David Foster Wallace's balancing books : fictions of value

Resource Information

The work David Foster Wallace's balancing books : fictions of value represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri-St. Louis Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

David Foster Wallace's balancing books : fictions of value

Title remainder

fictions of value

Statement of responsibility

Jeffrey Severs

Creator

• Severs, Jeffrey, 1974-

Author

• Severs, Jeffrey, 1974-

Subject

• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Wallace, David Foster
• Wallace, David Foster

Genre

• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Language

eng

Summary

"Jeffrey Severs offers one of the first critical works that examines the entirety of David Foster Wallace's fiction rather than individual novels. Severs focuses his interpretation of Wallace's work on the author's interest in "value" understood in terms of the incalculable (morality) and the calculable (economics). This approach, Severs argues, allows a reading of Wallace that illuminates both the philosophical and moral ambition of his work but also positions him as a writer very much engaged in the political and economic issues of the late twentieth century. Severs reads Wallace as depicting characters struggling to determine the moral authority amid our chaotic culture. In considering the full scope of Wallace's career, Severs details his works' quest for balance in a world of excess and entropy. He adds to the critical portrayal of him as the philosopher-novelist by reading him as not only satirizing the deforming effects of money but examining the machinations of late-capitalism. Fusing readings of metaphysical, existential, and moral themes within the historical context of the last twentieth century, Severs provides new perspectives on Wallace's work and demonstrates the relevance of his fiction to contemporary political, economic, moral, and ethical problems."--

Assigning source

Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

813/.54

Index

index present

LC call number

PS3573.A425635

LC item number

Z864 2017

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography