Asked in 2006 about the philosophical nature of his fiction, the late American writer David Foster Wallace replied, "If some people read my fiction and see it as fundamentally about philosophical ideas, what it probably means is that these are pieces where the characters are not as alive and interesting as I meant them to be."
Gesturing Toward Reality looks into this quality of Wallace's work—when the writer dons the philosopher's cap—and sees something else. With essays offering a careful perusal of Wallace's extensive and heavily annotated self-help library, re-considerations of Wittgenstein's influence on his fiction, and serious explorations into the moral and spiritual landscape where Wallace lived and wrote, this collection offers a perspective on Wallace that even he was not always ready to see. Since so much has been said in specifically literary circles about Wallace's philosophical acumen, it seems natural to have those with an interest in both philosophy and Wallace's writing address how these two areas come together.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Scott Korb, New York University, USA
Chapter One. How We Ought To Do Things With Words
Alexis Burgess, Stanford University, USA
Chapter Two. The Subsurface Unity of All Things, Or David Foster Wallace’s Free Will
Leland de la Durantaye, Claremont McKenna College, USA
Chapter Three. A Less ‘Bullshitty’ Way To Live: The Pragmatic Spirituality of David Foster Wallace
Robert K. Bolger, USA
Chapter Four. This is Water and Religious Self-Deception
Kevin Timpe, Northwest Nazarene University, USA
Chapter Five. Inside David Foster Wallace’s Head: Attention, Loneliness, Suicide and the Other Side of Boredom
Andrew Bennett, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Chapter Six. The Lobster Considered
Robert C. Jones, California State University, Chico, USA
Chapter Seven. The Terrible Master: David Foster Wallace and the Suffering of Consciousness (with Guest Arthur Schopenhauer)
Blakey Vermeule, Stanford University, USA
Chapter Eight. Philosophy, Self-Help and the Death of David Wallace
Maria Bustillos, USA
Chapter Nine. Untrendy Problems: The Pale King’s Philosophical Inspirations
Jon Baskin, University of Chicago, USA
Chapter Ten. The Formative Philosophical Influences of David Foster Wallace With Special Reference to The Broom of the System
Tom Tracey, United Kingdom
Chapter Eleven. Beyond Philosophy: David Foster Wallace and the Dangers of Theorizing
Randy Ramal, Claremont Graduate University, USA
Chapter Twelve. Good Faith and Sincerity: Sartrean Virtues of Self-Becoming in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
Allard den Dulk, Amsterdam University College, Netherlands
Chapter Thirteen. Theories of Everything and More: Infinity Is Not The End
Ryan David Mullins, University of Bonn, Germany
Chapter Fourteen. Does Language Fail Us? Wallace’s Struggle with Solipsism
Patrick Horn, Azusa Pacific University, USA
Index
About the Author :
Robert K. Bolger (Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University, USA) is the author of Kneeling at the Altar of Science: The Mistaken Path of Contemporary Religious Scientism.
Scott Korb teaches writing at New York University, the New School, and in Pacific University’s MFA program (all USA). His books include The Faith Between Us, Life in Year One, and Light without Fire.
Review :
Wallace’s deeply influential postmodern pragmatism was not the casual by product of his novelistic vision. Rather, it was the distillation of a lifetime of urgent and rigorous philosophical engagement. Unfortunately, that deeply informed background is often obscured by the white light of his intimate, inimitable voice. Gesturing Toward Reality refracts that light to reveal the colorful spectrum of his sources. The essays assembled here are as lively as they are entertaining, and provide an accessible introduction to some of the most complex ideas in Wallace’s already challenging oeuvre .
Gesturing Toward Reality is the first collection of pieces on David Foster Wallace to tackle head-on one of the things that make his work so important to so many: the power of his thinking. Approaching Wallace's thinking from a variety of angles, the philosophers and literary critics in this volume work hard (and to great effect) to tease out Wallace's ideas as they appear in his fiction and nonfiction, to explore how he came to them from his education and experience, how he expressed them through language, and what they meant for him and might continue to mean to us; Gesturing Toward Reality thus makes a significant contribution not only to Wallace studies but to the work of anyone interested in literature and philosophy, in the way we tell stories in order to think.
I spent part of the weekend past making my way through the first four essays in the collection and I've found much to enjoy and think about so far...So this collection has moved from the very interesting to must have.
