Daffs & other poems
P A O S E D I J B K V S H W J C K H N E B A E K A C T O A N C K F U C E N F L I L A S N P B E S I D E R E F E O O T D I Q F C X A M S T L O U L A E J F L U T T E R I N G D F H R C D B H G N I C N A D N I T E T Y N R S L L I H C E L E L D T Y L A E W H E N D A T H E S H I I E J E V V L K Y N N K I C Z P D N V Z O E P Q Q U Q A K Z S B O O G E H Z Q V X B E L H S J I R L G I W O V B L L L V L I A V I S A J U U Z B H A V N X U H Q S I U I S R E O M
By Adam Baron.
Don’t Believe the Hype: David Foster Wallace and The End of the Tour
In a 1969 essay called “What is an Author?”, Michel Foucault proposed the following: “Writing unfolds like a game that invariably goes beyond its own rules and transgresses its limits. In writing, the point is not to manifest or exalt the act of writing, nor is it to pin a subject within language; it is, rather, a question of creating a space into which the writing subject constantly disappears.” In The End of the Tour, the maximalist novel Infinite Jest seems to exert this gravitational pull–both on the author as well as on readers and potentially predatory journalists. As an act of writing, it has this slippery quality that galls Lipsky and Wallace alike: as much as the novel exists as a concrete thing in the world, it has also gone viral, and has mutated somehow–the novel cannot be pinned down, least of all by its author.
By Christopher Schaberg.