Search results for "David Foster"
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Infinite Jest
'A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything' New York Times'Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight' James Wood, Guardian'He induces the kind of laughter which, when read in bed with a sleeping partner, wakes said sleeping partner up . . . He's damn good' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian'One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory' Sunday TimesSomewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the nearby Enfield Tennis Academy are ensnared in the search for the master copy of Infinite Jest, a movie said to be so dangerously entertaining its viewers become entranced and expire in a state of catatonic bliss . . .
R 500.00
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R 456.00
Hitman
After almost four decades in the music business, David Foster -- producer, arranger, songwriter, performer -- is finally ready to talk. In this compelling and outspoken memoir, Foster shares some of his incredible stories: the first time he met Barbra Streisand, as a young session player in Los Angeles; his first of 15 Grammys® for "After the Love Has Gone," Earth, Wind & Fire's memorable hit; the making of Unison, Celine Dion's English-language debut; the challenges he faced on his way to putting the group Chicago back on the charts; his award-winning contribution to Unforgettable: With Love, Natalie Cole's comeback album; those back-to-back recording sessions with Madonna and Michael Jackson; and the incredible chain of events that spawned Whitney Houston's historic blockbuster, "I Will Always Love You." Foster has worked with superstars of every decade, including: Celine Dion - Josh Groban - Whitney Houston - Michael Bublé - Barbra Streisand - Andrea Bocelli - Madonna - Michael Jackson - Natalie Cole - George Harrison - Earth, Wind & Fire - *NSYNC - Chicago - Paul McCartney - All-4-One - Katharine McPhee - Toni Braxton - Alice Cooper - Olivia Newton-John - Michael Bolton ...and many more. From his unique and privileged vantage point, Foster describes the delicate balancing act between artist and producer, offers revealing portraits of some of those artists at work, and shares his secrets for success in the maddeningly fickle music industry. At its heart, this is the story of a boy with perfect pitch who grew up to become one of the most influential musical forces of our time -- the solid gold hitman who produced the soundtrack of our lives.
R 417.00
Consider The Lobster
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a sick sense of humour? What is John Updike's deal anyway? And who won the Adult Video News' Female Performer of the Year Award the same year Gwyneth Paltrow won her Oscar? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in his new book of hilarious non-fiction. For this collection, David Foster Wallace immerses himself in the three-ring circus that is the presidential race in order to document one of the most vicious campaigns in recent history. Later he strolls from booth to booth at a lobster festival in Maine and risks life and limb to get to the bottom of the lobster question. Then he wheedles his way into an L.A. radio studio, armed with tubs of chicken, to get the behind-the-scenes view of a conservative talkshow featuring a host with an unnatural penchant for clothing that only looks good on the radio. In what is sure to be a much-talked-about exploration of distinctly modern subjects, one of the sharpest minds of our time delves into some of life's most delicious topics.
R 402.00
David Foster Wallace
Why is David Foster Wallace so widely read? Why does his fiction and non-fiction continue to raise enthusiasm among an ever-growing variety of readers of all ages and backgrounds not only in the English-speaking countries but all over the world, while describing all the malcontents, dead ends and solipsistic tendencies of contemporary civilisation? Presences of the Other counteracts the vision of Wallace's postmodern oeuvre as selfishly self-absorbed, narcissistic or confining and attempts to answer the question of its appeal by addressing it as an open work, following Umberto Eco's definition of great texts. Epitomised in the missing questions of Brief Interviews; in the endnotes of Infinite Jest that entice readers into fertile wanderings; or in The Pale King demands for active editing and creative involvement, DFW's paradoxically difficult and impenetrable work opens up and allows for limitless interventions and participations. By becoming a playground for interpretation, his work reveals itself as an exercise in care. Indeterminate and inconclusive, constructed on Derridean difference, DFWs output testifies to the presence of a liberating symbolic Other; by resisting closure, it promotes both a fundamental reworking of the literary tradition and a compassionate vision of the human condition. Prominent scholars explore varieties of otherness in Wallace's open work by engaging with the dialogue his writing establishes with non-literary discourses such as cinema (French Nouvelle Vague), music (rap, in Signifying Rappers), religion (Buddhism) and philosophy (Wittgenstein and Ranciere). Critical approaches to the authors protean identity, taste for masquerade and performance, and capacity for metamorphosis and transformation, foreground traces of an otherness that sets out a salutary spiritual potential for the 21st century.
R 4,914.00
Fate, Time, and Language
In 1962, the philosopher Richard Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that human beings have no control over the future. David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but also noted a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor's argument. Fate, Time, and Language presents Wallace's brilliant critique of Taylor's work. Written long before the publication of his fiction and essays, Wallace's thesis reveals his great skepticism of abstract thinking made to function as a negation of something more genuine and real. He was especially suspicious of certain paradigms of thought-the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever gimmickry of postmodernism-that abandoned "the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community." As Wallace rises to meet the challenge to free will presented by Taylor, we witness the developing perspective of this major novelist, along with his struggle to establish solid logical ground for his convictions. This volume, edited by Steven M.Cahn and Maureen Eckert, reproduces Taylor's original article and other works on fatalism cited by Wallace. James Ryerson's introduction connects Wallace's early philosophical work to the themes and explorations of his later fiction, and Jay Garfield supplies a critical biographical epilogue.
R 2,649.00
Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
These widely acclaimed essays from the author of Infinite Jest -- on television, tennis, cruise ships, and more -- established David Foster Wallace as one of the preeminent essayists of his generation. In this exuberantly praised book -- a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner -- David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.
R 456.00
David Foster Wallace and "The Long Thing"
Of the twelve books David Foster Wallace published both during his lifetime and posthumously, only three were novels. Nevertheless, Wallace always thought of himself primarily as a novelist. From his college years at Amherst, when he wrote his first novel as part of a creative honors thesis, to his final days, Wallace was buried in a novel project, which he often referred to as "the Long Thing." Meanwhile, the short stories and journalistic assignments he worked on during those years he characterized as "playing hooky from a certain Larger Thing." Wallace was also a specific kind of novelist, devoted to producing a specific kind of novel, namely the omnivorous, culture-consuming "encyclopedic" novel, as described in 1976 by Edward Mendelson in a ground-breaking essay on Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. David Foster Wallace and "The Long Thing" is a state-of-the art guide through Wallace's three major works, including the generation-defining Infinite Jest. These essays provide fresh new readings of each of Wallace's novels as well as thematic essays that trace out patterns and connections across the three works. Most importantly, the collection includes six chapters on Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, which will prove to be foundational for future scholars of this important text.
R 5,885.00
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
In this thought-provoking and playful short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence.Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many guises. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person, ' a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World, ' which reveals a woman's agonized consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, ' a dark, hilarious series of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women.Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the absurd, the surprising, and the illuminating from every situation. This collection will enthrall DFW fans, and provides a perfect introduction for new readers.
R 938.00
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
In his startling and singular new short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person', a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World', which reveals a woman's agonised consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men', a dark, hilarious series of portraits of men whose fear of women renders them grotesque. Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many different guises. Thought-provoking and playful, this collection confirms David Foster Wallace as one of the most imaginative young writers around. Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the ironic, the surprising and the illuminating from every situation. His new collection will delight his growing number of fans, and provide a perfect introduction for new readers.
R 340.00
David Foster Wallace in Context
David Foster Wallace is regarded as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book introduces readers to the literary, philosophical and political contexts of Wallace's work. An accessible and useable resource, this volume conceptualizes his work within long-standing critical traditions and with a new awareness of his importance for American literary studies. It shows the range of issues and contexts that inform the work and reading of David Foster Wallace, connecting his writing to diverse ideas, periods and themes. Essays cover topics on gender, sex, violence, race, philosophy, poetry and geography, among many others, guiding new and long-standing readers in understanding the work and influence of this important writer.
R 4,575.61
R 597.77
David Foster Wallace and "The Long Thing"
Of the twelve books David Foster Wallace published both during his lifetime and posthumously, only three were novels. Nevertheless, Wallace always thought of himself primarily as a novelist. From his college years at Amherst, when he wrote his first novel as part of a creative honors thesis, to his final days, Wallace was buried in a novel project, which he often referred to as "the Long Thing." Meanwhile, the short stories and journalistic assignments he worked on during those years he characterized as "playing hooky from a certain Larger Thing." Wallace was also a specific kind of novelist, devoted to producing a specific kind of novel, namely the omnivorous, culture-consuming "encyclopedic" novel, as described in 1976 by Edward Mendelson in a ground-breaking essay on Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. David Foster Wallace and "The Long Thing" is a state-of-the art guide through Wallace's three major works, including the generation-defining Infinite Jest. These essays provide fresh new readings of each of Wallace's novels as well as thematic essays that trace out patterns and connections across the three works. Most importantly, the collection includes six chapters on Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, which will prove to be foundational for future scholars of this important text.
R 1,205.00
Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
A collection of insightful and uproariously funny non-fiction by the bestselling author of INFINITE JEST - one of the most acclaimed and adventurous writers of our time. A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING... brings together Wallace's musings on a wide range of topics, from his early days as a nationally ranked tennis player to his trip on a commercial cruiseliner. In each of these essays, Wallace's observations are as keen as they are funny. Filled with hilarious details and invigorating analyses, these essays brilliantly expose the fault line in American culture - and once again reveal David Foster Wallace's extraordinary talent and gargantuan intellect.
R 402.00
R 367.00
Cambridge Companion to David Foster Wallace
Best known for his masterpiece Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace re-invented fiction and non-fiction for a generation with his groundbreaking and original work. Wallace's desire to blend formal innovation and self-reflexivity with the communicative and restorative function of literature resulted in works that appeal as much to a reader's intellect as they do emotion. As such, few writers in recent memory have quite matched his work's intense critical and popular impact. The essays in this Companion, written by top Wallace scholars, offer a historical and cultural context for grasping Wallace's significance, provide rigorous individual readings of each of his major works, whether story collections, non-fiction, or novels, and address the key themes and concerns of these works, including aesthetics, politics, religion and spirituality, race, and post-humanism. This wide-ranging volume is a necessary resource for understanding an author now widely regarded as one of the most influential and important of his time.
R 1,329.83
David Foster Wallace and the Question of Scepticism
David Foster Wallace and the Question of Scepticism examines the role of scepticism and doubt in Wallace's work, showing that they are of fundamental importance to his writing in its form and its themes. Wallace's work articulates a deep ambivalence about the value of scepticism, on the one hand presenting practical and moral arguments for the value of conviction and belief, while on the other hand being committed to a sceptical project of opposing certainty and dogma. On a formal level, Wallace's writing both solicits the reader's trust and provokes the reader's scepticism. This dynamic is responsible for the polarised responses of absolute trust and dissenting scepticism that characterise the work's reception. By putting these responses into dialogue with the work's internal treatment of the question of scepticism, this book illuminates the core philosophical investments that drive the work, and the dynamics that have so far governed its reception.
R 5,027.00
Girl With Curious Hair
Girl with Curious Hair is replete with David Foster Wallace's remarkable and unsettling reimaginations of reality. From the eerily "real," almost holographic evocations of historical figures like Lyndon Johnson and overtelevised game-show hosts and late-night comedians to the title story, where terminal punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism, Wallace renders the incredible comprehensible, the bizarre normal, the absurd hilarious, the familiar strange.
R 433.00
R 669.58
Handbook of Latin American Literature (Routledge Revivals)
First published in 1987 (this second edition in 1992), the Handbook of Latin American Literature offers readers the opportunity to explore this literary history in the English Language and constitutes an ideological approach to Latin American Literature. It provides both concise information concerning particular authors, works, and literary traditions of Latin America as well as comprehensive material about the various national literatures of the area. This book will therefore be of interest to Hispanic scholars, as well as more general readers and non-Hispanists.
R 5,729.88
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest
Infinite Jest has been hailed as one the great modern American novels and its author, David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide in 2008, as one of the most influential and innovative authors of the past 20 years. Don DeLillo called Infinite Jest a "three-stage rocket to the future," a work "equal to the huge, babbling spin-out sweep of contemporary life," while Time Magazine included Infinite Jest on its list of 100 Greatest Novels published between 1923-2006. David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest: A Reader's Guide was the first book to be published on the novel and is a key reference for those who wish to explore further. Infinite Jest has become an exemplar for difficulty in contemporary Fiction--its 1,079 pages full of verbal invention, oblique narration, and a scattered, nonlinear, chronology. In this comprehensively revised second edition, Burn maps Wallace's influence on contemporary American fiction, outlines Wallace's poetics, and provides a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the most important themes and ideas, before surveying Wallace's post-Infinite Jest output, including The Pale King.
R 1,058.00
David Foster Wallace and Religion
In the years since his suicide, scholars have explored David Foster Wallace’s writing in transdisciplinary ways. This is the first book of its kind to discuss how Wallace understood and wrote about religion. At present, the scholarly community is sharply divided on how best to read Wallace on religious questions. Some interpret him to be a Nietzschean nihilist, while others see in him a profoundly spiritual, even mystical thinker. Some read Wallace as a Buddhist thinker, and others as a Christian existentialist. Involved at every level of this discussion are Wallace’s experiences in Twelve Step recovery programs, according to which only a higher power can help one remove unwanted defects of character. The multifarious essays in this volume by literature, religion, and philosophy scholars in the Wallace community delve into Wallace’s life and writings to advance the conversation about Wallace and religion. While they may disagree with one another in substantial ways, the contributors argue that Wallace was not only deliberate in his writings on religious themes, but also displayed an impressive level of theological nuance.
R 3,973.00
Best American Essays 2007
The twenty-two essays in this powerful collection -- perhaps the most diverse in the entire series -- come from a wide variety of periodicals, ranging from n + 1 and PMS to the New Republic and The New Yorker, and showcase a remarkable range of forms. Read on for narrative -- in first and third person -- opinion, memoir, argument, the essay-review, confession, reportage, even a dispatch from Iraq. The philosopher Peter Singer makes a case for philanthropy; the poet Molly Peacock constructs a mosaic tribute to a little-known but remarkable eighteenth-century woman artist; the novelist Marilynne Robinson explores what has happened to holiness in contemporary Christianity; the essayist Richard Rodriguez wonders if California has anything left to say to America; and the Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson attempts to find common ground with the evangelical community. In his introduction, David Foster Wallace makes the spirited case that 'many of these essays are valuable simply as exhibits of what a first-rate artistic mind can make of particular fact-sets -- whether these involve the 17-kHz ring tones of some kids' cell phones, the language of movement as parsed by dogs, the near-infinity of ways to experience and describe an earthquake, the existential synecdoche of stagefright, or the revelation that most of what you've believed and revered turns out to be self-indulgent crap.'
R 520.00
R 286.45
David Foster Wallace: Fiction and Form
In David Foster Wallace: Fiction and Form, David Hering analyses the structures of David Foster Wallace's fiction, from his debut The Broom of the System to his final unfinished novel The Pale King. Incorporating extensive analysis of Wallace's drafts, notes and letters, and taking account of the rapidly expanding field of Wallace scholarship, this book argues that the form of Wallace’s fiction is always inextricably bound up within an ongoing conflict between the monologic and the dialogic, one strongly connected with Wallace’s sense of his own authorial presence and identity in the work. Hering suggests that this conflict occurs at the level of both subject and composition, analysing the importance of a number of provocative structural and critical contexts – ghostliness, institutionality, reflection – to the fiction while describing how this argument is also visible within the development of Wallace’s manuscripts, comparing early drafts with published material to offer a career-long framework of the construction of Wallace’s fiction. The final chapter offers an unprecedentedly detailed analysis of the troubled, decade-long construction of the work that became The Pale King.
R 5,150.00
David Foster Wallace and the Body
David Foster Wallace and the Body is the first full-length study to focus on Wallace’s career-long fascination with the human body and the textual representation of the body. The book provides engaging, accessible close readings that highlight the importance of the overlooked, and yet central theme of all of this major American author’s works: having a body. Wallace repeatedly made clear that good fiction is about what it means to be a ‘human being’. A large part of what that means is having a body, and being conscious of the conflicts that arise, morally and physically, as a result; a fact with which, as Wallace forcefully and convincingly argues, we all desire ‘to be reconciled’. Given the ubiquity of the themes of embodiment in Wallace’s work, this study is an important addition to an expanding field. The book also opens up the themes addressed to interrogate aspects of contemporary literature, culture, and society more generally, placing Wallace’s works in the history of literary and philosophical engagements with the brute fact of embodiment.
R 2,629.13
R 188.00
Queer Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema
Viewing contemporary Latin American films through the lens of queer studies reveals that many filmmakers are exploring issues of gender identity and sexual difference, as well as the homophobia that attempts to defeat any challenge to the heterosexual norms of patriarchal culture. In this study of queer issues in Latin American cinema, David William Foster offers highly perceptive queer readings of fourteen key films to demonstrate how these cultural products promote the principles of an antiheterosexist stance while they simultaneously disclose how homophobia enforces the norms of heterosexuality. Foster examines each film in terms of the ideology of its narrative discourse, whether homoerotic desire or a critique of patriarchal heterosexism and its implications for Latin American social life and human rights. His analyses underscore the difficulties involved in constructing a coherent and convincing treatment of the complex issues involved in critiquing the patriarchy from perspectives associated with queer studies. The book will be essential reading for everyone working in queer studies and film studies. The films discussed in this book are: De eso no se habla (I Don't Want to Talk about It) El lugar sin límites (The Place without Limits) Aqueles dois (Those Two) Convivencia (Living Together) Conducta impropia (Improper Conduct) The Disappearance of García LorcaLa Virgen de los Sicarios (Our Lady of the Assassins) Doña Herlinda y su hijo (Doña Herlinda and Her Son) No se lo digas a nadie (Don't Tell Anyone) En el paraíso no existe el dolor (There Is No Suffering in Paradise) A intrusa (The Interloper) Plata quemada (Burnt Money) Afrodita (Aphrodite) Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate)
R 587.00
Companion to David Foster Wallace Studies
Criticism of the work of David Foster Wallace has tended to be atomistic, focusing on a single aspect of individual works. A Companion to the Work of David Foster Wa ll ace is designed as a professional study of all of Wallace's creative work. This volume includes both thematic essays and focused examinations of each of his major works of fiction.
R 3,032.18
Pale King
The Pale King is David Foster Wallace's final novel - a testament to his enduring brillianceThe Internal Revenue Service Regional Examination Centre in Peoria, Illinois, 1985. Here the minutaie of a million daily lives are totted up, audited and accounted for. Here the workers fight a never-ending war against the urgency of their own boredom. Here then, squeezed between the trivial and the quotidian, lies all human life. And this is David Foster Wallace's towering, brilliant, hilarious and deeply moving final novel.'Breathtakingly brilliant, funny, maddening and elegiac' New York Times'A bravura performance worthy of Woolf or Joyce. Wallace's finest work as a novelist' Time'Light-years beyond Infinite Jest. Wallace's reputation will only grow, and like one of the broken columns beloved of Romantic painters, The Pale King will stand, complete in its incompleteness, as his most substantial fictional achievement' Hari Kunzru, Financial Times'A paradise of language and intelligence' The Times'Archly brilliant' Metro'Teems with erudition and ideas, with passages of stylistic audacity, with great cheerful thrown-out gags, goofy puns and moments of truly arresting clarity. Innovative, penetrating, forcefully intelligent fiction like Wallace's arrives once in a generation, if that' Daily Telegraph'In a different dimension to the tepid vapidities that pass as novels these days. Sentence for sentence, almost word for word, Wallace could out-write any of his peers' Scotland on SundayDavid Foster Wallace wrote the novels Infinite Jest and The Broom of the System, and the short-story collections Oblivion, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Girl with Curious Hair. His non-fiction includes Consider the Lobster, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Everything and More, This is Water and Both Flesh and Not. He died in 2008.
R 402.00
R 444.78
Gender and Society in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema
"Gender is an absolute ground zero for most human societies," writes David William Foster, "an absolute horizon of social subjectivity." In this book, he examines gender issues in thirteen Brazilian films made (with one exception) after the 1985 return to constitutional democracy and elimination of censorship to show how these issues arise from and comment on the sociohistorical reality of contemporary Brazilian society. Foster organizes his study around three broad themes: construction of masculinity, constructions of feminine and feminist identities, and same-sex positionings and social power. Within his discussions of individual films ranging from Jorge um brasileiro to A hora da estrela to Beijo no asfalto, he offers new ways of understanding national ideals and stereotypes, sexual dissidence (homoeroticism and transgenderism), heroic models, U.S./Brazilian relations, revolutionary struggle, and human rights violations. As the first study of Brazilian cinematic representations of gender ideology in English or Portuguese, this book will be important reading in film and cultural studies.
R 587.00
Gay and Lesbian Themes in Latin American Writing
A taboo subject in many cultures, homosexuality has been traditionally repressed in Latin America, both as a way of life and as a subject for literature. Yet numerous writers have attempted to break the cultural silence surrounding homosexuality, using various strategies to overtly or covertly discuss lesbian and gay themes. In this study, David William Foster examines more than two dozen texts that deal with gay and lesbian topics, drawing from them significant insights into the relationship between homosexuality and society in different Latin American countries and time periods.Foster's study includes works both sympathetic and antagonistic to homosexuality, showing the range of opinion on this topic. The preponderance of his examples come from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, countries with historically active gay communities, although he also includes material on other countries. Noteworthy among the authors covered are Reinaldo Arenas, Adolfo Caminha, Isaac Chocrón, José Donoso, Sylvia Molloy, Alejandra Pizarnik, and Luis Zapata.
R 587.00
Spanish Literature: A Collection of Essays
First published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
R 11,148.52
Depression and Dysphoria in the Fiction of David Foster Wallace
Depression and Dysphoria in the Fiction of David Foster Wallace is the first full-length study of this critically overlooked theme, addressing a major gap in Wallace studies. Wallace has long been recognised as a ‘depression laureate’ inheriting a mantle previously held by Sylvia Plath due to the frequent and remarkable depictions of depressed characters in his fiction. However, this book resists taking Wallace’s fiction at face value and instead situates close reading of his complex fictions in theoretical dialogue both with philosophical and theoretical texts and with contemporary authors and infl uences. This book explores Wallace’s complex engagement with philosophical and medical ideas of emotional suffering and demonstrates how this evolves over his career. The shifts in Wallace’s thematic focus on various forms of dysphoria, including heartache, loneliness, boredom, and anxiety, as well as depression, correspond to an increasingly pessimistic philosophy underlying his fiction.
R 9,932.32
Gospel According to David Foster Wallace
The Gospel According to David Foster Wallace is the first book to explore key religious themes - from boredom to addiction, and distraction – in the work of one of America’s most celebrated contemporary novelists.In a series of short, topic-focussed chapters, the book joins a selection of key scenes from Wallace’s novels Infinite Jest and The Pale King with clear explanations of how they contribute to his overall account of what it means to be a human being in the 21st century. Adam Miller explores how Wallace’s work masterfully investigates the nature of first-world boredom and shows, in the process, how easy it is to get addicted to distraction (chemical, electronic, or otherwise). Implicitly critiquing, excising, and repurposing elements of AA’s Twelve Step program, Wallace suggests that the practice of prayer (regardless of belief in God), the patient application of attention to things that seem ordinary and boring, and the internalization of clichés may be the antidote to much of what ails us in the 21st century.
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R 570.00
Infinite Jest
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human - and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do. "The next step in fiction...Edgy, accurate, and darkly witty...Think Beckett, think Pynchon, think Gaddis. Think." --Sven Birkerts, The Atlantic
R 912.00
Pale King
The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has.The Pale King remained unfinished at the time of David Foster Wallace's death, but it is a deeply compelling and satisfying novel, hilarious and fearless and as original as anything Wallace ever undertook. It grapples directly with ultimate questions--questions of life's meaning and of the value of work and society--through characters imagined with the interior force and generosity that were Wallace's unique gifts. Along the way it suggests a new idea of heroism and commands infinite respect for one of the most daring writers of our time.
R 1,616.00
Writing and Learning in Cross-national Perspective
Despite the increasingly global implications of conversations about writing and learning, U.S. composition studies has devoted little attention to cross-national perspectives on student writing and its roles in wider cultural contexts. Caught up in our own concerns about how U.S. students make the transition as writers from secondary school to postsecondary education, we often overlook the fact that students around the world are undergoing the same evolution. How do the students in China, England, France, Germany, Kenya, or South Africa--the educational systems represented in this collection--write their way into the communities of their chosen disciplines? How, for instance, do students whose mother tongue is not the language of instruction cope with the demands of academic and discipline-specific writing? And in what ways is U.S. students' development as academic writers similar to or different from that of students in other countries? With this collection, editors David Foster and David R. Russell broaden the discussion about the role of writing in various educational systems and cultures. Students' development as academic writers raises issues of student authorship and agency, as well as larger issues of educational access, institutional power relations, system goals, and students' roles in society. The contributors to this collection discuss selected writing purposes and forms characteristic of a specific national education system, describe students' agency as writers, and identify contextual factors--social, economic, linguistic, cultural--that shape institutional responses to writing development. In discussions that bookend these studies of different educational structures, the editors compare U.S. postsecondary writing practices and pedagogies with those in other national systems, and suggest new perspectives for cross-national study of learning/writing issues important to all educational systems. Given the worldwide increase in students en
R 6,960.00
R 521.00
Geographies of David Foster Wallace's Novels
The Geographies of David Foster Wallace's Novels takes a fresh look at David Foster Wallace's novels through the lens of historical geography. It explores the connections between Wallace's literary practice and the reshaping of American geographical space that resulted from the transition between Fordist and post-Fordist forms of capitalism, presenting critical readings of the novels together with analysis of manuscripts and notebooks from Wallace's archive. Deploying an innovative methodology that combines aspects of cultural geography and literary criticism, each novel is historically situated through a spatial keyword, expanding our understanding of the connections between social context and formal innovation in Wallace's work.
R 2,850.00
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