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15.12.08

Wallace on Time

If you're interested in the fiction of David Foster Wallace, you definitely ought to read this essay about his philosophical undergraduate thesis on temporal problems, logic and fatalism, in which the late author saves free will as we know it and the future. The influence of these ideas on parts of Wallace's bibliography is interesting to explore. The first and most obvious connection I make is to the ending to "Good Old Neon", maybe one of the finest moments in his short fiction. I'm not going to give the ending away, but it is working with precisely the same ideas explored in this article.

"I knew him as a philosopher with a fiction hobby," Jay Garfield, an adviser on Wallace's thesis and now a professor at Smith College, told me recently. "I didn't realize he was one of the great fiction writers of his generation with a philosophy hobby."

5 Comments:

Blogger Mikkel said...

David Foster Wallace is dead?? Why haven't I been informed about this!

December 16, 2008 10:09 am  
Blogger mrtn said...

Hey, that's a joke! Because I have written a lot about David Foster Wallace dying, your saying that you hadn't been informed of this is obviously not true. You have been informed of this many times! Therefore, your saying that you hadn't been informed is funny.

December 16, 2008 10:20 am  
Blogger Mikkel said...

Seriously dude, have you considered changing the name of your blog to David Foster Wallace is dead?

December 16, 2008 3:16 pm  
Blogger mrtn said...

Sure! Other names being considered: Mikkel is making sarcastic comments.

December 16, 2008 3:24 pm  
Blogger Kristoffer Jul-Larsen said...

Oh, you two! You're like the Gilmore Girls! Maybe I wouldn't pay money to watch the Grüner Boys, but I'd definitively download it on piratebay.

On a serious note: Mikkel's sarcastic comment is totally true. How about posting some zebras? or at least a really long drawing.

December 16, 2008 5:16 pm  

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