{"product_id":"books-the-unspeakable-failures-of-david-foster-wallace-by-clare-hayes-brady","title":"The Unspeakable Failures of David Foster Wallace","description":"This book examines the writing of David Foster Wallace, hailed as the voice of a generation on his death. Critics have identified horror of solipsism, obsession with sincerity and a corresponding ambivalence regarding postmodern irony, and detailed attention to contemporary culture as the central elements of Wallace’s writing. Clare Hayes-Brady draws on the evolving discourses of Wallace studies, focusing on the unifying anti-teleology of his writing, arguing that that position is a fundamentally political response to the condition of neo-liberal America.   She argues that Wallace’s work is most unified by its resistance to closure, which pervades the structural, narrative and stylistic elements of his writing. Taking a broadly thematic approach to the numerous types of 'failure', or lack of completion, visible throughout his work, the book offers a framework within which to read Wallace’s work as a coherent whole, rather than split along the lines of fiction versus non-fiction, or pre- and post-Infinite Jest, two critical positions that have become dominant over the last five years. While demonstrating the centrality of 'failure', the book also explores Wallace’s approach to sincere communication as a recurring response to what he saw as the inane, self-absorbed commodification of language and society, along with less explored themes such as gender, naming and heroism.   Situating Wallace as both a product of his time and an artist sui generis, Hayes-Brady details his abiding interest in philosophy, language and the struggle for an authentic self in late-twentieth-century America.","brand":"World of Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53673970204945,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781501335846_3ac0a5ac-fe68-4bbd-be4e-19d29483505d.jpg?v=1781529119","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/books-the-unspeakable-failures-of-david-foster-wallace-by-clare-hayes-brady","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}