My interest in postmodernism was spurred by my reading of David Foster Wallace (DFW)’s Infinite Jest which the New York Times summarized by saying, “The overall effect is something like a sleek Vonnegut chassis wrapped in layers of post-millennial Zola. Mr. Wallace's... fiction reveals him as a student of literary post-modernists... flirting with metafictional tropes and self-referential narratives. (NYT)”. The New York Times is an incredibly well respected paper whose reputation depends on its articles authenticity. That particular article was written by Jay McInerney in March 1996 when Infinite Jest was first published. McInerny is a published novelist three times over in addition to writing editorials for the New York Times, Washington Post,
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Infinite Jest absolutely does this, Foster Wallace even makes up his own words and phrases. McInerny even heralds it as, “a genuinely groundbreaking novel of language (NYT).” At first it appears as though Foster Wallace is embracing the rules of language to illustrate a point but you realize, as the article point out, really he’s deftly manipulating, and breaking, the rules of language to show how arbitrary they are. As he uses, “Made-up words, hot-wired words, words found only in the footnotes of medical dictionaries, words usable only within the context of classical rhetoric, home-chemistry words, mathematician words, philosopher words... nouning verbs, verbing nouns, creating less a novel of language than a brand-new lexicographic reality. But nerdlinger... (to use another Wallace phrase)... can be an empty practice indeed. You need sentences to display-case the words (NYT).” Wallace neologized the dictionary effectively through context. In doing so, proved the postmodernist notion that stems from deconstruction, the notion that the relationship between language and meaning must be regarded critically because language is dependant on contrast-effect with other words …show more content…
He creates saturated microcosms of nonlinear narrative. “[Infinite Jest’s] an endlessly, compulsively entertaining book that stingily withholds from readers the core pleasures of mainstream novelistic entertainment, among them a graspable central narrative line, identifiable movement through time and any resolution of its quadrumvirate plotlines (NYT).” That is to say, it seemingly randomly follows characters without a set trajectory. Though a select few of the plots, (if you can call them that), do eventually converge it is with a feeling of random inevitability, there’s no grand plan to their collision, it just happens. Even when Wallace borders on a plot he makes it feel starkly clear that there is no metanarrative.
I learned the most researching this mini-paper. The article was incredibly helpful in highlighting and condensing the writing in Infinite Jest as well as articulating the feeling of the book, (and why I loved it so much). Bonevac’s lecture clearly laid out the ideas of postmodernism. Finally, Infinite Jest shows clear fidelity to postmodern ideas.
Through it’s hermetically inclined narratives and erumpence through the Dictionary Infinite Jest embodies the feeling of postmodernism. Through its quality the book elevates the literary merit of the postmodernist
Infinite Jest absolutely does this, Foster Wallace even makes up his own words and phrases. McInerny even heralds it as, “a genuinely groundbreaking novel of language (NYT).” At first it appears as though Foster Wallace is embracing the rules of language to illustrate a point but you realize, as the article point out, really he’s deftly manipulating, and breaking, the rules of language to show how arbitrary they are. As he uses, “Made-up words, hot-wired words, words found only in the footnotes of medical dictionaries, words usable only within the context of classical rhetoric, home-chemistry words, mathematician words, philosopher words... nouning verbs, verbing nouns, creating less a novel of language than a brand-new lexicographic reality. But nerdlinger... (to use another Wallace phrase)... can be an empty practice indeed. You need sentences to display-case the words (NYT).” Wallace neologized the dictionary effectively through context. In doing so, proved the postmodernist notion that stems from deconstruction, the notion that the relationship between language and meaning must be regarded critically because language is dependant on contrast-effect with other words …show more content…
He creates saturated microcosms of nonlinear narrative. “[Infinite Jest’s] an endlessly, compulsively entertaining book that stingily withholds from readers the core pleasures of mainstream novelistic entertainment, among them a graspable central narrative line, identifiable movement through time and any resolution of its quadrumvirate plotlines (NYT).” That is to say, it seemingly randomly follows characters without a set trajectory. Though a select few of the plots, (if you can call them that), do eventually converge it is with a feeling of random inevitability, there’s no grand plan to their collision, it just happens. Even when Wallace borders on a plot he makes it feel starkly clear that there is no metanarrative.
I learned the most researching this mini-paper. The article was incredibly helpful in highlighting and condensing the writing in Infinite Jest as well as articulating the feeling of the book, (and why I loved it so much). Bonevac’s lecture clearly laid out the ideas of postmodernism. Finally, Infinite Jest shows clear fidelity to postmodern ideas.
Through it’s hermetically inclined narratives and erumpence through the Dictionary Infinite Jest embodies the feeling of postmodernism. Through its quality the book elevates the literary merit of the postmodernist