1.1 Autism and attention ......................................................................... 42 1 7.2 This Is Water and David Foster Wallace’s philosophy of the everyday .... 43 7.2.1 Attention in This Is Water ................................................................. 43 7.2.2 Attention in The Pale King ................................................................. 45 7.2.3 Clarification of stance on biographical hypotheses ............................ 47 7.3 Autism spectrum disorders in The Pale King ............................................ 48 7.3.1 Context of creation and themes ........................................................ 48 7.3.2 Character analysis ............................................................................. 49 7.3.2.1 Claude Sylvanshine .................................................................... 49 7.3.2.1.1 Repetitive behaviour ............................................................ 49 7.3.2.1.2 Difficulty concentrating ........................................................ 50 7.3.2.1.3 Sensory hypersensitivity ...................................................... 51 7.3.2.1.4 Planning ............................................................................... 52 7.3.2.1.5 Intrusive thoughts ............................................................... 54 7.3.2.1.6 Depression ........................................................................... 55 7.3.2.2 David Cusk ................................................................................. 56 7.3.2.2.1 Social anxiety ...................................................................... 56 7.3.2.2.2 Intrusive thoughts ............................................................... 57 7.3.2.2.3 Isolation and concentration as a remedy............................. 58 7.3.2.3 Lane Dean .................................................................................. 58 7.3.2.4 David Wallace ............................................................................ 59 7.3.2.5 “Irrelevant” Chris Fogle .............................................................. 62 7.3.2.5.1 Attention-altering drugs ....................................................... 63 8. Synthesis ...................................................................................................... 65 9. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 75 2 Works cited........................................................................................................ 77 Résumé (Czech) ................................................................................................ 85 Résumé (English) .............................................................................................. 87 3 0. Introduction The central text this thesis aspires to analyze is David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, putting special focus on the representations of mental disorder, which arguably paint a multifaceted picture of autism spectrum disorders. In the course of doing this, I will set up the discourse by reviewing the existing interpretations and placements of David Foster Wallace’s prose, trying to locate and define the notions of postmodernity and literary postmodernism, and identifying the place of abnormal mental processes in postmodern fiction. I will also provide a survey of the theories that claim to observe a literary style that succeeds postmodernism, some of them citing Wallace as the key founding father of a style named New Sincerity. Building on the existing critical discussion of The Pale King, the point of departure for this thesis is the issue of attention and its various connections to social anxiety, attention deficit disorder, executive dysfunction, and autism. It aspires to extend the discursive framework applied to this novel with a detailed look on the representation of mental pathology which causes social and behavioural dysfunction, including the discovery that most of it corresponds to the manifestations of mild forms of autism spectrum disorders. Parallel to the social engagement of feminist and queer studies, this thesis attempts to employ and encourage a kind of “introvert studies” – Wallace’s prose is arguably a major achievement in describing the workings of the minds of socially anxious, but highly intelligent and observant introverts, and one of its effects seems to be sensitization of readers to the specific 4 sufferings of people who constantly fear the gaze of others, overthink their decisions, who are unable to resist intrusive thoughts and navigate social situations, and who are often depressed as a result of all that. Felt and addressed throughout the world, in poor and affluent countries alike, social anxiety and depression are persistent problems faced not only by the afflicted, but also by many parents and educators – and sensitizing readers and academics to these problems might facilitate changes in the society that secure these people more understanding and empathy among the general population. In terms of literary theoretical categories, based on this context and the text analysis itself, I hope to draw a conclusion that strikes a balance between placing The Pale King into the postmodern framework and allowing it to stand out, partially defining its own post-postmodern literary realm. 5 1. Terminological issues First of all, it is necessary to stress the fact that all the derivatives of the term “postmodern” and, even more so, any term describing an era or a style that is supposed to succeed postmodernism, are “deeply problematical”, having been “applied at different levels of abstraction to a wide range of object and phenomena in what we used to call reality” (Bertens 3). Bertens illustrates this by juxtaposting postmodern painting (and, similarly, architecture), which moves from purely abstract modernism back toward “pictorial narrative, [and] representational practices” (3), and literary criticism, which observes a move away from narrative to further reinforce modernist self-reflexivity, sufficiently proved by Samuel Beckett, John Fowles, or John Barth. Consequently, [depending] on the artistic discipline, […] postmodernism is either a radicalization of the self-reflexive moment within modernism, a turning away from narrative and representation, or an explicit return to narrative and representation. And sometimes it is both. Moreover, to make things worse, there are […] postmodernisms that do not fit this neat binary bill.” (Bertens 4-5) Brian McHale tries to name some of the more prominent postmodernisms, including frames based on writers and philosophers alike: John Barth’s postmodernism, the literature of replenishment; Charles Newman’s postmodernism, the literature of an inflationary economy; Jean-François Lyotard’s postmodernism, a general condition of knowledge in the contemporary informational regime; 6 Ihab Hassan’s postmodernism, a stage on the road to the spiritual unification of humankind; and so on. There is even Kermode’s construction of postmodernism, which in effect constructs it right out of existence. (4) However, McHale contends that since they are all fictional constructs, one should choose the useful one – neither too broad (which would explain all contemporary literature, thus losing value), nor too narrow