Fictions of Proximity: Skepticism, Romanticism, and the Wallace Nexus

Fictions of Proximity explores the work of contemporary novelists influenced by David Foster Wallace, challenging the idea of complete fusion and transparency in human interactions. It introduces the concept of proximity and examines how these writers use fictions to dramatize, problematize, and enact this position of closeness with separateness. The book draws on unpublished archival materials and understudied connections, offering new interpretations of four novelists and situating them within contemporary post-positivist philosophy.

Format: Hardback
Length: 298 pages
Publication date: 15 December 2023
Publisher: Lexington Books

Fictions of Proximity: Skepticism, Romanticism, and the Wallace Nexus is a book that explores the work of contemporary novelists who have been influenced by David Foster Wallace and his legacy of logical positivism. The book argues that these writers use fictions complexities to challenge the idea that in human interactions, only complete fusion and transparency may count as instances of knowing. Instead, the book proposes the concept of "proximity," which is a closeness with separateness. The book reads key novels of contemporary Anglo-American literature as "fictions of proximity," i.e., as texts that dramatize, problematize, and enact the movement into this position of proximity. To tell this story, the book draws on unpublished archival materials and understudied connections, advancing new interpretations of four novelists: David Foster Wallace, David Markson, Bret Easton Ellis, and Zadie Smith. Fictions of Proximity provides new readings of these writers, both of their canonical texts and of lesser-known works, and situates them with respect to prominent figures in contemporary post-positivist philosophy.

Weight: 606g
Dimension: 160 x 236 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781666923186