Activity

[...] Consider David Cusk, the compulsively sweaty accountant: as he seeks release from self-obsession through what is essentially an inner thermostat to regulate his temperature, he replies to all those solipsistic hoarders of energy who have preceded him, from Lenore Sr. (who lacks such an inner …

[...] Wallace gave his characters new names "constantly," writes Pietsch (PK xiii), but other REC names--the forest (sylvan) in Sylvanshine, the land and river valleys (glen) in Glendenning, the bloom in Blumquist, the fish in Fisher, the deer (hind) in Hindle, the bus in Bussy, and t…

[...] Like "Mister Squishy," §16 is one of Wallace's many multitrack narratives in which an oral discourse describes one thing while a wandering mind (despite being engaged by the external talk) explores something else entirely; our mission as readers--reconciling incompatible ideas, as in Freud's …

[...] It is in The Circle, though, that Eggers finally writes his Infinite Jest, the book he had the honor of introducing in its 2006 edition. [...]

In a country that builds endless opportunities for "connection" but no longer makes anything, The Circle's endorsement of essentially Thoreau…

[...] Part of Fogle's narrative occurs in 1977, and here Wallace plays one last time with presidential rhetoric on commonwealth themes. In one scene, Fogle's father returns home unexpectedly to find his son and friends stoned and with the heat turned up, creating another hothouse, perverting the _o…