Inspecting the Legacy of David Foster Wallace

Monday, we linked to Andrew Altschul’s essay on DFW’s story “The Suffering Channel.” The piece is part of The Quarterly Conversation‘s “symposium on David Foster Wallace,” a collection of in-depth analysis of Wallace’s works, thoughts, and beliefs:

Scott Esposito explains exactly why Infinite Jest is a masterpiece and “the representative novel of millennial America.”

Edie Maidav examines Wallace’s trickster, turn-around-on-its-face use of irony, blending of realism and idealism, and influence on the younger generations in his book of essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again.

Lance Olsen provides eighteen scattered notes, largely about Wallace’s deliberate use of grammar, irony, and language in the short story collection Oblivion.

CJ Evans critiques Wallace’s deep-seated control issues in Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.

Barrett Hathcock scrutinizes Wallace’s contribution to the field of nonfiction in Consider The Lobster and what that means to the rapidly growing genre of creative nonfiction.

John Lingan discusses The Pale King‘s insight into American culture and “what it is to be a fucking human being.”

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Jessie Wood is a writer, reader, and journalist based out of the San Francisco Bay Area. She graduated from Westminster College with a degree in Creative Writing in 2010. She writes for SLUG Magazine, a free local Salt Lake City magazine, about the many faces of electronic music.

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