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A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies“The Constant Monologue Inside Your Head”: Oblivion and the Nightmare of Consciousness

A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies: “The Constant Monologue Inside Your Head”: Oblivion... [Of all of David Foster Wallace’s books, Oblivion is the bleakest. Though the eight stories that comprise the collection provide brief instances of humor and postmodern play, these moments are rare and easy to miss, or at least to forget, amid the ponderous intensity of the prose and the hermetic isolation Wallace imposes upon his protagonists. From first to last, the book is a somber portrait of souls in isolation. Yet these stories also deepen what Stephen Burn has called “Wallace’s career-long fascination with consciousness” (Burn “Paradigm” 373). Each of these long, introspective pieces explores with tireless ingenuity both the linguistic nature of interior experience and the neurological mechanisms of the mind. Although Wallace has amply explored solipsism before—it is, after all, one of his signature themes—Oblivion looks beyond mere solipsism to explore the multiple ways in which his characters are not only alone inside their heads but also controlled, sometimes to the point of madness, by the layered, nested, entropic workings of their interiors. To quote the registered motto of O Verily Productions, a fictional company that figures prominently in “The Suffering Channel,” the collection’s concluding novella, “CONSCIOUSNESS IS NATURE’S NIGHTMARE” (OB 282, all caps in original).] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies“The Constant Monologue Inside Your Head”: Oblivion and the Nightmare of Consciousness

Part of the American Literature Readings in the 21st Century Book Series
Editors: Boswell, Marshall; Burn, Stephen J.
Boswell, Marshall
Springer Journals — Nov 7, 2015
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19 pages

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2013
ISBN
978-1-349-34112-2
Pages
151 –170
DOI
10.1057/9781137078346_8
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Of all of David Foster Wallace’s books, Oblivion is the bleakest. Though the eight stories that comprise the collection provide brief instances of humor and postmodern play, these moments are rare and easy to miss, or at least to forget, amid the ponderous intensity of the prose and the hermetic isolation Wallace imposes upon his protagonists. From first to last, the book is a somber portrait of souls in isolation. Yet these stories also deepen what Stephen Burn has called “Wallace’s career-long fascination with consciousness” (Burn “Paradigm” 373). Each of these long, introspective pieces explores with tireless ingenuity both the linguistic nature of interior experience and the neurological mechanisms of the mind. Although Wallace has amply explored solipsism before—it is, after all, one of his signature themes—Oblivion looks beyond mere solipsism to explore the multiple ways in which his characters are not only alone inside their heads but also controlled, sometimes to the point of madness, by the layered, nested, entropic workings of their interiors. To quote the registered motto of O Verily Productions, a fictional company that figures prominently in “The Suffering Channel,” the collection’s concluding novella, “CONSCIOUSNESS IS NATURE’S NIGHTMARE” (OB 282, all caps in original).]

Published: Nov 7, 2015

Keywords: Depressed Person; American Usage; Russian Doll; Substitute Teacher; Absolute Center

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