Activity

This repeated abnegation of qualification is one of many figurations of a deeply problematic tendency to reject ideas of authority and authorship throughout the nonfiction, in ways that dovetail interestingly with the structural and vocal instability of the fiction.

"liebestod," meaning love-death, here is interesting; the connection of love with death further highlights the notion of death as a consummation

simultaneously aggravating and obviating the distinction between self and other

[...] the narrator despises this girl's lifestyle and outlook, yet finds himself almost obsessively in need of her approval and love. As a consequence, he attempts to master her, to prove his own superiority, in much the same way as Wallace described the tendency he saw in his own and others' work …

Wallace finds another way of resisting apocalyptic postmodern anomie