linguistic recursion
something DFW (author) likes to do a lot, especally in The Depressed Person (section)
something DFW (author) likes to do a lot, especally in The Depressed Person (section)
The apotheosis of this technique is "The Depressed Person."
on recursion
[...] There are times when reading Wallace feels unbearable, and the weight of things stacked against the reader insurmountable: missing context, rhetorical complication, awful people, grotesque or absurd subject matter, language that is--at the same time!--childishly scatological and annoyingly ob…
The little slip is telling, and the word abreactive, too
defined in a footnote (from the OED); referring to a scene in Brief Interviews
If Wallace insists on awareness, his particular creed is--to use a Wallacerian word--extrorse; awareness must move always in an outward direction, away from the self.