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David Foster Wallace’s Many Ways of Sounding American
from Part IV - Systems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2022
This chapter considers Wallace’s use of individual language and narrative as a means for self-creation, from the heavily be-nicknamed LaVache in Broom, who molds his vocabulary to evade communication with his family, to the impersonal marketing argots of commercial focus groups, by way of the community-forming ritual recitations of AA. The chapter highlights Wallace’s extraordinarily prolific (though not uniformly successful) mimesis of vernacular, noting some of the more interesting failures of his career in this respect, including “Solomon Silverfish” and sections of Infinite Jest. This chapter elucidates the operation of language, both monologic and dialogic, as key to Wallace’s aesthetic project and as a central weapon in his ethical strategy for overcoming solipsism, involving sincerity, cooperation and absolute faith in the other.
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