Reviews

Gesturing Toward Reality: David Foster Wallace and Philosophy by Robert K. Bolger, Scott Korb

sentient_meat's review

2.0

I was quite excited for this book as a long time reader of DFW and philosophy. Ultimately the book was a bit disappointing. Many of the essays were far too similar in content and on the source materials that they drew from. The essays mostly center on the posthumously published 'This is Water,' and The Pale King, both of which are very well written and philosophically rich, and eschew much of the rest of Wallace's body of work. Infinite Jest gets a bit of attention in a couple of essays (in my opinion it is wildly misinterpreted in these few essays where it is mentioned), but the short fiction is almost entirely untouched (with the exception of Good Old Neon). Most of the essays are well written and decently argued, but the collection is unbalanced.