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Wallace chose philosophical fiction over philosophy because he saw fiction as the better chance to connect with his readers. He wanted to confront philosophical problems by making them concrete. He counted on fiction's "ability to talk meaningfully to us." Because of this intent, his fiction exists…

Two of Wallace's most famous nonfictional texts, "E Unibus Plu-ram" (1993) and This Is Water (2005), essential to Wallace's manifesto, are sociological to the core. In them, Wallace explores the causes of American social predicaments and submits solutions to them. This indicates the centrality of s…

Although the fact that one "can't ever truly know what's going on inside somebody else" may doom such an endeavor to failure, the attempt, failed though it may be, leads one closer to establishing a self that can function in the world among others because, as Hayes-Brady writes, such an attempt for…

Across these reviews, Wallace consistently prosecutes his own emerging aesthetic project. He engages largely with experimental and postmodern texts that, in one way or another, lose the plot, become too self-involved, too inward-looking. As his review of Acker suggests, there are certain literary a…

Of course, in many ordinary cases of professionalization, becoming more specialized wouldn't seem to be that much of a problem, spiritual or otherwise. Sure, you can't write a compelling memoir, but you'll have a prodigious near-miraculous backhand. In the case of the fiction-writer, however, becom…