Midwest Modern Language Association

Review
Author(s): Martin Brick
Review by: Martin Brick
Source: The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Fall 2012), pp.
247-250
Published by: Midwest Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43150854
Accessed: 30-07-2015 21:17 UTC

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Book Reviews I 247

The Legacy of David Foster Wallace. Edited by Samuel Cohen and
Lee Konstaninou. The New American Canon: The Iowa Series in
Contemporary Literature and Culture. Iowa City: U of Iowa P,
2012. XXV+ 270 pp.
The flurryof publication following David Foster Wallace's
death in 2008 raises an uncomfortable question: how much of this
can be attributedto his suicide, to the alluring story of a brightbut
troubled mind snuffed out far too soon? In the fall of 2012 I remember opening the "Books" section of my local Sunday newspaper and seeing a full-page article on D. T. Max's biography of Wallace, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story. I had to ask myself, what
percentage of Columbus Dispatch subscribers could really have
read Wallace? More likely than not, the buzz that surrounded Max's
biography confirms a statement made by Wallace's widow, Karen
Green: "It all turns him into a celebrity writer dude, which I think
would have made him wince" (Adams). Academics no doubt would
labor to distinguish themselves from such mass-media responses to
this author's death. Nevertheless, one has to wonder, looking at his
posthumous publication of primary works and a flood of secondary
works, would we see this if he were still alive?
The University of Iowa Press appears to be tackling this
question head-on. The Legacy of David Foster Wallace is the first
installment of a series labeled "The New American Canon," and the
argument that this title offers is that David Foster Wallace deserves
a place in the modern canon. To this volume's credit, many of the
essays keep this question at the forefront.There are essays in the
middle of the book that come across as relatively standard academic
inquiries in fact, the contributions of the two editors are fine, engaging pieces of scholarship that could have found homes somewhere. Still, many of the other essays would not seem to fitinto any
other context.
Looking at both ends of the book, we find essays highlightthe
book's relevance at this time. The opening piece, by Paul
ing
Giles, confused me at first.It seemed far too general, spending a
good deal of time outlining Wallace's differentworks. However, I

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248 I Book Reviews

thinkof my undergraduate students. Many of them are excited about
Wallace's writingbut know the author only througha few stories out
of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men or some of his more popular
essays. This chapter helps open up his oeuvre to those with limited
initiation. Further,Giles' situation of Wallace as a distinctlyAmerican writer,as someone with a rhetorical agenda in the line of Ralph
Waldo Emerson and Abraham Lincoln, compellingly draws our attention away fromthinkingof him strictlyas a postmodernist.
At the tail end of the book, Molly Schwartzburg, a curator
fromthe Harry Ransom Center where Wallace's papers are housed,
offersher observations on the archive. She describes the acquisition,
preparation, and cataloging of his papers. Quite frankly,this chapter
struck me as similar to programs on the Discovery Channel that explain how the St. Louis Arch was built or how FedEx can manage to
transporta package to an address 2500 miles away; it was interesting and entertaining,but not exactly informationI needed to know.
The greater value of this essay to the academic community is her effortsto draw scholars to the HRC for research, and greater attention
could have been paid to that potential here.
Perhaps this essay collection's most valuable contribution
lies in acknowledging and classifying Wallace's diverse following
of readers. Certainly the backbone of his readership has long been
relatively well-educated twenty-somethings,but professional critics view him through a differentlens; now, scholars are adding yet
another perspective. Kathleen Fitzpatrick outlines how Wallace appeals to the common (here meaning non-academic) reader but elicits an uncommon reading experience in her chapter about "Infinite
Summer," a blog-based reading group that tackled Wallace's best
known novel, InfiniteJest,in 2009. In comparison to Oprah's Book
Club, which encourages reading and discussion of what Fitzpatrick
calls "relatable" texts that promote "personal growth," the Infinite
Summer project led to "more complex modes of ethical engagement
with the world" (Cohen & Konstaninou 190). Fitzpatrick's assessment of the communities that arise from such reading is intriguing
in that she extends her analysis beyond this single online event to an
examination of fiction's ability to engage readers on an emotional

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Book Reviews | 249

and moral level.
The piece that most directly examines Wallace's audience and most compellingly probes the question of what makes him a
viable candidate for canonization - is Ed Finn's "Becoming Yourself: The Afterlifeof Reception." Finn explores Wallace's association with other writersin three ways. To whom do professional book
reviewers compare him? To whom do Amazon customer reviewers
compare him? Which books pop up on Amazon's recommendations
functionwhen people search or purchase this author? Each approach
yields a differentweb of associations, painting Wallace at once as a
late twentiethcenturypostmodernist descending from Pynchon and
DeLillo, and as a "great books" writerkeeping company with Dostoevsky, Melville, and Joyce. Clearly this type of scholarship has a
shelf life; it is interestingrightnow while we are still waiting to see
how Wallace gets sorted in the canon. Perhaps this fact makes Finn's
contribution a perfect representation of the collection as a whole.
This is timely and interestingand unconventional.
Another aspect of the collection that marks it as unconventional is the inclusion of short eulogies and remembrances. Most
of these are from highly recognizable names, and often people to
whom Wallace was close: Don DeLillo, George Saunders, Jonathan
Franzen, Dave Eggers, and Rick Moody. At firstblush this might
seem like a pandering move, meant to attractattentionto the collection through name-recognition or for the pathos imbedded in these
writers mourning one of their own, but as Cohen and Konstantinou
argue in the introduction,"both creative writers and critics participate in the process of canonization" (Cohen & Konstantinou xv).
If I ask myself, Will I be reaching for this collection twenty
from
now? the answer is probably not. As a critical analyyears
sis of Wallace's work, it does not compare to Marshall Boswell's
Understanding David Foster Wallace, though it does not have the
same agenda or aspirations as Boswell's book. As an indispensable
reference work, it does not compare to Stephen Burn's interview
collection, Conversations with David Foster Wallace. Then again,
this collection packs a lot of punch. The mixture of insight into and
affection for the writing of David Foster Wallace make this collec-

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250 I Book Reviews

tion an enjoyable, worthwhile read.
Martin Brick
Ohio Dominican University
Works Cited
Guardian.co.uk.
The Guardian/The ObAdams,Tim."KarenGreenInterview."
1
1
2
2013.
0
2011.
Web.
server, Apr
April
David FosterWallace.Columbia:University
Boswell,Marshall.Understanding
of SouthCarolinaPress,2003. Print.
withDavid FosterWallace.Jackson:UniverBurn,StephenJ.ed. Conversations
sityofMississippiPress,2012. Print.
Max, D. T. EveryLove Storyis a GhostStory:A Life of David FosterWallace.
New York:Viking,2012. Print.
Ulin,David L. "Book Review:Triumphand Tragedy."ColumbusDispatch.14
Oct 2012,Web. 15April2013.

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