Postirony: The Nonfictional Literature of David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers 9783839436615

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Lukas Hoffmann Postirony

Lettre

Lukas Hoffmann (PhD) is head of studies and teaches narratology at the Academy of Performing Arts BW. His research interests include contemporary literature, narrative ethics, reader-response criticism, and post-theory.

Lukas Hoffmann

Postirony The Nonfictional Literature of David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2016 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover layout: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld Printed in Germany Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-3661-1 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-3661-5

Contents

Acknowledgements | 8 Introduction | 9 Post-Postmodernism, Postirony, and New Sincerity | 10 Genre Matters | 11 Creative Nonfiction – Memoir and Autocriticism | 18 New Voices in Contemporary Literature | 21 Dave Eggers – Counter-Cultural Hero and Idealist | 23 David Foster Wallace – Changing the Tone of Contemporary Literature | 25 Jonathan Lethem and Nick Flynn – Postirony’s 2nd Generation | 33 Synopsis | 34 Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea | 37 Richard Rorty – The Liberal Ironist | 42 Linda Hutcheon – Irony’s Edge | 46 David Foster Wallace – How Irony Spread | 47 Irony – An All-Embracing Attitude | 51 Jedediah Purdy – A Return to Traditional Values | 55 Alex Shakar – The Savage Girl | 57 The Postironic – A Philosophical Stand | 59

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis | 65 Audiences – Preliminary Thoughts | 68 Metalepsis | 69 Audience – Narratee and Narrative Audience | 70

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic | 89 Meta-Autobiography | 90 Trauma – True Feelings and the Plot | 92 The Nonfictional Frame | 95

Struggling With Postmodernism | 100 “I Want to Be Doing Something Beautiful” – Narrating Dave and Narrated Dave | 105 The Narrated Dave | 110 The Narrating Dave and His Audience | 117 Justifying the Narrative | 120 Concluding AHWOSG | 123

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition | 127

“Author’s Foreword” – Faking Memoir, Talking Truth | 131 The Audience and the Autobiographical | 135 Subjectivity, Veracity, Sincerity | 139 “Author’s Foreword” Part II – Autocriticism, the Reader, and Postirony | 142 A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again | 148 The Text Within the Text – Critique as Reassurance | 152 The Wallace Style – Footnotes, Asides, and Metafiction | 155 Free Choice vs. Pampered Into Despair | 156 Desperation Cruise | 161 Concluding “Fun Thing” | 164 Consider the Lobster | 166 The Audience of the Lobster | 170 Concluding Wallace | 171

A Second Generation Emerges | 175 Nick Flynn – Reenacting Memoir | 175 Jonathan Lethem – Postironic Ecstasy | 185

Conclusion | 191 Identifying the Enemy – Irony’s Reign | 193 The Nonfictional Frame | 195 Autobiography – Postironic Idiosyncrasies | 196 Reading Postironic Differences | 197 Postirony in Autobiography | 198 Postirony in Autocritical Essays | 198 Concluding Thoughts | 199 Works Cited | 201

What’s engaging and artistically real is, taking it as axiomatic that the present is grotesquely materialistic, how is it that we as human beings still have the capacity for joy, charity, genuine connections, for stuff that doesn’t have a price? And can these capacities be made to thrive? And if so, how, and if not why not? David Foster Wallace 1993

Acknowledgements

This book is based on my doctoral dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen in 2014. It has only been made possible with the help of the following: My supervisors, Professor Dr. Astrid Franke and Prof. Dr. Ingrid Hotz-Davies whom believed in my ideas and helped me shaping them in a readable form. Financially, I am much indebted to the Landesgraduierten­­förderung BadenWürttem­­­­berg for a two-year stipend. I am especially grateful and indebted to my friends at the University of Tübingen and other institutions who have read this book as a work-in-progress and helped it coalesce into its final form: Gregor Entzeroth, Sarah Hillenbrand Varela, and Kathy-Ann Tan. Thank you! Special thanks to Erik Pietschmann who read the manuscript more then once and with whom I led countless discussions that were essential for shaping numerous unformed ideas into accessible thoughts. I can only hope to return the favor one day. Heartfelt thanks to my parents, Ingrid Hoffmann-Stiel and Dieter Hoffmann, and to my sister, Katharina Uhl. Their continual moral support and never-failing trust were always a source of strength. Last but not least, deepest thanks to Jessica Kneißler for being with me through­out the years it took to write this book; for enduring my bad moods and for the unconditional support, encouragement, and healthy distractions. I dedicate this book to her.

Introduction

This book examines the postironic1 movement in contemporary US literature considering mainly two aspects: For one thing, I put my focus on nonfiction texts rather than fictional narratives. On the other hand, the “effects” these texts have on their audience – also a major concern of the authors chosen – are a core feature of my narratological approach. A number of scholars has dealt with postironic writings,2 but until now only fictional narratives have been put under scrutiny. However, many authors who are labeled postironic in scholarly literature have – besides their oftentimes more acknowledged fictional works – published rather great amounts of nonfiction. In numerous cases these nonfiction narratives, especially the short essayistic works, are consulted only to highlight the scholarly conclusions about the fictional narratives.3 In contemporary literary criticism there seems to exist a prejudice that dismisses the artistic value of nonfiction itself, a notion I find misleading and intend to overcome in my examination of the postironic syndrome. In my opinion, the nonfiction I examine not only shows artistic value but is also well suited for the particular postironic purposes in itself. Both the neglect in criticism and the idiosyncratic style of postironic writers demand an investigation that (1) highlights the literary sophistication and (2) examines the nonfictional peculiarities of these texts. Postirony’s most urgent characteristic is its attempt to communicate with the reader instead of presenting her a passive entertainment. Different critics,4 most 1 |  The Chapter “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea” will explain and discuss the concept of postirony in detail. 2 |  Most prominently Lee Konstantinou, whose doctoral dissertation, numerous articles, and a monography approach postirony. Cp. Konstantinou (2009b), (2012), and (2016). 3 |  Cp. Boswell (2003). 4 |  The works of these critics make general suggestions about genres and are interested in autobiography, a form that is similar to the novel but oftentimes approached differently because of its nonfiction status.

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prominently Phillip Lejeune, proposed that different contracts between writer and reader exist when fiction and nonfiction are at work. In nonfiction, the reader expects the communicative act to be truthful and to address the world the reader understands as the real world surrounding herself. While most critics accept this as definitional for nonfiction in general, my focus is set on the actual content and message that postironic narratives attempt to convey.5

Post-Postmodernism , Postirony,

and

N ew S incerity

Postirony is only one term in use for the group of writers I investigate in this book, the others being post-postmodernism and new sincerity. However, not one of these labels seems applicable without causing problems. Nicoline Timmer uses the term post-postmodernism in her study Do You Feel It Too?: The Post-Postmodern Syndrome in American Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium. (2010) She describes the authors David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, and Mark Danielewski pushing beyond the means of postmodernism and thereby defining a new movement, namely post-postmodernism. Still, post-postmodernism, similar to postmodernism, is a term far too broad to describe one particular literary movement and therefore not very satisfying. In contrast, literary scholar Lee Konstantinou attempts to use “post-postmodernism” along with “postirony” to describe “writers [who] have sought to create a post-postmodern art that moves beyond or reverses what they take to be postmodernism’s most damaging qualities” (2009b: 10) and specifies that [...] postironists do not replicate the rhetoric of neoconservatives, who often attack postmodernism for baldly political reasons [but] value the legacy and accept the theses of their postmodernist forefathers, even as they recognize serious problems with their patrimony […]. (ibid: 10;12)

By this specification he is scaling down his field of inquiry from contemporary writers in general to the group that is associated with Eggers’ McSweeney’s Quaterly. Thereby, this group can be sharply defined as

5 |  Obviously fictional narratives also transport meaning. The difference is that although this meaning is – at least in an engaging narrative – also applied by the reader to her own world, the frame of reference is the fictional world. The reader might see similarities to her own world but is aware that it is not really her world which is depicted in the narrative. The consequences for the level of engagement will be examined althrough this book.

Introduction [w]riters [who] try to imagine what shape a postironic consciousness, rather than an uncritically earnest or naively nostalgic consciousness, might take. Thus, the declaration of “postirony” often announces the use of ironic and self-consciously experimental means towards sincere or sentimental ends. (ibid: 12)

I agree that the announcement of “sincere ends” is central to postironic literature. For some critics, its centrality leads them to label the group “New Sincerity.” New Sincerity, a term chosen for example by Adam Kelly to describe these writers,6 is, in my opinion, the least appropriate term for this group. By skipping the “post” it does not take into account that the postironists are actively struggling with both postmodernism and irony; a new sincerity could easily dismiss all of postmodernism’s heritage and write straightforward realism. Nevertheless, the idea that these writers are “sincere” in their attempt to communicate with the audience is correctly perceived by Kelly and I refer to this idea of the sincere narrative in my close reading chapters. Because I see the active struggle with the ironic environment7 as the key concern of the writers I discuss, I believe the term postironic is the most fitting one and will be used in this book. Sometimes statements out of secondary texts use either post-postmodern or new sincerity; if they do so without a different implication to the one I have offered, I will not further comment on these terms.

G enre M at ters 8 The common factor of all texts under investigation in this book is their status of creative nonfiction. Although different in form, they are united under this label. I follow different scholars – David Shields, Bonnie Rough, among others – who propose that categorizing narratives as nonfiction has a strong influence on readers’ reactions to these texts.

6 |  Critics who use the term “New Sincerity” usually refer to Art Spiegelman as the origin for this term: “Both Spiegelman and Melamid take credit for coining the term ‘Neosincerity,’ but everyone agreed that it could also be called post-irony, if it didn’t sound so highfalutin. They also agreed that irony has lost its sting. ‘We got immunized against irony,’ Spiegelman said. ‘It makes you shrug. It’s a new way of making you passive.’” (Elliott) 7 |  Cp. my discussion of the postironist idea that contemporary societies are ironic to their core in the chapter “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea.” 8 |  This expression is taken from Couser (2005).

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Creative nonfiction is not a genre in itself, it rather describes an attitude writers have toward their texts. As David Shields, an advocate of creative nonfiction, declares: The books that most interest me sit on a frontier between genres. On one level, they confront the real world directly; on another level, they mediate and shape the world, as novels do. The writer is there as a palpable presence on the page, brooding over his society, daydreaming it into being, working his own brand of linguistic magic on it. What I want is the real world, with all its hard edges, but the real world fully imagined and fully written, not merely reported. (Shields 2010: 69)

This interest in the “real world” connects writers of creative nonfiction, at the same time, the stylistics of creative nonfiction are taken from novelistic writing. Thereby creative nonfiction leaves the level of “report” and enters a level of “the real world […] imagined.” This is the distinctive mark to more traditional nonfictional accounts. The “frontier between genres” that Shields describes is the imaginative and subjective rendering of “real world” accounts in a creative way. In order to clarify his point, Shields refers to writer and literary scholar Bonnie Rough who claims that [n]onfiction writers imagine. Fiction writers invent. These are fundamentally different acts, performed to different ends. Unlike a fiction reader, whose only task is to imagine, a nonfiction reader is asked to behave more deeply: to imagine, and also to believe. (Rough “Writing Lost Stories” qtd. in Shields 2010: 59 my emphasis)

Rough also includes the reader into her argument because the line between fiction and creative nonfiction is indeed blurry when one considers narrative style. The distinction of “imagination” and “invention” that Rough introduces makes, in my opinion, the actual difference for the reader. As long as the reader feels that “facts” are imagined, which means they might not have happened exactly as written down but nevertheless stem from reality, she accepts the claim of nonfiction. “Invented” parts of a nonfiction account, however, put her off – to believe becomes impossible – and consequently, these parts are conceived as lies because they do not have a referential value to the real world the reader lives in.9 I am mainly interested in these expectations on the addressee’s side, and my argument follows Rough’s idea by stating that (postironic) nonfiction is perceived differently from (postironic) fiction. 9 |  Invention is part of the fictional realm. A reader of fiction actually expects invention, and fiction without invention is impossible.

Introduction

In contrast to Shields’ and Rough’s general approach, I use a narratological methodology in order to discuss the text-inherent markers of nonfictionality. Shields’ concept of the “fictionalization of the real” makes the writer’s assumed “palpable presence on the page” (Shields 2010: 69) a question of narratology. The writer whom the reader feels present is foremost a narrator and her/his agenda is a narrator’s, which can best be investigated in narratological terms. On the other hand, the reader as an extratextual entity is also hardly graspable; therefore I explore the intratextual narratee and the so-called audience text-functions later in this book. To return to my thoughts about creative nonfiction, the creative writing department of the University of Verrmont,10 similar to Shields, defines the “frontier between genres” as: Creative nonfiction merges the boundaries between literary art (fiction, poetry) and research nonfiction (statistical, fact-filled, run of the mill journalism). It is writing composed of the real, or of facts, that employs the same literary devices as fiction such as setting, voice/tone, character development, etc. This makes it different (more “creative”) than standard nonfiction writing. (Tutor Tips)

Although I look at texts varying from self-reflexive literary metafiction (Jonathan Lethem’s “The Ecstasy of Influence”) to a description of a luxury cruise (David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”) and also at longer narratives that define themselves in their titles as memoirs (Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: A Memoir and Nick Flynn’s autobiographical trilogy), they all share a connecting link which is that they are “composed of the real, or of facts” but nevertheless “[employ] the same literary devices as fiction.” This part is captioned “genre matters” and above I declared that creative nonfiction is less of a genre and more of an attitude. For the reader, however, it functions as a genre. Rough’s idea that the reader has to “believe” when reading nonfiction changes the reader’s attitude towards the text. Whereas in fiction unreliability of the narrator and improbability of events is usually accepted by the reader as literary maneuvers (which, when skillfully used, have outstanding importance for a text; i.e. the unreliability of the narrator in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita), the same devices lead to disappointment in literary nonfiction.11 Although I agree with Shields’ claim that creative nonfiction uses literary devices to “imagine rather than report” facts, these literary devices are differently scrutinized and evaluated by readers of nonfiction compared to readers of fiction.

10 |  I have randomly chosen the University of Vermont; other creative writing departments use similar definitions. 11 |  Cp. my discussion of James Frey below.

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To further clarify the nonfiction/fiction distinction that is important for the reader’s “belief” in a text, the discussion on autobiography is illuminating.12 The question of whether autobiography/memoir 13 can be considered a genre in itself is most prominently asked in Paul de Man’s “Autobiography as De-Facement.” (1979) Therein he states that “[e]mpirically as well as theoretically, autobiography lends itself poorly to generic definition; each specific instance seems to be an exception to the norm; the works themselves always seem to shade off into neighboring or even incompatible genres […].” (de Man 2007: 265) De Man’s assumption is convincing when assuming autobiography’s stylistic means. Although Augustine’s Confessions (usually considered to be the first autobiography) were already written in the year 399, a widespread useage of generic autobiographical modes was only established in the 18th century, occurring simultaneously with the proliferation of the novel. Early novels (i.e. Robinson Crusoe (1719), Tristram Shandy (1759)) used the plotline (confessional novel, bildungsroman, etc.) that is predestined for autobiographical writings and oftentimes pretended to be real accounts.14 As Shields states: Early novelists felt the need to foreground their work with a false realistic front. Defoe tried to pass off Journal of a Plague Year as an actual journal. Fielding presented Jonathan Wild as a “real” account. As the novel evolved, it left these techniques behind. (Shields 2010: 13)

12 |  That I confine the discussion here to autobiography/memoir is due to the fact of a lack of critical literature concerning creative nonfiction in general. However, the problems and questions discussed here are strongly connected to all forms of literary nonfiction. 13 |  Initially the terms memoir and autobiography were used for different writings. Whereas narratives concerned with the whole life of its author were labeled autobiography, narratives that combined a historical event with the corresponding lifespan of its author were called memoirs. Nowadays the terms are equivalents. Smith and Watson ascribe this to practices in the book industry: “Predating the term autobiography, memoir is now the word used by publishing houses to describe various practices and genres of self life writing. […] Both memoir and autobiography are encompassed in the term life writing.” (Smith and Watson 2010: 4 original emphasis) I use both terms as synonyms in this book. Later I also look at the specific form of “autocriticism.” 14 |  “[...] in the West, memoir developed in tandem with the novel, in English, at least, the two genres have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for some two hundred years. And they remain intertwined. Today memoirs often incorporate invented or enhanced material, and they often use novelistic techniques.” (Couser 2011: 15)

Introduction

Consequently, the ways autobiography presents itself in are similar to the novel.15 Nevertheless, de Man’s assumption that autobiography is not distinguishable from fictional narratives cannot be applied to the actual reading experience. The reader of autobiography deals with that genre differently than she does with reading a fictional novel. While it is difficult to measure the “positive” engagement of a reader in a memoir, the public outburst when a hoax is exposed shows that readers feel deceived in a personal manner. As for example Wallace puts it: The feeling of betrayal or infidelity that the reader suffers if it turns out that a piece of ostensible nonfiction has made up stuff in it […] is because the terms of the nonfiction contract have been violated. There are, of course, ways to quote-unquote cheat the reader in fiction, too, but these tend to be more technical, meaning internal to the story’s own formal rules […] the reader tends to feel more aesthetically disappointed than personally dicked over. (Wallace 2011: 73)

Truthfulness is the primary and foremost expectation the reader has when engaging with a nonfiction text. While inconsistencies in a novel are mostly read as literary failures, the reader takes exaggerations, half-truths, and straightforwardly told lies as a personal affront in a memoir. Most contemporary readers are aware that life writing is just as subjective as any other account given by human beings. That memory might fail, that the past is seen differently in retrospect, that a narrator’s judgment might be influenced by personal relations, prejudices, or the cultural background are aspects of life writing which the reader is aware of. However, when she feels cheated by a factual narrative, it loses its face value. This face value, however, is not inherent in the genre or the particular text but in the reader’s expectations: When Frey, […] Wilkomirski, et al. wrote their books, of course they made things up. Who doesn’t? […] I don’t want to defend Frey per se – he’s a terrible writer – but the very nearly pornographic obsession with his and similar cases reveals the degree of nervousness on the topic. The huge loud roar, as it returns again and again, has to do with the culture being embarrassed at how much it wants the frame of reality and, within that frame, great drama. (Shields 2010: 35)

15 |  Notable exceptions are lyrical autobiographies William Wordsworth’s The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind; An Autobiographical Poem (1850).

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The contemporary reader 16 allows forms of fictionalization in creative nonfiction; dramatization is necessary to fulfill the reader’s urge for drama.17 At the same time she feels an “embarrassement” about her own voyeuristic demand. This puts writers in a difficult spot, because it is a fine line between “imagining facts” and thereby overcoming a mere “report” and making up facts. The texts I investigate in this book all explicitly discuss this problem in metafictional asides and comments. They self-reflexively show their awareness of the problem of factual narration. Returning to the question of genre, to label certain texts “creative nonfiction” [...] is not the end of genre analysis but its starting point. The goal is not to classify works but to clarify them. We can’t fully understand what a particular [...] story is doing without some sense of the operative conventions, which are a function of its genre. Especially in life writing, then, genre is not about mere literary form; it’s about force – what a narrative’s purpose is, what impact it seeks to have on the world. (Couser 2011: 9 original emphasis)

Whereas in postironic writings the “narrative’s purpose” is similar in fictional and nonfictional narratives, the reader’s familiarity with literary/genre conventions makes this purpose in nonfiction more obvious and the “impact it seeks to have on the world” more explicit. The perpetual inclusion of generic distinctions is therefore indispensable. Ann Jefferson thinks along similar lines when she assumes that it is necessary to presuppose that there are generic distinctions between novels and autobiographies, even while fiction is being revealed as autobiographical and the autobiographies as fictional, since in this sphere (if not in all others) generic differences need to be respected as an effect of reading, even if they cannot be defined as intrinsic qualities of the texts in question. (1990: 109 my emphasis)

As stated above, the “effects of reading” are a core feature of my examinations. Therefore, it is important to highlight that I understand postironic creative nonfiction as highly autobiographical and that “[a]utobiography is [...] considered here

16 |  “Reader” in this case refers to an ideal reader. I discuss the roles of audiences, narratees and readers in the chapter “Reading th Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis.” 17 |  In the close reading chapters I discuss Jean Baudrillard’s concept of “hyperreality” and the resulting problem to distinguish between “reality” and a form of reality everyone receives from daily television, the internet etc., so-called “hyperreality.” Cp. footnote 51 in the chapter “Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic.”

Introduction

as referential art, without denying the complexities involved in that referentiality.” (Gudmundsdóttir 2003: 3) Returning to Jefferson’s idea that “[generic distinctions] cannot be defined as intrinsic qualities of the texts in question” I once more take up the idea that the reader feels betrayed by autobiographical hoaxes (cp. “The feeling of betrayal or infidelity that the reader suffers if it turns out that a piece of ostensible nonfiction has made up stuff in it.” (Wallace 2011: 73)) A number of texts labeled “autobiography” have been exposed as deceptive in the last several years. Most prominent are James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces (2003) and Binjamin Wilkomirski’s holocaust-survivor-tale Bruchstücke: Aus einer Kindheit 1939-1948 (1995). Frey tried to find a publisher for his book by presenting it as a fictional novel and only pretended to have written a memoir when it wasn’t accepted – ergo he lied knowingly in order to get a publisher (cp. Couser 2011: 17). The uproar when the fraud became known makes Couser conclude, “this distinction [between nonfiction and fiction] is not an academic one. Ignoring it can have significant consequences in the real world.” (ibid: 16) In contrast to Frey’s calculating lie, Wilkomirski actually believes to be a holocaust survivor; he is not really lying but rather narrating a psychosis. However, proof is given that his real name is Bruno Dösseker, and that he grew up in Switzerland and had in fact never been a victim of Nazi persecution,18 so the book is without doubt untrue in its referential aim. In the Frey scandal, most probably due to Oprah Winfrey’s involvement, the public outburst was huge. The book had been recommended by Winfrey in her “Book Club” and became a national bestseller. When, only a couple of months later, the website The Smoking Gun published an article entitled “A Million Little Lies: The Man Who Conned Oprah” and showed that Frey (among other false information) had strongly exaggerated and lied about his time spent in jail and in a rehabilitation center, a discussion about truthfulness in the book industry and mass media broke loose. The underlying concept behind appearing on the Oprah Winfrey Show is to truthfully give an account of one’s former suffering and redemption, and the TV-audience thereby becomes engaged witnesses rather than just passive consumers (cp. Gilmore 2010: 663-664). The same sort of engagement can be found in the reading process of a memoir. The reader’s expectation is to read the truth – though she knows that literary memoirs use literary stylistics and that no one can really recall a conversation word by word that had happened years

18 |  I will not discuss Wilkomirski’s case any further, for this book Frey’s conscious untruthfulness may be more concisely discussed than the medical implications of Wilkomirski’s account. The fraud was unveiled by Mächler (2000). Furthermore, an anthology shedding light onto the psychological side of the case is Diekmann (2002).

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before. Nevertheless the reader expects the narrator to tell the truth to the best of his/her knowledge. Credibility is what is expected of nonfiction. My close readings will oftentimes bring up this question again – interestingly, all postironic authors discussed in this book address the inquiry of reliability and veracity themselves in metafictional passages. Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson call this employment of autobiographical means in metafictional comments autocriticism.

C reative N onfiction – M emoir

and

Autocriticism

Memoir has become the central form of the culture: not only the way stories are told, but the way arguments are put forth, products and properties marketed, ideas floated, acts justified, reputations constructed or salvaged. (Yagoda 2009: 7)

I have stated that I will examine postironic nonfiction. Above I generally discussed distinguishing characteristics of nonfiction and fiction. The specific texts I discuss are – as creative nonfiction – located at the border between fiction and nonfiction. So far I have not distinguished between the different text forms that I will further explore. Dave Eggers and Nick Flynn published memoirs. This might seem strange at first since traditional memoirs are not written by writers in their twenties. However, as the quote above states, “memoir has become the central form of culture,” and because postironists are occupied with cultural symptoms, the choice to write memoir at a young age does not seem so strange anymore. Since the 1960s a memoir boom can be noticed. Bookstores oftentimes present an extra shelf reserved for autobiography, memoir, and biography. These texts have in common that they are considered referential or factual, in contrast to fictitious narratives that would include the autobiographical novel. Why the sales of autobiographical texts have been increasing within the last decades is difficult to explain. Some scholars believe that the postmodern lack of grand narratives (combined to a death of the subject)19 makes readers anxious for actual accounts of subjectivity. Others believe that a peeping tom mentality, promoted by television’s “reality” concepts, makes contemporary readers eager to get insights into others’ lives.20 But why is the contemporary reader more bound to a so-called factual narrative than to a fictitious one? From its inception the novel’s main goal was to present 19 |  A detailed analysis of the concept of the subject in postmodern times can be found in Heartfield (2002). 20 |  Cp. Yagoda (2009).

Introduction

the reader with lifelike characters and track their developments. Insights into an other’s self are the novel’s speciality (cp. classical examples like Robison Crusoe or Tristram Shandy), but for some reason contemporary readers seem unsatisfied by these fictional representations. Nevertheless, even though the memoir is often considered inferior to the novel in stylistic matters, 21 contemporary sales show a preference of readers for the memoir.22 Thomas Couser believes that [...] while memoirs, like novels, traffic in character, plot, conf lict, and suspense, we tend not to respond to these elements in the same way. The reason is that novels and memoirs have different statuses. In one way, characters in memoir are of course authorial creations; we know them only as effects of words on the page. But at the same time, they are representations of real people, who are vulnerable to harm. With memoir, too, we become interested in how characters are formed by real events – or at least how the narrator understands that process [...]. (Couser 2011: 13 my emphasis)

Couser highlights the aspect of realness in memoir, which I revisit when discussing claims of authenticity in my close readings later in this book. Also addressing the public interest in autobiographical writings, Gunnthórunn Gudmundsdóttir adds another notable aspect: The reason for this interest in life-writing are many and varied, but one important factor is that autobiography – in its various guises – can capture and address many contemporary concerns, for example the status of the subject [...], and perhaps most importantly questions the individual’s relationship with the past. Autobiographical representation can thereby ref lect some of the main preoccupations of postmodernism. (Gudmundsdóttir 2003: 1)

This is of significance for postironic autobiography; because these texts not only address the postmodern zeitgeist on a general level but also specifically criticize postmodern irony by intertextually including other postmodern narratives. The autobiographical (resp. nonfictional) status lends itself fittingly to this endeavor.

21 |  “And yet, pervasive as memoir has become, it is not well understood by the general public. Unlike fiction, which is taught early and often in American classrooms right through university, memoir is still treated with relative neglect, leaving the impression that it needs no explanation.” (Couser 2011: 8) 22 |  “Total sales in the categories of Personal Memoirs, Childhood Memoirs, and Parental Memoirs increased more than 400 percent between 2004 and 2008.” (Yagoda 2009: 7)

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In addition to book-length memoirs, contemporary autobiographical studies explore other forms of autobiographical writings. Smith and Watson, in their detailed study Reading Autobiography: A Guide For Interpreting Life Narratives (2010), dedicate two chapters to recent criticism of autobiography. They point at theories of performativity, relationality, and positionality in order to explain both contemporary autobiographical narratives and the critical approaches thereto. These concepts are connected to broader scientific approaches: performativity mainly to gender studies, relationality and positionality to postcolonial studies. However, Smith and Watson show that all three concepts are useful for a better understanding of contemporary autobiographies.23 Furthermore, they discuss the concept of “Autocritical Practices” (cp. Smith and Watson 2010: 229-231). My chapter discussing Dave Eggers shows that metafictional parts in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius are concerned with questions about the autobiographical act in and for itself. Smith and Watson term acts like this “criticism of life narrative as centrally implicated in its practice” (ibid: 229). Whereas Smith and Watson chose to take their examples for autocriticism from so-called marginal literatures – they describe Native American writer Gerald Vizenor and African American writer Richard Wright – this form of autobiographical narrative is in no way restricted to one class, ethnicity, or gender. Gerhard Richter, for example, describes Walter Benjamin’s essays to “[…] offer an experience of singularity and transgression in which the history of the self is inseparable from the history of its culture” (Richter 2000: 33). This statement about Benjamin’s work is just as descriptive and characteristic of Wallace’s and Lethem’s essays. Thus, the concept of “autocriticism” could be described as essayistic nonfiction that foremost describes the cultural environment of the narrating I. However, these essays do not stop at depicting the world surrounding the writing subject but (more or less directly) show the interconnection of this subject with its society, thereby committing an autobiographical act. For example, Wallace’s essay “Up, Simba” (concerned with John McCain’s 2000 race for candidacy) blatantly denies objectivity by stating: “[…] it’s just meant to be the truth as one person saw it” (Wallace 2005c: 157). Furthermore, these narratives show their awareness of themselves as autobiographical (and subjective even though they are nonfiction). Therefore, the form of “autocritical” narratives cannot be restricted to a particular content; autocriticism includes travel narratives, literary- and political criticism, journalistic accounts, and descriptions of popular cultural icons and phenomena. By applying the concept of autocriticism to the texts explored in this book, I will highlight their autobiographical aspects and show how audiences are led to an idiosyncratic reading as a result of these autocritical narratives.

23 |  Cp. Smith and Watson (2010: 213-234).

Introduction

N ew Voices

in

Contemporary L iterature

Above I already mentioned the writers and texts I am about to investigate in this book. They are part of what is labeled contemporary literature, which is oftentimes merely tagged “postmodern,” a concept that should be and has been questioned because of its generalizing effect.24 The term postmodern is – in its broadness not only used in reference to art but also for various aspects of life – vague and indefinable. However, taking into account the wide usage in (critical) texts that have to be considered in this book, I would propose to refer to it in the sense Mark Currie does: We should dispense with the illusion, from the outset, that words like postmodern can be nailed down, even if that means tolerating an oscillation as severe as this, between a kind of writing and a universal condition […]. (2011: 1)

I will neither try to give a close definition, nor deal with this problem separately; the discussion of postmodern literature and theory instead will be executed by close readings and comparisons of texts that are directly connected to my investigations of contemporary postironic literature. As shown in many explorations of literary movements of the late 20th century, US literature is far too diverse to be simply labeled postmodern. The distinctive programmatic features of the different movements would thereby be synchronized, which would easily cover and nullify one of contemporary literature’s most interesting attributes: not to follow one central idea of what contemporary literature is or should be, but to engage in a perpetual (constructive) dispute with literary fashions, ideas, role models, and forebearers. The scope of this book is not the whole body of different literary strands that established themselves within the last 60 years (roughly the time-span usually considered as postmodern).25 My main interest lies in narratives labeled post-postmodern, postironic, or new sincerity, written by authors born in the 1960s who started publishing in the 1980s and 1990s, and who are still seen as a young and contemporary generation of writers. Even though many different styles and topics were chosen by these writers, I agree with David Foster Wallace, who remarks: “[we] are in my opinion A Generation, conjoined less by chronology […] than by the new and singular environment in and about which we try to write fiction.” (Wallace 2012: 41) He continues, “[it] goes a long way toward explaining the violent and conflicting critical reactions New Voices are provoking.” (ibid) These

24 |  Cp. Conte (2002) and Hoffmann (2005) among others. 25 |  “The prefix post- identifies postmodernism as chronologically subsequent to modernism [...], thereby placing it in the second half of the twentieth century [...].” (McHale 2005: 456)

21

22

Postirony

“violent and conflicting reactions” are due to the (differing) extremes addressed in the works of this Generation. The first writers of the group, which Wallace coins the “conspicuously young,” were Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, whose debut novels Less Than Zero (1985) and Bright Lights, Big City (1984) put them on the literary map almost overnight. While popular media in the 1980s called them the “literary brat pack,” recent criticism refers to them as the “blank generation.”26 Both labels refer to those writers’ descriptions of and debates about 1980s materialism, consumerism, and the decline of non-materialist values – most often expressed in traditional coming of age stories. After having peaked in the late 1980s, the “blank generation” was followed by another literary movement, the so-called “generation x.” Whereas Ellis and McInerney depicted a hollow, MTV-like world of parties, drugs and (violent) sexuality, writers like Douglass Coupland (whose novel Generation X exemplarily stands for the whole movement) and filmmaker Richard Linklater describe a different, changed environment. The end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the nuclear threat left these artists with a different emptiness than their predecessors. Although still being preoccupied with an emptiness and aimlessness similar to the 1980’s writers, they no longer find satisfaction in descriptions of drug abuse, orgies, acts of violence, and frantic consumerism. These so-called “slackers”27 are no longer successful brokers (like Patrick Bateman in Ellis’ American Psycho) nor rich heirs who live a life without ever having to brood about the material basis of life (like the protagonists in McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City); they mostly hold jobs in the media and computer industry and spend their leisure time trying to be everything but petty bourgeois. This fear of being labeled bourgeois can be described as the only urge this group actually feels; their lack of motivation in all other aspects of life earned them the derogative description of being couch potatoes. While the “blank generation” and “generation x” were the most dominant literary fashions among the “conspicuously young” (at least when it comes to media coverage and sales), writers with a different agenda started to publish in the late 1980s as well. One of these authors, David Foster Wallace, whose debut, Broom of the System, was published in 1986 and whose influence – chiefly with his 1996 novel Infinite Jest – on a so far unnamed generation of US writers (among them are Nick Flynn, Dave Eggers, Jonathan Lethem, and arguably Jonathan Franzen) is immense. As 26 |  Particularly in relation to postironic writers, the name “blank generation” is justifiable, cp. Annesley (1998). Whereas postironic writers usually try to overcome the consumer culture’s void, most members of the “blank generation” seem to merely describe the cultural situation without an urge to overcome it. Cp. the discussion of Ellis’ American Psycho in McCaffery (1993). 27 |  The term refers to the 1991 movie Slacker by Richard Linklater.

Introduction

Marshall Boswell claims: “Since Infinite Jest, a whole new group of emerging young writers has copied the elusive Wallace ‘tone’ […]. The most visible and successful writer of this group is the young essayist Dave Eggers […].” (Qtd. in Hamilton 2010: 19) I agree with Boswell and will introduce the authors under investigation in this introduction. To begin with, a clarification of the nonfictional status of these texts is necessary. In the following I analyze Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) and Nick Flynn’s three-volume-works, narratives aptly labeled memoir or autobiography. Furthermore, I examine different essays by David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Lethem, which are at first sight disparate from Eggers’ and Flynn’s books. My close readings will demonstrate that beneath their formal and superficial varieties, these essays also include strong autobiographical features28 and reveal postironic features similar to those found in the more formal memoirs of Flynn and Eggers.

Dave E ggers – Counter -Cultural H ero

and I dealist

Dave Eggers has to be seen as one of the leading figures in this “group of emerging young writers.” He exemplifies Wallace’s idea of an author who shows [...] a willingness to disclose [himself], open [himself] up in spiritual and emotional ways that risk making [him] look banal or melodramatic or naive or unhip or sappy, and to ask the reader really to feel something. (McCaffery 1993: 148-149)

A recently published book-length analysis of Eggers’ role in contemporary literature (both as a writer and a publisher), entitled One Man Zeitgeist, accurately describes the role of Eggers in the literary scene: a publicly acknowledged literary figure who influences the mainstream but nevertheless embodies a counterculture that criticizes everything that might be mainstream. Although he started to be part of the literary environment by publishing the literary journal McSweeney’s, he had his real breakthrough when he published his debut, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius29 in 2000. Caroline Hamilton sees one of the reasons for its success in Eggers’s attempt to [distinguish] himself from the majority of first-time authors by courting publicity while also mocking it. His career and the success of his memoir were both

28 |  I therefore label them “autocriticism.” This term is borrowed from autobiographical scholars Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson. 29 |  In the following abreviated as AHWOSG.

23

24

Postirony built on his willingness to acknowledge his desire to be a visible and representative part of literary culture in the United States. (Hamilton 2010: 3)

Eggers incorporated the countercultural ideals of seeing and comprehending art as a means of connecting to people, while pretending to stand above monetary interests. However, Hamilton is right in stating that [t]he figure of the romantic artist standing aloof from the machinations of the culture industry has enduring appeal but it is of course illusory: the marginality of literature in mainstream culture is one key reason it generates public attention; disinterest in the market is an author’s selling point. (ibid: 21)

Eggers seems well aware of this “selling point.” His attitude toward being a “real” artist (prominently stated in McSweeney’s as well as in AHWOSG) falls in line with Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of cultural capital: “[...] by placing emphasis on creative integrity and appreciation for art that goes beyond monetary value the artist makes the market appear irrelevant; what matters is cultural capital.” (Qtd. in Hamilton 2010: 21) Eggers is oftentimes criticized for merely feigning “the romantic artist.” Hamilton points out that [g]iven these successes, it may come as a surprise to learn that Eggers’s also holds the mantle for being one of the most disliked of contemporary American authors [...]. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely what provokes these reactions, but the answer lies in part in the fact that, as many critics have observed, Eggers’s work betrays an unusual, passive-aggressive dislike for his public. (ibid: 5)

This “dislike for his public” that makes him disliked by many readers (and critics) is, paradoxically, what makes him “Dave Eggers: Teen Idol” (ibid: 53) for a counter-cultural group of readers, who “[...] aligned themselves with what might be termed an Eggers-advocated lifestyle which they believed marked them out as a distinct and unique breed of cultural producers and consumers” (ibid). In his roles as publisher and writer, Eggers is aware of the market’s mechanisms and he uses them in order to construct an image of himself that “sells” while simultaneously he never appears to “sell out.” His devoted readers and fans never forget to mention that he uses part of his profits for a non-profit endeavor that provides free-tutoring to high school students who come from economically weak backgrounds. For his supporters, this is proof of his authenticity, his belief in higher values apart from the mere making-money.

Introduction

Dave Eggers is, to pick up Hamilton’s phrase again, a “One Man Zeitgeist” whose reputation might even be more important to “a whole new group of emerging young writers” than his actual literary output.30

David F oster Wallace – C hanging Contemporary L iterature

the

Tone

of

Wallace, similar to the aforementioned Ellis, McInerney, and Coupland, is concerned with the anxieties, despair, all-embracing materialism and consumerism that is characteristic of contemporary US society; however, in contrast to his contemporaries, his protagonists either try to get an insight into “what it is to be a fucking human being” (McCaffery 1993: 131) or at least scrutinize their role of being mere passive consumers. In contrast to Eggers’ extroverted way of trying to change the image of the contemporary artist, Wallace tries to redefine and thereby give new meaning to “postmodern” literature purely by means of literary style. Wallace selected two key concepts he judges as (1) typical for postmodern times and art and (2) oppressive for a progressive contemporary literature: irony and metafiction.31 Both irony as an ideology32 and metafiction as its corresponding literary technique are perpetually present in his books. A full explanation as to why he uses what he condemns would be too lengthy for this introduction, but in my chapter “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea” I will offer a detailed discussion.33 Thus, to briefly conclude this aspect at this point, I refer to Lee Konstantinou who asserts that

30 |  I will ask this question again in the close reading of AHWOSG and will elaborate that his work is inf luential and of importance too. 31 |  I am aware that the term “metafiction” is not accurate for metatextual comments in nonfiction. Since the nonfiction I discuss is creative nonfiction and uses literary styles, I nevertheless think that “metafiction,” being the term in use in literary studies, better describes the meta-comments I discuss than fabricated terms like “meta-nonfiction” or “meta-fact” could. 32 |  Irony is a speech act on the one hand, but also a worldview. Irony is seen as an oppressive ideology not only by Wallace. As early as in romanticism, Søren Kierkegaard made this claim. Cp. my discussion on pages 59-61. Linda Hutcheon states in the introduction to her important study concerning irony that: “Many have written of the shift over time from seeing irony as a limited classical rhetorical trope to treating it as a vision of life.” (Hutcheon 1995: 2) 33 |  Cp. my discussion of Wallace’s essay “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky” on pages 61-64.

25

26

Postirony [...] we must understand the literary efforts of David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers, and the stakes behind a project of discovering or inventing a viable postironic ethos. Both authors sought, in related ways, to use techniques historically associated with metafiction (1) to generate forms of affect that theory held to be impossible and (2) to relink private and public life [...] via an ethos of postironic belief. (2009b: 127)

This postironic ethos is what distinguishes the writers under examination in this book from their contemporary “conspiciously young” counterparts.

Wallace – Exhausted Literature, Metafiction and Irony Zadie Smith labeled Wallace one of the authors “who came of age under postmodernity” (Smith 2007: 4). Smith thought about how this affected writers of her generation and reflected upon ways for these writers to distinguish themselves from (traditional) postmodernism. She states that for many contemporary novelists “[…] aesthetic choices very often have an ethical dimension” and continues “[…] you see style as a personal necessity, as the only possible expression of a particular human consciousness” (ibid my emphasis).34 The expression of this “human consciousness” is, for these writers, their urge to communicate with the reader and do so in a sincere way. Many critics believe that this particular style established itself foremost in Wallace’s texts, and only after Wallace created it was copied by other writers. As stated above, scholarly works concerned with Wallace emphasize that his writings are somehow new and cannot merely be seen as a continuation of postmodern traditions. Boswell’s claim that “[Wallace is] the foremost writer of a remarkable generation of ambitious new novelists” (qtd. in Hamilton 2010: 17 my emphasis) has to be further scrutinized. What is exactly “new” about Wallace and his peers? Just like his postmodern predecessors, many of whom he explicitly calls influential,35 he writes highly complex texts. His novel Infinite Jest is not only 1079 pages thick but also includes hundreds of footnotes, an enormous number for a fictional text. Wallace’s consistent use of metafiction as a means against irony’s hegemony leads his narrators (and protagonists) to desperate thoughts about their own humanity and makes them criticize the society surrounding them. They thereby debunk wrong hipness, which denies real feelings and therefore prevents an es34 |  Wallace’s own ideas about the role of aesthetics for literature are discussed in the chapter “The Postironic – A Philosophical Stand.” 35 |  “[Most critics] failed to invoke such figures as John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and William Gaddis, all of whom Wallace himself has acknowledged as formative inf luences.” (Hamilton 2010: 21-22)

Introduction

cape out of the solipsist cage.36 Wallace tries to overcome the dead-end into which contemporary literature had maneuvered itself as he identifies it in his 1993 essay “E Unibus Pluram.”37 Tim Jacobs describes Wallace “[…] as a reader’s writer – not an avant-gardist, theorist, or hipster show-off – probably because he was himself a lonely reader, abundantly self-conscious and inwardly bent” (2008). “A reader’s writer,” however, does not mean a writer who produces literature easy to digest. In Wallace’s (and the other postironist writers’) case, “a reader’s writer” is interested in producing a narrative that makes the reader wonder about herself and her life in contemporary society. “A reader’s writer” wants to startle the reader by emphasizing that “[…] the present is grotesquely materialistic [but] we as human beings still have the capacity for joy, charity, genuine connections, for stuff that doesn’t have a price […].” (McCaffery 1993: 132) This leads to the question of how literature can connect to the reader on an emotional level that actually leads the reader to question her own attitude towards her environment. How is it possible to (1) keep literary developments of the 20th century in mind,38 but (2) avoid the hollowness Wallace ascribes to the works of (among others) Bret Easton Ellis and Mark Leyner?39 The elaborate examinations on Eggers and Wallace, and the briefer looks at Nick Flynn and Jonathan Lethem later in this book, will give answers to these questions. In his stories, novels, and essays, Wallace’s awareness of literary fashions of the past as well as the present run as rampant as his criticism of the same. He includes philosophical ideas (mostly Wittgenstein’s theory of language), is familiar with contemporary literary theory (in particular Jacques Derrida), and never fails to include other literary texts of the 20th century.40 Wallace is well aware of his literary surroundings and especially the development of US literature in the decades since WW2. His engagement with this heritage leaves him to state that

36 |  Most postironic narrators and protagonists appear to be caged in solipsism and try to overcome this state of being. 37 |  I discuss this essay in the chapter “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea.” 38 |  Not only Wallace but for example also the afore mentioned writer David Shields find it inevitable to apply a self-concious way of writing: “I find it very nearly impossible to read a contemporary novel that presents itself unself-consciously as a novel, since it’s not clear to me how such a book could convey what it feels like to be alive right now.” (Shields 2010: 68) 39 |  “[…] Image-Fiction is paradoxically trying to restore what’s taken for ‘real’ to three whole dimensions, to reconstruct a univocally round world out of disparate streams of f lat sights.” (Wallace 1997a: 22) 40 |  Most prominently his intertextual parody of John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” in “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way,” the concluding piece of the story collection Girl with Curious Hair.

27

28

Postirony [i]rony and cynicism were just what the U.S. hypocrisy of the fifties and sixties called for. That’s what made the early postmodernists great artists. [...] Sarcasm, parody, absurdism and irony are great ways to strip off stuff ’s mask and show the unpleasant reality behind it. The problem is that once the rules for art are debunked, and once the unpleasant realities the [sic] irony diagnosis are revealed and diagnosed, then what do we do? Irony’s useful for debunking illusions, but most of the illusion-debunking in the U.S. has now been done and redone. (McCaffery 1993: 147 original emphasis)

It is important to note that Wallace does not criticize these writers for what they have brought to literature; he explicitly states that it has been more than necessary for members of post WW2 US society to learn about the hypocrisy they lived in.41 The way John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, or Wiliam Gaddis (among others) used irony to undermine and criticize what American culture had become liberated the American (intellectual) mind. However, Wallace describes a shift in the use of these “illusion-debunking” tools; what had been introduced in serious art to criticize mainstream society’s hypocrisy was adopted by the mainstream almost simultaneously.42 The mainstream is foremostly connected to television’s rise in popularity. Starting in the 1970s, television became the ultimate entertainment for the masses, and television all too soon started using self-mocking irony and meta-comments. This insight is of profound importance for Wallace’s understanding of contemporary literature. If a fiction writer wants to be more than a mere entertainer – and Wallace wants his art to be more than entertainment – she/he needs to express something beyond televisions scope:43 “I just think that fiction that isn’t exploring what it means to be human today isn’t good art.” (ibid: 131) The artist has to find ways to challenge the reader. This means to call her attention to the idea that “what’s engaging and artistically real is, taking it as axiomatic that the present is 41 |  And in my close reading chapters it will become apparent that Eggers, Flynn, and Lethem also struggle with the postmodern heritage but always refer to their 1960s predecessors with appreciation. 42 |  The chapter “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea” will further discuss this. 43 |  It is important to note that Wallace does not demonize entertaining arts (neither in literature nor cinema and television), however, he is aware and points at the distinction between “most kinds of ‘low’ art – which just means art whose primary aim is to make money […]” (McCaffery 1993: 127) and “[r]eally good work [that] comes out of a willingness to disclose yourself, open yourself up in spiritual and emotional ways that risk making you look banal or melodramatic or naïve or unhip or sappy, and to ask the reader really to feel something.” (ibid: 148-149)

Introduction

grotesquely materialistic, how is it that we as human beings still have the capacity for joy, charity, genuine connections, for stuff that doesn’t have a price?” (ibid: 132)44 If irony and metafiction have become commodities, consumed through soap operas and commercials on an average of six hours a day,45 serious fiction has to find new ways (to produce the “generalization of suffering”) and can no longer rely on outdated mechanisms. Wallace is not demonizing television, but tries to show how it engulfs formerly progressive ideas. He wants contemporary literature to take a new step and move forward. Despite television’s hegemony in everyday life, serious writers can still “dramatize the fact that we still are human beings” (ibid). Therefore, Wallace’s criticism of irony and metafiction, at first glance, seems somehow hypocritical in itself because many of his own works include long metafictional passages and bear an ironic tone that can hardly be ignored. This is the case most bluntly in “Westward the Course of the Empire Takes its Way,” the concluding novella of his story collection Girl With Curious Hair. This re-evaluation of literary means to achieve something contrary to their original meaning is the revolutionary aspect of postironic writings. The programmatic claim of this story is already inscribed in its title, as Boswell notes, […] the title clearly suggests, [that] the work seeks to chart, if not to arrive at, a new direction for narrative art, one that will move fiction past John Barth’s literature of exhaustion and the new realism of the 1980s. (Qtd. in Hamilton 2010: 102)

It is worthy to keep in mind Boswell’s conception that “Westward” not only deals (in a metafictional way) with texts like Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” and “The Literature of Exhaustion” but is a criticism of 1980s literature as well. It is important to elaborate the idea that “Westward” is actually a clear break with “high postmodernism” and that Wallace’s implication of Barth’s motifs and styles is consciously used to “chart, if not to arrive at, a new direction for narrative art.”

44 |  Interestingly Wallace uses the word “engaging” in this interview, a term that is important for my analysis of the postironic narrator whom I position in the tradition of the “engaging narrator” as proposed by Robyn Warhol (discussed in the chapter “Reading the Postironic”). 45 |  “Statisticians report that television is watched over six hours a day in the average American household.” (Wallace 1997a: 22)

29

30

Postirony

Moving “Westward” – Postironic Beginnings While the title is a first hint to the story’s purpose, the subsequent quotations, preceding the narrative, stand for further ideas the story elaborates upon. The first quote reads: “As we are solipsists, and all die, the world dies with us. Only very minor literature aims at apocalypse.” This statement by Anthony Burgess leads directly to Wallace’s idea of a solipsistic society (most prominently depicted in Infinite Jest) and how his literary pieces work in a different direction. The second quote: “For whom is the funhouse fun?” which is from Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse” (advanced later by the narrator by asking: “But for whom, the proles grouse, is the Funhouse a house?” (Wallace 2003: 239 original emphasis) leads to Wallace’s criticism of conventional metafiction. The narrator (in a metafictional comment) states that “[…] metafiction is untrue […]” (ibid: 332) and that unlike his teachers from a previous generation, he wants to […] write something that stabs you [the reader] in the heart. That pierces you, makes you think you’re going to die. The stuff would probably use metafiction as a bright smiling disguise, a harmless f loppy-shoed costume, because metafiction is safe to read, familiar as syndication; and no victim is as delicious as the one who smiles in relief at your familiar approach. (ibid: 333) Nicoline Timmer reads this as the narrator’s failure to overcome what he criticizes: Apparently this narrator is still ‘locked into’ […] the kind of practice he is criticizing; the ‘intrusion’ after all has all the appearance of being metatextual; not to mention the considerable amount of text that the narrator uses in commenting on metafiction. (2010: 104)

At first sight this reading seems convincing, however, remembering Konstantinous’ above stated idea that Wallace uses “techniques historically associated with metafiction (1) to generate forms of affect that theory held to be impossible and (2) to relink private and public life [...] via an ethos of postironic belief” (2009b: 127) hints at another reading. The narrator’s inclusion of a means he suggests to be outdated and conscious comment on that paradox – “[t]he stuff would probably use metafiction as a bright smiling disguise” – can also be seen as an attempt of redefining metafictionality in order to “generate forms of affect” (ibid.). The narrator denounces the sell-out of formerly rebellious ideas by ridiculing the foremost metafictional story, namely “Lost in the Funhouse,” by parodying its stylistics and, on a plot level, by describing the obviously capitalist idea of a franchise called Fun-

Introduction

house46 that will draw people by pretending to be countercultural when it is actually merely an institution with the sole intention to make money.47 “Westward” proposes that the sharpest tools postmodernist writers employed to criticize society become themselves part of this materialist environment. The Funhouse opening takes place at “[…] the scheduled Reunion of everyone who has ever been in a McDonald’s commercial” (Wallace 2003: 235). Scaling back his criticism to a more personal level, the narrator, to make clear what he thinks of his literary surroundings, also makes fun of one of his creative writing classmates, “[…] she actually went around calling herself a postmodernist. No matter where you are, you Don’t Do This.” (ibid: 234 original emphasis) The story is an attempt to disclose metafiction’s elapsed ability to alienate and therefore highlight the possibility “to generate forms of affect” (Konstantinou 2009b: 127). This, in Wallace’s opinion, is a necessary step to achieve a literature that is true again and “[...] stabs [the reader] in the heart” (2003: 332). By using long metafictional asides (that mostly discuss their own metafictionality) “Westward” tries to unveil contemporary literature’s struggle. Traditional metafiction’s idea that the reader has to be reminded of reading a fictional account and that no convincing true realism can be established are, in the narrator’s opinion, superfluous. These conventions are no longer necessary, no longer useful; even The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live bring up these sorts of metafiction. Thus contemporary art should leave this approach behind and find new ways of communicating with the reader (in the sense of showing him a generalization of suffering). The narrator, by including self-referential metafiction, implies that this does not change the way the story is read; the narrator assumes that the contemporary reader is no longer agitated, she is aware of the fictionality of the text and understands that a story can never depict reality. The reader does not need to be and should not be “deceived” by realism; instead, postironic narratives want to “stab” the reader’s heart, something traditional realism cannot achieve in “postmodern” times.48 The “forms of affect” 46 |  Ambrose (a John Barth alter ego) who, in “Westward,” is the author of “Lost in the Funhouse” sold the name to an advertisement company which then uses the “postmodern” meaning given to the story to introduce a nationwide franchise of “alternative clubs” named “Funhouse.” The narrator broods about this and states “Ok true, Funhouse 1, like all the foreseen and planned national chain of Funhouse franchises, is, in reality, just a discotheque.” (Wallace 2003: 259) 47 |  In “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea” I show that the inclusion of what one criticizes makes sense and I have a closer look at Wallace’s essay “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky” in which this idea is explicitly stated by Wallace. 48 |  This complex thought, that postmodern styles that became mainstream can no longer touch the reader on an emotional level but that a return to traditional realism (that surely touched readers in pre-television societies)

31

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Postirony

Wallace wants the reader to experience cannot be conveyed by an “uncritically earnest or naively nostalgic consciousness” (Konstantinou 2009b: 12). The 19th century reader obviously does not exist anymore; there is a search for new ways to activate the reader’s feelings. Timmer, also conscious of metafiction’s role in contemporary literature, therefore asks: The pressing question that hovers somewhere between the lines in “Westward” […] is: what exactly could be the use of all this playing around with narrative structures for which postmodern literature is renown; is it just ‘fun’ for fun’s sake, and devoid of any humanness? (Timmer 2010: 106)

That is, in a boiled down way, what the narrator in “Westward” advocates. “This playing around with narrative structures” is (or rather has become since the 1970s) exactly what Timmer insinuates. The narrator of Westward believes that metafiction became “‘fun’ for fun’s sake,” and is therefore outdated and no longer a valuable tool for activating the reader’s emotions. As Wallace stated elsewhere: [...] there are things about the contemporary U.S. that make it distinctively hard to be a real human being, […] half of fiction’s job is to dramatize what it is that makes it tough. The other half is to dramatize the fact that we still are human beings, now. (McCaffery 1993: 132)

“Westward” tries to achieve this by remodeling metafiction and irony in ways that “see style as a personal necessity, as the only possible expression of a particular human consciousness” (Smith 2007: 4). In the chapter “Reading the Postironic” I will discuss different narratological tools to demonstrate what is at stake in postironic narratives and show that the weaknesses of a story like “Westward” (as depicted by Timmer) can become strengths when a narrative is nonfiction instead of fiction.

will be understood as banal and outdated leads the postironists to their particular style. The chapter “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea” will shed further light on this postironic inclusion of both realism and postmodern stylistics. In order to prevent misunderstandings, postironists do not claim that realism is unable to emotionally engage. In Wallace’s words: “[...] not because there hasn’t been great U.S. Realist fiction that’ll be read and enjoyed forever, but because the big R’s form has now been absorbed and suborned by commercial entertainment. The classical Realist form is soothing, familiar and anesthetic; it drops us right into spectation. It doesn’t set up the sort of expectations serious 1990s fiction ought to be setting up in readers.” (McCaffery 1993: 138)

Introduction

J onathan L ethem and N ick Flynn – Postirony ’s 2 nd G eneration The main emphasis of my discussion is put on Eggers’ and Wallace’s work. They are, in my opinion, the spearheads of the movement and therefore require the most detailed examinations. However, many critics dealing with the postironic confine themselves to the two authors, an aspect that underrates how widespread postirony is in contemporary literature. Due to the obliviousness and/or oversight of other postironic authors by many critics, my last chapter addresses Jonathan Lethem and Nick Flynn as authors who are influenced by Wallace and Eggers and who form an ensuing postironic group.49 Since they are not elaborately discussed but rather introduced in order to show the postironic development, I also present them only briefly here. Jonathan Lethem is best known for his novels Motherless Brooklyn (1999) and The Fortress of Solitude (2003). Interestingly, in his more recent novel, Chronic City (2009), many critics seem to recognize David Foster Wallace as the real world model for the main protagonist. Toon Staes also describes this assumption (which is also made about the main protagonist of Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot (2011) as notable because: Both Lethem and Eugenides have acknowledged and denied on various occasions that they have based key plot elements in their novels on Wallace, but perhaps more telling than the ambiguity of their answers to questions about Wallace’s presence in these books is the simple fact that such questions were even asked. (2012: 409)

I agree with Staes that it is telling to see Wallace in these characters: it shows the iconic status Wallace has achieved in literary circles. The influence of Wallace is hard to deny in both authors. Lethem’s The Ecstasy of Influence is an essay collection that combines literary criticism with an autobiographical narrative. In its form it is comparable to Wallace’s autocriticism. My discussion will show that Lethem’s approach is postironic in its attempt to communicate with the reader. I will highlight how his mix of criticism and autobiographical facts establishes a form of engagement on the reader’s side typical for postironic nonfiction. 49 |  To call two writers a group seems overstated, the actual group of second generation postironists includes more writers but since they have only published fiction so far, they will not be addressed in this dissertation. However, if one wants to follow the postironic development as a whole, I recommend reading: Ferris (2007), Kunkel (2005), Lerner (2014), and Lin (2013).

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In contrast to Lethem, Wallace, and Eggers, Nick Flynn is best known for his nonfiction work. Flynn published three memoirs so far, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (2004), The Ticking is the Bomb (2010), and The Reenactments (2013). While all of them are great examples of postironic autobiographical writings, I will not concentrate on one particular book and discuss it in detail but rather take key passages out of all three memoirs to explain Flynn’s postironic approach. Most interestingly, however, is his third memoir, The Reenactments, which is a meta-autobiography concerned with the making of a Hollywood movie out of his first memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.50 In their metafictional form, Flynn’s books can be compared to Eggers’ AHWOSG. In Flynn’s books the occupation with the act of writing the memoir almost overshadows the actual memoir. Even though Flynn is the least experimental writer in terms of style, my reading will show how Flynn’s narrator puts the reader at the center of the narrative, always aiming at a sincere communication.

Synopsis Some brief comments on the structure of this book. At first, I return to the above introduced idea of postirony. Because this concept is at the core of my approach, a more elaborate investigation of the term is necessary, and both its historical development as well as its differing contemporary depictions will be discussed. Besides Wallace’s ideas, which will be further observed, I review Søren Kierkegaard’s, Richard Rorty’s, and Linda Hutcheon’s influence on postironic thought. They can be named the triumvirate of irony-critics and it is important to look at their publications on irony to understand the role this concept plays in contemporary society. Furthermore, I briefly touch upon Jedediah Purdy’s For Common Things and Alex Shakar’s The Savage Girl, two contemporary irony-critics who offer important and interesting thoughts about contemporary irony but who are not exactly postironists and therefore are not examined separately in my close reading chapters. Following this overview, I clarify and explore narratological aspects that are important for the later close readings. James Phelan’s ideas about a rhetorical narratology that investigates ethical aspects of writer-reader communication function as the precondition for understanding the particular communication that appears in postironic nonfiction. His conclusions will be illuminated by adding Gerald Prince’s concept of the narratee and Peter J. Rabinowitz’s ideas of different audience functions. Both theorists are important for the understanding of the engaging narrator, an approach by Robyn Warhol that claims that specific narrators use specific narrations in order to emotionally engage the reader. 50 |  The movie, Being Flynn, was released in 2012, starring Robert de Niro as Flynn’s father and Paul Dano as Nick Flynn.

Introduction

These inquiries are preconditions for the close readings that follow. At first I examine Dave Eggers’ AHWOSG, followed by David Wallace’s The Pale King (not the entire novel but the autocritical chapter “Author’s Foreword”), his travel report “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” and his essay “Consider the Lobster.” Finally, I give an overview of two more postironic writers, Nick Flynn and Jonathan Lethem. In the end, I hope to have convincingly argued that postironic literature, especially in its nonfiction form, addresses its reader in a particular way intended to establish some form of sincere communication and by using an engaging narrator, at best, transports an intradiegetic feeling into the reader’s extratextual world. That is, moving beyond existing realms in literature and establishing nothing less than a new real world movement.

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Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea

The concept of postirony was mentioned in the “Introduction” at various points. In order to clarify the term one could write a history of the concept of irony, which would in its late chapters trace the development from romantic to postmodern use of irony. One part of this development would be the splintering of postirony from skeptical postmodern irony. Numerous valuable books which analyze irony in the context of its historic development already exist. Keeping the scope of this book in mind I will narrow down my focus at this point on postironic manifestations and its divergences compared to ironic endeavors. Important aspects will be the strong influence Søren Kierkegaard’s ideas bear on the postironic narratives, and in which ways these narratives are meant to be a counter model to an ironic ideology put into question.1 Before I enter the examination of a philosophical re-evaluation of irony, an analysis of contemporary depictions of the ironic and postironic syndrome is necessary. A very general but nevertheless interesting approach is Johannes Hedinger’s article “Postironie” (2011). Even though he concentrates on visual arts, he includes in his approach important literary texts like David Foster Wallace’s “E Unibus Pluram” (1993), Jedediah Purdy’s For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today (1999), and Alex Shakar’s The Savage Girl (2001). These three narratives should be seen as the founding texts for a postironic movement in American literature, and I will provide detailed readings later in this chapter.2 Hedinger’s take on postironic visual arts is interesting and connected to my argument; however, I omit a discussion of this topic for the sake of brevity. Hedinger begins his article with a general claim: Die Zeit der Ironie ist abgelaufen. Wir sind müde geworden, ständig mit den Augen zu zwinkern, kunstvoll zu zweifeln und alles mindestens im zweiten 1 |  Cp. footnote 32 in my “Introduction.” 2 |  A text that is not as famous as the three texts discussed by Hedinger but nevertheless of great importance is Wallace’s “Fictional Futures and the Conspicuously Young” (1988) which I referred to in my “Introduction.”

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Postirony Grad zu dekonstruieren. Nachdem die Ironie einen letzten Höhepunkt als spöttisches Schwert der Postmoderne erlebte, steht eine ironische Haltung heute eher dafür, Wahrheiten zu verschleiern, Problemen aus dem Weg zu gehen und jeden Schwachsinn damit zu rechtfertigen, dass es ja nicht ernst gemeint sei. Ironie verkommt mehr und mehr zu einer Art Haftungsausschluss oder Fluchtmanöver angesichts jeder denkbaren Verantwortung. Viele Menschen wollen heute (wieder) ungebrochen, direkt und positiv bejahend durchs Leben gehen, die Dinge sehen, wie sie sind, Nähe und Emotionalität zulassend Wahrheiten suchen und Verantwortung übernehmen. Mit dem distanzierenden Gestus der Ironie ist dies ernsthaft nicht machbar. (Hedinger) 3

This paragraph combines many of the major ideas entailed in the postironic movement: Weariness of a certain form of pretentiousness in irony, a demand for responsibility, an anxiety for “the real,” and the acknowledgment that irony alledgedly became an excuse for passivity. In the following, Hedinger describes a longing for “beauty,”4 which cannot be achieved by simply ignoring irony. For Hedinger, a feeling for beauty in an environment that is foremost interested in consumption of material goods is a necessity for the conditio humana. In a similar fashion, Konstantinou writes that Eggers and Wallace want “[...] to use nonfiction to make us quirky, to enchant (or more accurately re-enchant) us.” (2009b: 194) The omnipresence of irony in contemporary society forces the postironic artist to embrace irony as a speech act. A return to pre-modern modes of non-ironic writing seems impossible to these writers; they perceive this form of writing as overcome approaches looking backwards, not achieving anything new.5 The writ3 |  “The times of irony are over. We have grown tired of the constant tonguein-cheek, elaborately posing doubts and deconstructing each and every subject at least in the second degree. After irony had its very last climax as the derisive sword of postmodernism, an ironic attitude today represents the veiling of truths, avoidance of any problems and the justification of any nonsense which “wasn’t really meant that way”. Irony is being deranged into some kind of “exclusion of liability” if you will, or an attempt to f lee from any sort of responsibility. Today, many people want to embrace life again in a blunt and straight-forward manner, without any fractures, positively affirmative, they want to acknowledge things the way they are, welcoming closeness and emotion, serching for truths, accepting responsibility. An ironic attitude naturally generating distance will not allow such a thing.” (my translation) 4 |  Lee Konstantinou describes a longing for belief, and Brian McHale and Roman Halfmann label the term love; I will discuss all three terms later and show that they are more or less used synonymic. 5 |  Cp. Wallace’s ideas in McCaffery (1993).

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

ers to be discussed later combine a refusal of irony and cynicism as ideology with a longing for authenticity and sincerity. Their method of choice is to include irony as a speech act while at the same time attempting to overcome irony as an ideology.6 Briefly I want to add Sebastian Plönges’ definition of postirony, which is directly connected to the idea stated above: Das Problem, auf das die Postironie eine Antwort sein könnte, hört auf ein Problem zu sein, sobald man produktiv mit Paradoxien umzugehen lernt. Für die Form der Postironie mag damit gelten, was Niklas Luhmann seinerzeit für die Formen der Postmoderne so treffend auf den Punkt brachte: Man solle sich mit dem Vergnügen des Wiedererkennens nicht begnügen: “Das wiederverwendete Formenarsenal ist anders gemeint.” (Luhmann 1997: 1149 qtd. in Plönges 2011: 445) 7

Here, as in Hedinger’s essay, cornerstones of a postironic attitude are stated. The combination of sincerity and aesthetic irony, which are usually seen as mutually exclusive, is one paradox postironists try to dissolve. Plönges’ idea that postironists responsibly choose and believe in a truth without being ashamed of their sincerity that is lacking the tongue-in-cheek is another aspect of the aforementioned longing for beauty/belief/love.8 Roman Halfmann’s Nach der Ironie is another general approach to postirony. In his study, he compares David Foster Wallace and Franz Kafka. His attempt is less direct in its postulation of postironic means, but Halfmann nevertheless investigates how Wallace “struggles for authenticity.”9 The claim that Kafka is the foremost influence on Wallace’s style and ideology seems to be rather farfetched; however, many interesting aspects such as the significance of expressionistic influences 6 |  And one has to mention that the inclusion of aesthetic irony convinces some critics and readers that the texts are essentially ironic and therefore propagating an ironic ideology rather than my idea of a postironic attitude. 7 |  “The problem to which postirony might be the answer ceases to be a problem as soon as one learns to deal with paradoxes in a productive way. Niklas Luhmann in his day boiled it down to the statement that one should not content oneself with the pleasure of recognition, and this may hold true for postirony: ‘the forms which are put to use again mean something different.’” (my translation) 8 |  For an example of a literary attempt to deal with this combination of irony and sincerity see my discussion of Wallace’s “Octet” on pages 83-88. 9 |  To illuminate this struggle is the foremost concern of Halfmann’s book. Because I am not interested in authenticity-per-se, I postpone this question for my close readings of Wallace. There I show that authenticity is mainly used for communicative reasons.

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in terms of authenticity and Wallace’s status as a heir of modernism rather than postmodernism10 will be important for my following discussion of Wallace’s texts. To actively struggle with irony instead of ignoring it is the key feature of postironic writings. Halfmann’s description of a “consistent technical evolution” fittingly describes postirony’s development since the late 1980s: So sollte man nicht von fehlendem Mut sprechen, sondern eher von einer konsequenten technischen Evolution, deren Resultat nun unter anderem ein David Foster Wallace ist, dessen Suche nach einer originären Poetik nicht auf der Wiederholung beruhen kann, der aber nicht so naiv ist, zu glauben, den Expressionismus nach den Stürmen der Postmoderne einfach so aus dem Hut ziehen zu können: Ein moderner Expressionismus müsste dennoch mit der Ironie umgehen, die nicht einfach wegdiskutiert werden kann. 11 (2012: 195)

I rony ’s R eign What is irony? The oldest but still accurate definition is used for instance by Claire Colebrook in her seminal study Irony: The New Critical Idiom (2004): […] irony has a frequent and common definition: saying what is contrary to what is meant […], a definition that is usually attributed to the first-century Roman orator Quintilian who was already looking back to Socrates and Ancient Greek literature. (2004: 1)

10 |  “So experimentell und postmodern Wallace auch wirkt, kann er durchaus in der Moderne und damit mittelbar in der Zeit Kaf kas verortet werden. […] Bezug der Gegenwartsliteratur Amerikas sollen daher Schriftsteller wie Dostojewskij oder Kaf ka sein, die literarische Moderne demzufolge.” (Halfmann 2012: 15) “As experimental and postmodern Wallace seems to be he should thoroughly be located in modernism, in Kaf ka’s times. [...] Point of reference for contemporary American literature therefore should be writers like Dostoevsky or Kaf ka, literary modernism accordingly.” (my translation) 11 |  “Thus, one should not talk about a lack of courage but rather of a consistent technical evolution. Its result (among others) is David Foster Wallace, whose search for an original poetics cannot be based on repetition, but who nevertheless is not as naive as to believe that just like that, after postmodernism’s gales, he can pull expressionism out of his hat: A modern form of expressionism would still have to handle irony, which cannot be discarded.” (my translation)

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

This definition is certainly true for everyday usage of irony. However, looking at postmodernist literary irony, this simple description still holds a certain truth but is surely not embracing the complexity that the ironic attitude has reached by now. Hence, Colebrook continues by stating that “[w]e live in a world of quotation, pastiche, simulation and cynicism: a general and all-encompassing irony. Irony, then, by the very simplicity of its definition becomes curiously indefinable.” (ibid) Instead of attempting to define the “indefinable,” I will act on the assumption that Quintilian’s definition points to the inner core of all attitudes which can be denoted as ironic. The reader should always have this general definition in mind. Furthermore, by exploring and analyzing particular texts, I will point out idiosyncratic excesses of postmodern irony. Linda Hutcheon – whom I will discuss in some length later in this chapter – makes the important claim that [u]nlike metaphor or allegory, which demand similar supplementing of meaning, irony has an evaluative edge and manages to provoke emotional responses in those who ‘get’ it and those who don’t, as well as in its targets and in what some people call its ‘victims.’ (1995: 2)

The ones “who get it,” or “don’t get it” are important for any thought concerned with irony. An ironic utterance is twofold, it can be meant ironic and not understood as such, but it can also be not meant ironic and nevertheless understood as ironic. This ambiguity is one of the concerns of postironic literature. The whole idea behind postirony relies on the premise that the reader has a similar understanding of irony (and a similar understanding whether an actual utterance is meant ironic or sincere). Raymond Gibbs supposes that “[…] irony is understood as a secondary meaning after the primary semantic meaning has been analyzed and rejected in the present context.” (2007: ix) These technical aspects of irony are particularly important for my reading of postironic texts; later I make assumptions about different audiences, the ideal audience for a postironic text needs to enter and accept the “present context” of the postironic narrative in order to understand it as postironic. Readers who are not familiar with this “context,” cannot possibly understand the postironic endeavor. But before postirony’s idiosyncracies are further considered, irony in general needs clarification. Many different critics have discussed irony’s role in contemporary society. The most influential texts are Richard Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989) and Linda Hutcheon’s A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (1988) and Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony (2001).

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Oftentimes, when irony is discussed, Rorty’s name comes up first.12 For my discussion of postirony it is particularly important to have a closer look at Rorty. He is the major philosopher who combines concepts of irony and solidarity; postironists condemn irony but cherish solidarity.

R ichard R orty – The L iberal I ronist First of all: The postironist is almost congruent to Rorty’s “liberal ironist.” In Rorty’s definition, an ironist is an individual who realizes that its own ideas about the world can never be an absolute truth. Rorty’s whole conception is centered on the idea that language is contingent, which leads to his conclusion that truth is always manmade and can only be applied within a particular language game, never to the outside reality: To drop the idea of languages as representations, and to be thoroughly Wittgensteinian in our approach to language, would be to de-divinize the world. Only if we do that can we fully accept the argument I offered earlier – the argument that since truth is a property of sentences, since sentences are dependent for their existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths. (1989: 21)

Following, the individual that accepts the claim that language is contingent, accepts the claim that her own sense of identity is contingent; constructed out of the language game/vocabulary into which she was (contingently) born. And this individual also accepts that […] vocabularies – all vocabularies, even those which contain the words which we take most seriously, the ones most essential to our self-descriptions – are human creations, tools for the creation of such other human artifacts as poems, utopian societies, scientific theories, and future generations. (ibid: 53)

This individual calls Rorty an ironist. Someone who accepts that even the vocabulary “most essential to our self-descriptions” is contingent and neither better nor worse than all other vocabularies.

12 |  Rorty’s inf luence on postironists becomes obvious when looking at David Wallace’s short story “Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature” (2004) which not only borrows its title from Rorty’s inf luential 1979 Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, but also treats similar philosophical problems (in a literary way).

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

However, he restricts the positive aspects of his concept of irony to the private realm. Claire Colebrook summarizes this idea thusly: Indeed, Rorty insists on a peculiarly private irony. We take part in the political language of democracy, all along aware that democracy is one possible language game among others. But we also have to acknowledge that a culture of irony would preclude the necessary agreement and stability that enable democracy to function […]. (2004: 155 original emphasis)

Rorty finds irony necessary for the individual in its private life because it enables humans to accept their own role in language games. At the same time, he condemns public irony as dangerous because democratic, pluralistic societies could not exist if the public language was an ironic one: I cannot go on to claim that there could or ought to be a culture whose public rhetoric is ironist. I cannot imagine a culture which socialized its youth in such a way as to make them continuously dubious about their own process of socialization. Irony seems inherently a private matter. (Rorty 1989: 87 original emphasis)

It is the liberal ironist whom Rorty demands. Martin Müller, in his comprehensive study of Rorty’s work, describes the combination of liberality and irony persuasively: Wie oben [...] dargestellt, steht Ironie als Kontingenzbewusstsein für die Fähigkeit, der Tatsache ins Gesicht zu sehen, dass die eigenen Überzeugungen Ergebnis von kontingenten Neubeschreibungen sind. Ironiker seien Menschen, für die alle Vokabulare, und damit auch das eigene “abschließende Vokabular” historisch kontingente, menschliche Erzeugnisse sind. Für liberale Ironiker gilt, dass der öffentliche Teil ihres abschließenden Vokabulars, und damit ihrer Identität, das liberale politische Vokabular der Solidarität ist. (2014: 639 original emphasis) 13

13 |  “As shown above signifies irony as an awareness of contingency the ability to face up to the fact that one’s own convictions are the results of contingent new descriptions. Ironists are humans recognizing all vocabularies, including their own ‘final vocabulary,’ as historically contingent, manmade products. To liberal ironists pertains that the public part of their final vocabulary, and hence their identity, is the liberal political vocabulary of solidarity.” (my translation)

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Although liberal convictions – which are in Rorty’s definition mainly to reduce cruelty in every possible sense – are as contingent as any other vocabulary, Rorty believes that our “we-consciousness”14 much more than any categorical imperative, leads us to (publicly) follow a liberal final vocabulary. But why should the ironist be liberal? Why should an individual that realizes the contingency of all vocabularies act accordingly to liberal convictions? Rorty’s answer to these questions is as simple as it is convincing: One can make this claim plausible by saying that there is at least a prima facie tension between the idea that social organization aims at human equality and the idea that human beings are simply incarnated vocabularies. The idea that we all have an overriding obligation to diminish cruelty, to make human beings equal in respect to their liability to suffering, seems to take for granted that there is something within human beings which deserves respect and protection quite independently of the language they speak. It suggests that a nonlinguistic ability, the ability to feel pain, is what is important, and that differences in vocabulary are much less important. (1989: 88)

What Rorty does by arguing in this way, is to disrupt a figure of thought that so far was centered on language. His whole argument, language is contingent, truth is constructed in language, identity is constructed in language, opens a new gap: to feel pain is a quality all humans share and to feel pain lies outside of language. The ironist who considers her own final vocabulary as contingent, accepts the liberal vocabulary as her final public vocabulary, because to prevent cruelty is an obligation of the (liberal) we-consciousness. While pain in general is an aspect in postironic literature (cp. “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace), Rorty’s specification of pain sheds light on one of postirony’s most urgent themes: [The liberal ironist] thinks that what unites her with the rest of the species is not a common language but just susceptibility to pain and in particular to that

14 |  “I want to replace this with a story of increasing willingness to live with plurality and to stop asking for universal validity. I want to see freely arrived at agreement as agreement on how to accomplish common purposes (e.g., prediction and control of the behavior of atoms or people, equalizing life-chances, decreasing cruelty), but I want to see these common purposes against the background of an increasing sense of the radical diversity of private purposes, of the radically poetic character of individual lives, and of the merely poetic foundations of the “we-consciousness” which lies behind our social institutions.” (Rorty 1989: 67-68)

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea special sort of pain which the brutes do not share with the humans – humiliation. (ibid: 92 my emphasis)

I stated above that Rorty’s inclusion of pain as a non-linguistic entity opens a gap in his argument that is otherwise driven by thoughts on language. The specification, that humiliation is a particularly cruel (human) excess to inflict pain on others, brings language back in the argument. Humiliation oftentimes appears in using a vocabulary that deliberately denigrates and attacks others. Especially Wallace and Eggers brood about humiliating aspects in contemporary life and criticize the ironic zeitgeist (the non-liberal, public ironic zeitgeist) for its lack of compassion, empathy and solidarity. To conclude the discussion of Rorty and once more show that his ideas of a liberal ironist are close to my concept of postironists, I compare his definitions of what makes someone a liberal ironist with aspects of postironism. Rorty explicitly defines his ironist once: I shall define an “ironist” as someone who fulfills three conditions: (1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts; (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself. Ironists who are inclined to philosophize see the choice between vocabularies as made neither within a neutral and universal metavocabulary nor by an attempt to fight one’s way past appearances to the real, but simply by playing the new off against the old. (ibid: 73)

As I will show below, postironists also have “continuing doubts about the final vocabulary;” however, they do not use this as an excuse for shifting to radical relativism.15 Instead, in their public vocabulary they propagate something absolute (beauty/belief/love). It is a struggle between their private ironic belief in contingency of vocabularies and their public advocacy of liberal solidarity that makes them postironist. Rorty’s second characteristic is also to be seen from a two-fold perspective: Postironists constantly doubt their own argument/literary undertak15 |  Rorty categorically denies relativism. It is intrinsic to his concept of different but equivalent vocabularies that relativism cannot be applied to his thoughts. He argues that by refusing the term “absolute” the term “relativistic” can neither be applied. He believes: “If one grants these claims, there is no such thing as ‘relativist predicament,’ just as for someone who thinks that there is no God there will be no such thing as blasphemy.” (ibid: 50)

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ing, but while public ironists would use this realization in order to deny responsibility, postironists struggle to find a convergence to a responsible life. And finally, concepts like “closer to reality” are no standpoint for postironists, they know that they cannot ignore what postmodernism established since WW2, but what they apply in their texts is “playing the new [vocabulary] off against the old.” So in many aspects, my so-called postironists can be called liberal ironists in Rorty’s sense. I think his philosophical ideas come very close to what the potironic agenda proposes. However, since the term postirony is well established by now, I retain to use this term.

L inda H utcheon – I rony ’s E dge Hutcheon, in contrast to Rorty, analyses public irony in postmodern times. She faces a problem I already mentioned above: a discussion of the role of irony in contemporary society needs to define the term irony. The difficulty that arises is the sheer amount of publications that deal with contemporary irony. It is impossible to include and discuss all the different approaches in one book. Hutcheon points out that “[…] this topic has been tackled by scholars in fields as diverse as linguistics and political science, sociology and history, aesthetics and religion, philosophy and rhetoric, psychology and anthropology.” (1995: 1) While this diversity forces any scholar dealing with the topic of irony to constrain him/herself to only some approaches (e.g. Rorty constrains his idea of irony to the aspect of the contingency of language and the refusal of an absolut), the spread of critical analysis also shows the immense interest many different fields attribute to irony’s role in contemporary times.16 Hutcheon continues by rhetorically asking why she should write another book about irony even though she is aware of the numerous publications that already exist. Her response is directly connected to the topic of my analysis: “[…] irony appears to have become a problematic mode of expression at the end of the twentieth century […] lately the various media seem to be reporting an increasing number of cases of the more or less disastrous misfiring of ironies.” (ibid) This “problematic mode” is the origin of all postironic thought. The idea that irony’s aura is almost omnipresent (and omnipotent) today is highlighted by Hutcheon’s description “[…] that irony ‘happens’ […] in all kinds of discourses (verbal, visual, aural), in common speech as well as in highly crafted aesthetic form, in so-called high art as well as in popular culture” (ibid: 5). Whereas Hutcheon describes a condition of omnipresent irony, postironic writers incorporate this condition but 16 |  I will show later that this omnipresence is the origin for Wallace’s discontent with contemporary literature. For other descriptions of irony as the dominant mode in both culture and literature of the late 20th century see: Gellner (1974) and Gass (1978).

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

thereby try to overcome irony. Particularly the adoption of irony by popular culture is analyzed by postironic thinkers and will be discussed in detail in the next chapters. In her analysis of postmodern irony in art, Hutcheon concentrates on one specific mode: metafiction as a self-reflexive ironic move by contemporary fiction-writers. Rorty’s ideal of the ironist who realizes that no speech act/narrative act can tell an absolute truth is fulfilled by a writer who permanently questions his/her own narrative. Hutcheon also believes that the metafictional commentary is a symptom of the postmodern zeitgeist, a way of destroying grand-narratives in a Lyotardian sense (Cp. Lyotard; Hutcheon 1988: 124-140). Metafiction will loom large in Wallace’s critique of irony as well as in my analysis of Eggers, Flynn, and Lethem later in this book; therefore I omit a detailed discussion here and return to Hutcheon’s ideas when metafiction is under scrutiny. Returning to the above-mentioned problem of a definition of irony, I already stated that I rely on Quintilian’s basic definition. However, after having explored Rorty and Hutcheon I want to add one important aspect: contemporary irony is self-defensive in its mode of articulation. The public ironist makes him/herself unassailable because whatever s/he says is tongue-in-cheek.17 This is of major importance for an understanding of postironic attitudes. Because this book concentrates on the particular concept of postirony in American literature (particularly autobiographical nonfiction), this short overview of theoretical approaches toward postmodern irony shall suffice. In the following I discuss the idiosyncratic analysis of contemporary irony by writers who later on try to overcome mere analysis by actually attempting to establish a postironic literature.

David F oster Wallace – H ow I rony S pread David Foster Wallace, in various interviews, criticized his own early work as having fallen into the trap of postmodern irony.18 His own analysis of irony’s role in society and particularly for contemporary art is most explicitly stated in the essays “E Unibus Pluram” (1993) and “Fictional Futures and the Conspiciously Young” (1988), as well as in the widely quoted McCaffery Interview (1993). These three texts, along with critical responses, will be the basis for an understanding of how postironists see their environment.

17 |  Detailed analyses of irony seen as ideology can be found in Furst (1984) and Wilde (1987). 18 |  Cp. McCaffery (1993).

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Postirony Irony in postwar art and culture started out the same way youthful rebellion did. It was difficult and painful, and productive – a grim diagnosis of a long-denied disease. The assumptions behind early postmodern irony, on the other hand, were still frankly idealistic: it was assumed that etiology and diagnosis pointed toward cure, that a revelation of imprisonment led to freedom. (McCaffery 1993: 166 original emphasis)

Wallace repeatedly stated the estimation that postmodern irony started out as something productive. 19 He analyses post-WW2 society as highly hypocritical and the emerging ironic literature as a force that unveils this hypocrisy. The elements of idealism and a possible cure that early postmodern irony brought to literature are seen as enriching for art. It is important to keep this in mind: postironists do not condemn irony per se, but rather see a liberating power in original irony. Their criticism is directed at irony that became a cliché, “[…] irony being the song of the prisoner who’s come to love his cage.” (ibid: 144) The avant-garde’s ironic tone was quickly adopted by the mainstream. Wallace believes that this adoption at first weakens the rebellious aspects of irony before turning it around, thus, liberation becomes enslavement. 20 The explanation Wallace gives for the historical development of irony – a liberating and new element in literature becomes a cliché and thereby constrictive – is more generally explained by Russian formalist critic Jurij Tynjanov: Bei der Analyse der literarischen Evolution stoßen wir auf folgende Etappen: 1. Als Kontrast zum automatisierten Konstruktions-Prinzip bildet sich dialektisch ein entgegengesetztes Konstruktions-Pinzip aus; 2. Das neue Prinzip findet Anwendung; 3. es breitet sich aus, wird zur Massenerscheinung; 4. Es automatisiert sich und provoziert entgegengesetzte Konstruktions-Prinzipien. (Tynjanov 1967: 21) 21

19 |  Besides the statement in the McCaffery Interview Wallace writes in “E Unibus Pluram”: “It’s not one bit accidental that postmodern fiction aimed its ironic crosshairs at the banal, the naïve, the sentimental and simplistic and conservative, for these qualities were just what ‘60s TV seemed to celebrate as distinctively American.” (1997a: 66) 20 |  That this analysis is not restricted to Wallace’s works but generally present in contemporary thought shows for example Jameson’s statement on irony that “[w]hat began as a mood of the avant-garde has surged into mass culture.” (Jameson 1991: 60) 21 |  “When analyzing the literary evolution we encounter the following steps: 1. as a contrast to the automated mode of construction evolves a dialectically juxtaposed mode of construction; 2. the new mode is applied; 3. it

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

Postironic writers see irony as this automated mode of construction in contemporary literature. It established itself in contrast to the literature they saw as hypocritical in the mid-century. A widespread usage of the principle in literature was adopted by mainstream entertainment. By becoming mainstream, irony lost its disturbing, progressive power, and in its omnipresence in contemporary culture’s mainstream became restrictive instead of liberating. This automated use provoked a counter construction-principle: postirony. Because Tynjanov’s analysis is also valid regarding many other construction-principles, it is generally accepted as an accurate description of literary evolution. The causality of the idea unveils another very interesting aspect: What happened to irony will (most probably) also happen to postirony. As soon as it is established as a construction-principle in literature, it will sooner or later be adopted by the mainstream and lose its rebellious touch. Postirony is of course not the end of literary developments. Since it is only in the process of establishing itself as a mode of construction in a wider literary range and is far away from becoming mainstream, it is otiose to discuss by what it could be succeeded.22 Leaving these general assumptions behind, I return to the analysis of irony’s consolidated power by Wallace. His ideas in “E Unibus Pluram” and the McCaffery interview are similar to Tynjanov’s analysis of literary evolution. When Wallace describes post WW2 irony as rebellious and beneficial, he depicts the first moment when irony became a construction-principle in postmodern U.S. literature. However, the most interesting aspect for my argument is Wallace’s analysis of the mainstream’s adoption of irony. He explores for instance how literature’s metafictionality – seen as self-conscious irony – became a standard act in mainstream television.23 At first, television programs included metafictional irony, concluding expands and becomes a mass phenomenon; 4. it becomes automated and provokes a juxtaposed mode of construction.” (my translation) 22 |  This book combines almost all writers considered postironic which ref lects how “exclusive” this circle still is. However, since writers like Wallace, Eggers, Shakar, and Lethem are oftentimes discussed and elevated by critics as highly inf luential figures for contemporary literature, I believe that postirony will become a bigger movement and eventually almost inescapably/necessarily part of mainstream entertainment. Apart from the writers discussed in this book one should name Tao Lin, Benjamin Kunkel, Ben Lerner, and (arguably) Jonathan Franzen as postironic authors. In film, Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale (2005) and Anna Boden’s and Ryan Fleck’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2010) are oftentimes described as postironic. 23 |  Peter Schneck calls this transfer of metafiction from literature to television “meta-television:” “TV in the age of ‘meta-television’ no longer acted as a window to the world, but rather as a mirror for itself and its viewers […].”

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in advertisement’s adaptation of the theme. That the advertisement industry is at the heart of contemporary consumer culture’s mainstream is a given that does not need to be further examined. Texts like Mark Miller’s “Deride and Conquer” (1986) reveal the fact convincingly. Peter Schneck, with reference to Larry McCaffery, points out: The technologically enhanced production of cultural imagery, from advertisement fictions to Reality TV, clearly poses a serious threat to the verbal art of novel writing. Hence its most urgent problem today, as Larry McCaffery matter-of-factly states, is “how to survive in these new conditions, for just about everything in this culture of mass media has conspired against the ways in which art was previously created and received”. (McCaffery 1995: xiii-xiv) (Schneck 2001: 411)

This “serious threat” is more explicitly characterized by Wallace, who describes the transfer of metafictional irony from literature to television as modes of capitalism: It’s widely recognized that television, with its horn-rimmed battery of statisticians and pollsters, is awfully good at discerning patterns in the f lux of popular ideologies, absorbing those patterns, processing them, and then re-presenting them as persuasions to watch and to buy. (Wallace 1997a: 54)

For Wallace, irony lost all of its liberating power; the mainstream’s adaptation took the edge off its criticizing aspect and made it a tool of marketers. While this analysis so far only shows what irony has developed into, the major problem Wallace decries is that contemporary literature so far did not react to this fact. In his view, contemporary writers – lacking a plan for a new poetics – ignore that “[i]rony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.” (Hyde 1975: 11) Wallace illustrates this idea by looking at Bret Easton Ellis (in the McCaffery interview) and Mark Leyner (in “E Unibus Pluram”). For my argument, I can omit an account of his close readings and detailed criticism. Of importance, however, are his conclusions here: The reason why today’s Image-Fiction isn’t the rescue from a passive, addictive TV-psychology that it tries so hard to be is that most Image-Fiction writers render their material with the same tone of irony and self-consciousness that their ancestors, the literary insurgents of Beat and postmodernism, used so effectively to rebel against their own world and context. And the reason why this irreverent postmodern approach fails to help the new Imagists transfigure TV is (2001: 417-418) I believe that the resemblance of the two concepts is better clarified by naming both aspects metafiction.

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea simply that TV has beaten the new Imagists to the punch. The fact is that for at least ten years now, television has been ingeniously absorbing, homogenizing, and re-presenting the very same cynical postmodern aesthetic that was once the best alternative to the appeal of low, over-easy, mass-marketed narrative. (Wallace 1997a: 52)

This is one of the most direct and straight forward statements Wallace gives on contemporary fiction – and the role he ascribes to television in its rendering. And, at the same time, his analysis points at the core problem for fiction writers: even the best intentions to overcome television’s power (Wallace perceives both Ellis and in particular Leyner as willing to be progressive) have to fail if one uses the same means television applies itself. If we follow Wallace here, television has already made irony a “cage,” a cliché that, if repeated in literature, remains a cliché.

I rony – A n A ll-E mbracing At titude So far I have treated the thoughts of Wallace as if they were objective evaluations of contemporary times. Wallace states that I want to persuade you that irony, poker-faced silence, and fear of ridicule are distinctive of those features of contemporary U.S. culture […] that enjoy any significant relation to the television whose weird pretty hand has my generation by the throat. I’m going to argue that irony and ridicule are entertaining and effective, and that at the same time they are agents of a great despair and stasis in U.S. culture, and that for aspiring fiction writers they pose especially terrible problems. (ibid: 49)

It is possible to dismiss this conclusion by pointing at groups in contemporary society that are by no means ironic. Religious fundamentalists – especially after 9/11 – are the opposite of ironic individuals (but interestingly, all critical debates about this fundamentalism use irony to ridicule it). The rise of neo-conservatives can also be described as an anti-ironic movement. However, because mass media is directed at the biggest possible number of like-minded consumers, and since the average consumer is not part of one of these anti-ironic groups, the all-embracing entertainment industry uses the general ironic tone to connect to its audience. Jedediah Purdy also reflects on this aspect and explains: Irony does not reign everywhere; it cannot be properly said to reign at all. It is most pronounced among media-savvy young people. The more time one has spent in school, and the more expensive the school, the greater the propensity to irony. This is not least among the reasons that New York and Hollywood, well

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Postirony populated with Ivy League-educated scriptwriters, produce a popular culture drenched in irony. (1999: 10)

This almost seems contradictory, although irony does not reign everywhere, “popular culture [is] drenched in irony.” The sheer amount of popular culture each Western individual consumes (actively as well as passively) on a daily basis. Returning to Wallace’s notion that “irony and ridicule” are dominant modes in mass culture, I propose that his analysis is a true point of reference.24 His implication that fiction writers have to actively struggle with this zeitgeist phenomenon is, in my opinion, accurate as well. The aspect of “despair and stasis” is, in Wallace’s opinion, what fiction writers have to write against. In the McCaffery interview, the by now (in)famous statement that “fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being” (McCaffery 1993: 131) makes this point rather blatantly. The ironist is afraid of anything that could appear sentimental, humanist values included. That being so, adherence to an ironic ideology offers protection from ridicule. Halfmann subsumes this notion by stating: Jenes Diktum – “Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being” – sondert sich ab von der Verdrängungsleistung einer Literatur, die entweder oberf lächlich den Eskapismus betreibt oder in Form epigonal anmutender Übernahmen bereits klischeeisierter Techniken diesen Eskapismus auf höherer Ebene ausführt – und zudem die Literaturen, die einem strengen Realismus verhaftet sind, also die für Wallace dunkle Gegenwart allein aufzeichnen, ohne Alternativen zu bieten: “It got something to do with love”, fährt Wallace fort, womit er sich sicherlich vom Rest der amerikanischen Literaturszene absetzt und also gegen die Ironie, gegen den Zynismus die Liebe setzt. (2012: 49) 25

The idea about “love” as an opposing element to irony and cynicism is also addressed in my examinations of Brian McHale26 and will be further discussed in 24 |  Cp. Hutcheon (1995). 25 |  “This dictum – ‘Fiction’s about what it is to be a fucking human being’ – detaches itself from the “Verdrängungsleistung” of a literature that either superficially conducts escapism or performs this escapism on a higher level in the form of epigonic seeming takeovers of already cliché-like techniques. It furthermore detaches itself from literatures that cling to a strictly mimetic realism, meaning in Wallace’s definition to only record our dark presence without offering alternatives. ‘It got something to do with love’ Wallace continues, whereby he surely contrasts himself to the rest of the US literary community. Thus he puts love against irony and cynicism.” (my translation) 26 |  Cp. the chapter “Reading the Postironic.”

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

the close readings. Halfmann’s description of “escapism” and “strictly mimetic realism,” however, hits the mark of Wallace’s criticism. The problem contemporary fiction writers have to deal with cannot easily be solved. While the continuation of ironic manifestations – in times when irony already became a cliché – can be seen as “escapism on high grounds,” a mere return to traditional realism cannot be more than “descriptive without showing alternatives.” That Wallace and his contemporaries are in this almost desperate seeming situation is due to some idiosyncratic aspects of irony. Wallace’s critique always runs the risk of being ridiculed as naïve by the ironists he criticizes (as recently happened by Bret Easton Ellis’ belated response to Wallace’s statements about American Psycho: Ellis described Wallace as “the most tedious, overrated, tortured, pretentious writer of my generation” (Flood 2012)).27 It is this aspect of irony, that when someone else criticizes something about an ironist, s/he will always receive a shrug and a smirk that states that the ironist is beyond such naïve accusations. This is the inherent negative aspect of irony. Wallace himself antedated Ellis’ attack by stating: Most likely, I think, today’s irony ends up saying: “How totally banal of you to ask what I really mean.” Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up looking like a hysteric or a prig. And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its subject is, when exercised, tyranny. (1997a: 67-68 my emphasis)

Whereas post WW2 ironic literature successfully ridiculed hypocrisy in US society, its clichéd version in contemporary art seems to be intangible: attacks and critiques tend to be ridiculed. Because irony cannot offer any positive alternatives, it is almost unbeatable in defending itself. Before eventually discussing the postironic manifestos, I want to include Jedediah Purdy’s analysis of the ironic power to my discussion. His For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today (1999) became a New York Times bestseller right after its publication. The huge interest in a book like Purdy’s shows the awareness (and discontent) of many contemporary readers with the state of society. The book’s preface starts out:

27 |  Or, and that is irony’s most effective weapon, Wallace’s statements can be seen as ironic. In postmodern times, when irony is the usual tone and oppressive ideology, many critics automatically ascribe irony to contemporary writers. Cp. for example: “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius may start out sounding like one of those coy, solipsistic exercises that put everything in little ironic quotation marks [...].” (Kakutani 2000)

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Postirony This book is a response to an ironic time. Irony has become our marker of worldliness and maturity. The ironic individual practices a style of speech and behavior that avoids all appearance of naivite (sic!) – of naive devotion, belief, or hope. He subtly protests the inadequacy of the things he says, the acts he performs. By the inf liction of his voice, the expression of his face, and the motion of his body, he signals that he is aware of all the ways he may be thought silly or jejune, and that he might even think so himself. His wariness becomes a mistrust of language itself. He disowns his own words. (Purdy 1999: xi)

This analysis is similar to the aforementioned statements, however, in its blatant straightforwardness Purdy’s comment must have been very appealing to the reading public. He differs from Rorty, Hutcheon, and Wallace, who argue very subtly. Nevertheless, I think Purdy’s attempt to diagnose contemporary society is worthwhile and should be seen as an addition to the more philosophically sophisticated texts. That the ironist mistrusts language itself is one of Purdy’s main arguments. The awareness that others could see her/him as naïve is the trigger (for the ironist) to distrust any utterance; the ironist knows that s/he “[…] can have no intimate moment, no private words of affection, empathy, or rebuke that [s/he has] not seen pronounced on a thirty-foot screen before an audience […]” (ibid: xii). That language can never transport any real feeling, because every utterance happened before, is the ironist’s excuse for doubting the feeling itself. However, exactly here the postironic conviction comes into being. I mentioned above that Wallace believes that, aside of all ironic omnipresence, real feelings are not only possible but for most humans a steady necessity.28 In Purdy’s words: I do not believe that, even where it is strongest, irony has convinced us that nothing is real, true, or ours. We believe, when we let ourselves, that there are things we can trust, people we can care for, words we can say in earnest. Irony makes us wary and abashed in our belief. We do not want the things in which we trust to be debunked, belittled, torn down, and we are not sure that they will be safe in the harsh light of a ref lexively skeptical time. Nor can we stand the thought that they might be trivialized […]. So we keep our best hopes safe in the dark of our own unexpressed sentiments and half-forbidden thoughts. (ibid: xv my emphasis)

This is exactly where postirony emerges, when writers allow their best hopes to leave the dark, express them in literary endeavors, and make the half-forbidden 28 |  “[…] how is it that we as human beings still have the capacity for joy, charity, genuine connections, for stuff that doesn’t have a price?” (McCaffery 1993: 132)

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

thoughts publicly available; no matter that they might be ridiculed and attacked as naïve. In order to achieve a satisfying definition for the term postirony, the detour to include a short outline of contemporary analysis and critique of irony was necessary. Keeping the above-mentioned ideas in mind, it is now possible to approach the concept of postirony. I will do so in three consecutive steps. Having introduced all writers to be discussed in detail already, I will now: (1) describe Jedediah Purdy’s rather conservative attempt to overcome irony, (2) look at Alex Shakar’s science-fiction novel and the idea that irony became a mode of marketers and consumerism, and (3) elaborately discuss David Wallace’s progressive literary approach to a postironic ideology.

J edediah P urdy – A R eturn

to

Traditional Values

In his analysis of the ironic times, Purdy comes very close to what Wallace and Shakar on the literary end, and Konstantinou and Halfmann on the critics’ side, also compile. I already quoted above how he evaluates irony’s role for society. For clarification, some further ideas that Purdy evokes in For Common Things will now be included. I already mentioned that one important marker for postirony is the willingness to overcome a life that feels shallow because the ironic environment denies real feelings. Purdy analyses this in the following words: So we sense an unreal quality in our words and even in our thoughts. They are superficial, they belong to other people and other purposes; they are not ours. It is this awareness, and the wish not to rest the weight of our hopes on someone else’s stage set, that the ironic attitude expresses. (Purdy 1999: xiii)

In his proposed solution, he is not much of a postironist in stylistic terms, nevertheless he resembles Rorty’s “liberal ironist.” The privately experienced lack of depth because of irony can be overcome by seeking a public task: becoming a member of the school board,29 farming one’s own vegetables,30 or protesting mountain top removal.31 In general, Purdy argues that “[w]e serve the truth by working in a public life that cannot make us whole, but may help us to stay together.” (ibid: 128) The need for the public life lies in the ironic environment that, taken into the private realm, lets the individual despair:

29 |  Cp. Purdy (1999: 189-191). 30 |  Cp. (ibid: 107-110). 31 |  Cp. (ibid: 93-98).

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Postirony These are the conf licting moods of the time. We are skeptical, ironic, and inclined to an impoverished self-reliance. At the same time, we want to give up the ironist’s jaded independence and believe that we are not alone, that we can find moral communities, clear obligations, and even miracles. We doubt the possibility of being at home in the world, yet we desire that home above all else. We are certain only of ourselves – if in a somewhat precarious way – and we work toward the certainty of something larger. We are fragmentary even masters of fragmentation, and we hunger for wholeness. (ibid: 25)

It is notable that Purdy concentrates very much on the public appearance that can be sincere. He believes that by experiencing this public sincerity one finds authenticity for one’s own private life again. The public servant proposed by Purdy believes in the truth that Western societies fell ill by ironizing the traditional values of “liberté, egalité, et fraternité.” Contemporary US individualism, in his opinion, misunderstands the liberty aspect as being superior to equality and fraternalism; irony is the individual’s excuse for ruthless individualism. By becoming a servant of an altruist public undertaking, Purdy’s ideal citizen overcomes the doubts irony sowed: So the question is not whether to hope, but whether to acknowledge our hope, to make it our own. And hope and responsibility are the same here. In both, we tie our success or failure to the state of something outside us, which we cannot entirely control. We can refuse responsibility, but we cannot decide against its existence. (ibid: 92)

That the ironist refuses responsibility – this refusal does not arise out of ignorance but rather out of postmodern and poststructural philosophies – but that common sense will not let him/her ignore the existence of responsibility is, in a far-fetched sense, Purdy’s proclamation of the postironic man. These acknowledgements are interesting and will come up again in other texts (foremost in Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”).32 However, I see Purdy’s argument as too simplistic. That the individual can overcome the feeling of despair by finding meaning in a public means underestimates, in my opinion, the state of permanent exposure to the ironic that the individual has to endure. Nevertheless, seeing the success For Common Things had on the literary market, Purdy obviously struck a chord with contemporary readers’ craving for sincerity. Without a doubt it is possible to follow Purdy’s call and live life more consciously by serving a social cause; however, reading his For Common Things strikes the reader as a rather naïve attempt to explain contemporary society’s shortfalls by concentrating on the lack

32 |  Cp. my discussion on pages 148-166.

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

of social engagement of its citizens.33 In Purdy’s argument, it never becomes clear whether irony is the cause or the effect of society’s failures. Shakar, in contrast, by introducing the term and idea of postirony, blatantly states that irony is the cause for the emotional lack many people feel in their lives.34

A lex S hakar – The Savage G irl The Savage Girl, in contrast to all other texts discussed here, is a novel, more precisely, a science-fiction novel. Interestingly, three of the foremost postironic texts can be described as science-fiction: (1) David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is set in the future, where the USA does not exist any longer in the way we know it today and the entertainment industry has rapidly changed; (2) William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition is not set in the future but is depicted as science fiction nevertheless; and (3) the book to be discussed here, The Savage Girl.35 Shakar’s setting is Middle City, a place strongly resembling New York City, and the action is set in the near future. The protagonists are so-called coolhunters who try to recognize new emerging trends and make sub- and counter-cultural trends available for mainstream consumerism. Shakar creates a world that is a slightly hyperbolic version of our own world, in which the protagonists are almost exclusively interested in capitalistic productivity and try to find the next best trend that they can sell to the industry. What they recognize and discuss in various situations is the incorporation of irony in the advertisement industry. The example for a change in advertisement tactics that they see as fundamental is a Volkswagen ad from the 1960s: But marketing thrives on discontent, which is why in the U-S-of-A, in the year nineteen sixty-one, Americans opened their copies of Life magazine to find an advertisement like none they had seen before, an advertisement for that squat little tail-finless car called the Volkswagen. The photographs purposely tried to 33 |  Many of his suggestions remind the reader of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. They made similar arguments for a life led more consciously but they had not to deal with a foe like omnipresent irony (the different approaches of 19th to 20th century writers are discussed on pages 61-64 where I look at Wallace’s “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky”). 34 |  Purdy’s discussion of civic engagement can, on a sociological level, also be found in Eliasoph (1998). 35 |  Most work concerned with postirony concentrats on these novels. While the science fiction genre lends itself as a useful playfield for postironic ideas and how society might change, I think that nonfiction – and the readers’ reaction to nonfiction – is so far underestimated as the best fitting genre for postironic endeavors.

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Postirony show the Volkswagen in the harshest possible light. The copy admitted the car was ugly. (Shakar 2001: 172)

Their explanation for the success of this commercial is the absorption of the ironic counter-culture by advertisement specialists. The idea behind this ad can be found still today. In The Savage Girl, the handy explanation reads: Follow-up ads not only mocked the Big Three automakers for their showy tail fins and gimmicky gadgets and planned obsolescence, but also directly mocked the deceitfulness of conventional advertising – the impossible happy nuclear families, the bogus expert testimony, the photographic trickery, the overblown rhetoric of ad copy. By buying a Volkswagen, these ads suggested, you were buying a critique of the entire automotive industry and, moreover, f louting the elaborate marketing system of manufactured desire. (ibid)

That consumerism can be an act of anti-consumerism is intrinsically absurd and should be obvious; nevertheless, the coolhunters in Shakar’s story are not interested in philosophical questions but rather in the consequences of these ironic tactics. They accept that consumerism will assimilate all possible ideas of rebellion and resistance; therefore they are less interested in finding an exit from capitalist pressures than a new concept ready for assimilation. Above I discussed Wallace’s analysis of the ironic in contemporary mainstream culture. The protagonists in The Savage Girl – lacking the philosophical insight – come to the same conclusions: irony became a cliché, and the coolhunter’s aim must be to find the next sellable concept. When Ursula, the protagonist mostly used for focalization, by coincidence finds a homeless girl in a park, she realizes that this could offer a new trend: Call her the savage girl, she says. That’s what I call her, anyway. No one knows what she calls herself, because she doesn’t speak. Language is full of lies, and the savage girl wants nothing to do with lies. She’s sick of modernity, sick of all the cynicism in our culture that passes for sophistication. She tries to live authentically, honestly. (ibid: 119)

When Ursula gives this description to her boss, he instantly realizes the possibilities of this postironic lifestyle. He is aware that many members of the consumer culture they want to address – hip young successful people – are sick of the ironic attitude. He states earlier in the novel that: “[...] the last barrier is our persistent irony, which fills us with doubt about the validity of our relative truths” (ibid: 29). I will omit a detailed discussion of the ways the agency sells the concept of postirony to their customers. What I want to point at by the inclusion of The Savage Girl is once more the realization that the ironic became a cage instead of a liberating atti-

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

tude, and more importantly, that even the idea that trying “to live authentically” is not immune to incorporation by capitalist mechanisms. As Tynjanow states about construction principles in general, they start out as progressive and changing but sooner or later become clichés.

The Postironic – A P hilosophical Stand By now I have shown that different thinkers and artists have critically discussed the role of irony for contemporary society. The exemplary discussions of Purdy and Shakar show different approaches and ideas dealing with the ironic and how it might be overcome. I also included Wallace’s ideas presented in “E Unibus Pluram” and will now return to Wallace. In order to further clarify the concept of postirony in a last step, I will combine Wallace’s ideas with the best known critic of irony: Søren Kierkegaard. A detailed description of Kierkegaard’s irony critique is beyond the scope of this book.36 My discussion here concentrates on Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony (1841) and Allard Den Dulk’s insightful article “Beyond Endless ‘Aesthetic’ Irony” (2012), in which he compares key concepts of Kierkegaard’s critique to Wallace’s thoughts. Den Dulk names five main points that are of interest for my discussion: […] the resemblance between Kierkegaard’s and Wallace’s critique of irony [lies in] five crucial aspects: (1) their critique is concerned with irony as an attitude towards existence, not as just a verbal strategy; (2) they agree that irony can initially have a liberating effect; but (3) that things go wrong when irony becomes permanent – Kierkegaard calls this the “aesthetic” attitude; (4) that liberation from this empty, aimless form of irony cannot be achieved through the ironizing of irony, i.e. meta-irony; and (5) that liberation from irony is only possible through (what Kierkegaard calls) a “leap,” by “ethically” choosing one’s freedom, by choosing the responsibility to give shape and meaning to that freedom. (2012: 325)

I will discuss these five aspects in order to (1) remove any possible claims that Wallace is an ironic writer and (2) conclusively discuss the concept of postirony. Irony in everyday language is oftentimes seen and used as a verbal strategy. Its application is commonly accepted as fluency of speaking and an excogitated view on ones surroundings. Neither Wallace nor Kierkegaard sees harm in verbal irony 36 |  Kierkegaard most elaborately discussed irony in Kierkegaard (1989 [1841]). For detailed discussions of this book see Söderquist (2007) and Strawser (1997).

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(the former oftentimes uses it in his works37); for instance, claiming the weather to be good while it is pouring is a common example of this harmless form of irony. Kierkegaard states that “[ironic speech] is only a secondary form of the ironic vanity that desires witnesses in order to assure and reassure itself of itself.” (1989 [1841]: 249) Dulk’s second point – the liberating aspect of irony – was already touched upon earlier.38 His third point, however, needs some further clarification. The all-embracing irony that aims at the core of existence is described by Dulk in the following words: “Existential” irony means taking up an ironic relation to the whole of reality. This also means that no positive content lies “behind” it, because existential irony places the totality of existence under negation, and, therefore, no possible meaning remains for it. (2012: 327)

Wallace describes this with the metaphor of the prisoner who comes to love his cage; the ironist is denying positive content per se, and by continuing to see everything as ironic, the lack of positivity remains undetected. This idea, namely that “no possible meaning remains,” leads Kierkegaard to the conclusion that [i]n irony, the subject is continually retreating, talking every phenomenon out of its reality in order to save itself – that is, in order to preserve itself in negative independence of everything. (1989 [1841]: 257)

The “negative independence” is the golden cage. Kierkegaard describes irony as a negative freedom, a freedom from (namely from responsibility) in contrast to a positive freedom to (to chose what is right or wrong and to stand in for this decision).39

37 |  I agree with Dulk who states: “I am not arguing that Wallace’s fiction does not contain any irony. What I do argue is that the irony critique in Infinite Jest is aimed at a specific, ironic life-view, and that the possible presence of other, verbal forms of irony in the novel does not contradict or refute the critique of that specific form.” (Dulk 2012: 326) 38 |  Cp. my discussion of Tynjanov’s “construction principle” on pages 48-49. 39 |  The narrator of “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” ref lects on this aspect of irony versus freedom of choice and, just like Kierkegaard, concludes that a life without responsibilities, which might appear desirable at first, is actually an empty one. Such a life makes people exasperated because they lack the right for free choice. Cp. my discussion on pages 156-160.

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea

It is crucial to make this distinction between verbal and existential irony, because a verbal ironic statement does not make the speaker an ironist.40 Rather, the ironist is defined by his/her disbelief in sincerity and the denial of any serious feeling (or in Kierkegaard’s sense, by denying to choose). Kierkegaard’s occupation with his contemporary romantic irony led him to an insight similar to Wallace’s ideas about ironists after WW2. Whenever societies are gridlocked in their belief to be the peak of historical development (or the end of history), ironic art can startle the hypocritical tone of superiority and can debunk duplicitous behaviors. Therefore, both Kierkegaard and Wallace believe in a temporary progress for a society through ironic unveiling. However, the problem with irony is its negativity, and as soon as it becomes a dominant mode, the ironic individual loses its (positive) freedom to (choose). To escape this ironic negativity is to leave irony behind, because as Dulk observes, “[…] liberation from this empty, aimless form of irony cannot be achieved through the ironizing of irony, i.e. meta-irony” (2012: 325). Especially in Wallace’s earlier fiction (i.e. The Broom of the System and Girl with Curious Hair) one finds this form of metairony, while in Infinite Jest and the following essay and short story collections, this metairony gives way to a different dispute with contemporary irony. This leads me to the final point of this chapter, which emanates from Dulk’s assertion […] that liberation from irony is only possible through (what Kierkegaard calls) a “leap”, by “ethically” choosing one’s freedom, by choosing the responsibility to give shape and meaning to that freedom. (ibid: 325)

I want to point out the postironists’ choice. Wallace explores this choice at length in his essay “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky” (1996), a piece that is in part a review of Frank’s extensive four-volume Dostoevsky biography, but that, more importantly, states Wallace’s ideas about contemporary writers and what they could learn from Dostoevsky. Wallace describes Dostoevsky’s works as role models for (his own idea of) contemporary literature: His [Dostoevsky’s] concern was always what it is to be a human being – that is, how to be an actual person, someone whose life is informed by values and principles, instead of just an especially shrewd kind of self-preserving animal. (Wallace 2007: 265)

There are different examples of characters and scenes out of Dostoevsky’s work given, and Wallace observes that Dostoevsky’s characters “[...] dramatize the profoundest parts of all humans, the parts most conflicted, most serious [...]” (ibid). 40 |  See my discussion of Purdy and Wallace above.

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This leads Wallace to ask “[…] why we [contemporary writers] seem to require of our art an ironic distance from deep convictions or desperate questions […]?” (ibid: 271) I showed above that Wallace sees the whole contemporary environment as ruled by irony; in the “Dostoevsky” essay he concentrates on arts specifics. Wallace believes that modernism is partly responsible for a shift in literary values. While romantics and 19th century realists/naturalists concentrated on the description of the conditio humana, Wallace believes that [t]he good old modernists, among their other accomplishments, elevated aesthetics to the level of ethics – maybe even metaphysics – and Serious Novels after Joyce tend to be valued and studied mainly for their formal ingenuity. Such is the modernist legacy that we now presume as a matter of course that ‘serious’ literature will be aesthetically distanced from real lived life. (ibid: 271-272)

In my opinion, this statement is too generalizing. However, the importance of this idea for my investigation of postironic literature is not its objective truthfulness but rather what consequences it bears: postironic writers include aesthetic avant-gardism but ultimately point at their ethic aspiration.41 Besides the modernist outlook, Wallace considers postmodern attributes and continues: Add to this the requirement of textual self-consciousness imposed by postmodernism and literary theory, and it’s probably fair to say that Dostoevsky et al. were free of certain cultural expectations that severely constrain our own novelists’ ability to be ‘serious.’ (ibid)

Contemporary literature’s inability to be sincere is excused (or at least mitigated) by pointing at the “cultural expectations.”42 What a writer needs to have is courage; the guts to do the unpopular, just like Dostoevsky did: 41 |  British novelist Zadie Smith notes in an article concerned with contemporary literature that “[…] aesthetic choices very often have an ethical dimension” and continues “[…] you see style as a personal necessity, as the only possible expression of a particular human consciousness” (2007: 4). In part, Smith’s work can also be described as postironic. Since this book confines itself to American literature, I exclude her from my discussion but want to point out that an investigation of British postironists, besides Smith I think Robert McLiam Wilson constitutes another example, would show many similarities to their American counterparts. 42 |  “Our intelligentsia distrust strong belief, open conviction. Material passion is one thing, but ideological passion disgusts us on some level. [...] But Frank’s Dostoevsky would point out [...] that if this is so, it’s at least partly because we have abandoned the field.” (ibid: 272-273)

Postirony - Conceptualizing an Idea For me, the really striking, inspiring thing about Dostoevsky isn’t just that he was a genius; he was also brave. He never stopped worrying about his literary reputation, but he also never stopped promulgating unfashionable stuff in which he believed. And he did this not by ignoring (now a.k.a. ‘transcending’ or ‘subverting’) the unfriendly circumstances in which he was writing, but by confronting them, engaging them, specifically and by name. (ibid: 272)

Here Wallace describes a core intention of postironic literature: do not ignore the ironic but instead struggle with it actively; do not seek refuge in quixotic sentimentality but instead incorporate the modernist aesthetics and postmodern “textual self-consciousness” to change it into something “real,” something sincere, something that makes the reader seriously engage with the narrative rather than making her feel comfortable because the narrative is not challenging enough.43 The last sentences of the essay ask the question “But how to make it that? How – for a writer today, even a talented writer today – to get up the guts to even try? 44 There are no formulas or guarantees. There are, however, models.” (ibid: 274) The following chapters will show some of these models – texts by Dave Eggers, Nick Flynn, Jonathan Lethem, and again David Foster Wallace – and how these writers 43 |  Cp. “[…] ‘serious’ art, which is not primarily about getting money out of you, is […] apt to make you uncomfortable, or to force you to work hard to access its pleasures, the same way that in real life true pleasure is usually a by-product of hard work and discomfort.” (McCaffery 1993: 128) 44 |  Halfmann discusses the same sentence and explains: “Wallace selbst deutet sich durchaus in gewissen Traditionen beheimatet […] Dostojewskij und, wie wir sehen werden, Kaf ka sind in diesem Verständnis literarische Vorbilder, wobei Wallace sich bewusst ist, dass diese Autoren nicht einfach wiederholt werden können, immerhin ist die Moderne vorbei und die Postmoderne eine Tatsache, die sich nicht wegdiskutieren lässt: Die beiden Autoren sind ihm eher Inspiration und Anleitung auf dem steinigen Weg zur originären Selbstfindung und kulturellen Neudefinition, wobei nicht nur die Postmoderne bewältigt und sich ihr übersteigernd entledigt werden muss, letztlich geht es Wallace um eine völlige und umfassende Neuschöpfung […].” (2012: 16) “Wallace contrues himself indeed to be endemic to certain traditions [...] Dostoevsky and, as we will see, Kaf ka are in this understanding literary role-models. Wallace is aware that one cannot simply copy these authors. Modernism is over, after all, and postmodernism a fact one cannot deny. Both of these authors are inspirational and instructing on the rocky road to original self-discovery and cultural re-definition. Whereas not only postmodernism has to be overcome, Wallace wants an ultimate, entire and comprehensive recreation [...].” (my translation)

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use nonfictional accounts to enter a struggle with and thereby try to overcome the ironic zeitgeist.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

A postironic narrative is in need of a postironic narrator. In the previous chapter I discussed how postirony presents itself. A text, however, that refers to itself (or an author who refers to his/her text) as postironic asserts a claim which in itself does not have any truth value. For example, the appendix to Dave Eggers’ paperback edition of AHWOSG, called “Mistakes We Knew We Were Making,” explains that [y]ou can’t know how much it pains me to even have that word, the one beginning with i and ending in y, in this book. It is not a word I like to see, anywhere, much less type on to my own pages […]. I have that i-word here only to make clear what was clear to, by my estimations, about 99.9 % of original hardcover readers of this book: that there is almost no irony, whatsoever, within its covers. (Eggers 2001c: 33)

Without a closer examination of the whole book,1 one cannot even assume that this passage in itself is not ironic. The time and effort put into the assertion not to be ironic somehow seems to be ironic. The first thing needing clarification is who the “I” and the “you” in this passage are, how they relate, and whether the fact that the passage is a supplement to the first edition of the book is of any particular significance. Before returning to AHWOSG and discussing these questions in the chapter “The Narrative Dave and His Audiene,” I need to explore how the “I” in postironic texts positions itself, how the division in a narrating- and narrated “I” affects the audience of these texts, and what role the “you” plays for authenticating the narrative. All books I analyze later are nonfiction. More precisely, they are autobiographical writings.2 One of Autobiographical studies’ central tenets is the assumption 1 |  I examine the whole book in the chapter “Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic.” 2 |  The fact that they differ in form, i.e. Eggers and Flynn wrote memoirs, Wallace and Lethem autocritical essays, does not have any inf luence on

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that author, narrator, and protagonist are congruent; therefore some preliminary remarks concerning the narrator’s role for my analysis are necessary. Even assuming that the narrating “I” in an autobiography is the actual author, “readers can only speculate about such a resemblance, which – even if it exists – would have no bearing on the rhetorical effect of the text” (Warhol 1986: 812). This leads to a somewhat paradoxical situation. On the one hand, there is a certain “rhetorical effect” inherent in the autobiographical genre, bound to autobiography’s claim to be authentic/truthful. On the other, the reader usually cannot verify the authorial claim to be truthful, but can only rely on the narrator, whose account is the actual narrative she is reading.3 Obviously, questions of authenticity and truthfulness are bound to ethical categories, something classical/formalist narratology (Gerard Genette, etc.) is not concerned with; therefore, my narratological investigations of the narrator are to be seen in the tradition of Wayne C. Booth and James Phelan, whose rhetoric approach towards narratology includes the ethical dimension. Phelan explains that […] my approach to character narration is not formalist but rhetorical. That is, rather than focusing only on textual features and their relationships, I am concerned with the multilayered communications that authors of narrative offer their audiences, communications that invite or even require their audiences to engage with them cognitively, psychically, emotionally, and ethically. (2005: 5 my emphasis)

My explorations will show that postironic narrators try to engage their audiences in this manner (I propose that this is one, maybe the most important feature of postirony, in contrast to other contemporary literary movements). Consequently, the main focus will be on the “multilayered communications” that postironic texts offer and their ways of provoking cognitive reactions etc. from their audiences.4 So far, I have talked about the “I” in the text purely as a narrator function. Most narratologists tend to mainly deal with fictional narratives, and while many of their assumptions are valid for nonfiction texts as well, it is nevertheless necessary to clarify the role of the “I” in a nonfiction narrative, i.e. in autobiographical texts. the narratological point of view when analyzing them. Both narrator and narratee function similarly in these differing autobiographical forms. 3 |  That the authentication of a claim concerning the reader’s own world (autobiography per definition deals with the author’s/reader’s real world) happens through the narrator who inhabits a different ontological level. This can only work if I take, in the following, the narratee and the concept of metalepsis in consideration. 4 |  I discuss this claim by Wallace’s in the “Introduction.” Postironic literature foremostly wants to communicate with the reader.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

Phelan, by referring to Sidonie Smith’s and Julia Watson’s ideas, distinguishes five “autobiographical ‘I’s”: 1. The real or historical I, who is “unknown and unknowable by the readers and is not the I we gain access to in autobiographical narrative” (Smith and Watson 59). In my terms this “I” is the flesh-and-blood author. 2. The narrating I, who is “available to readers,” who “tells the autobiographical narrative” (Smith and Watson 59), and whose voices may be multiple. 3. The narrated I, who is “the object ‘I,’ the protagonist” (Smith and Watson 60), or, in other words, the character whose experiences constitute the events of the narrative. 4. The ideological I, who is “the concept of personhood culturally available to the narrator” (Smith and Watson 2010: 61) (qtd. in Phelan 2005: 68-69). This list is completed by Phelan by expanding the idea of the “real or historical I.” Since this “I” is “[…] inaccessible, and […] the narrating I may adopt multiple voices, we also must recognize that there is another, knowable agent involved: […] the implied author” (2005: 68-69). Briefly summarizing, Phelan adds that the implied author is “[…] the one who determines which voices the narrator adopts on which occasions – and the one who also provides some guidance about how we should respond to those voices” (ibid: 69).5 When I discuss the “I”s in autobiographical texts, I agree with Phelan about the inaccessibility of the historical author, while I see the “implied author” as redundant as soon as one includes the ideological I. The overlap of the two concepts will become obvious in the following discussion.6 Phelan uses the terms “narrating I and experiencing I” (Stanzel 1991), but I believe Smith’s and Watson’s choice of “narrating I and narrated I” (Spitzer 1961) to be more appropriate for autobiographical narratives. While in fictional first-person-narratives (oftentimes) a clear distinction between narration and experience can be found, autobiographical texts usually double the experiencing aspect on both the narrator and protagonist level. Hence, the term “experiencing I” is confusing in autobiographical narratives. In autobiography, the “narrating I” undergoes changes because of the experience of narrating his own life (this can be named experience on a metadiegetic plane), while the “narrated I” experiences the narrative’s progress on the plot level.7 Expe5 |  As problematic as the concept of the implied author is oftentimes seen, the audiences of a text can only be discussed thoroughly if the ideological I/ implied author is taken into account. 6 |  Whereas Phelan talks alternately of “implied author” and “ideological I,” I will restrict my terminology to “ideological I.” 7 |  Cp. Martin Löschnigg’s assumption that “[t]he autobiographer thus recounts not only what has happened to him/her at an earlier time, but above

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rience, due to the inherent logic of the genre autobiography, happens mostly on the level of the narrating I and only secondarily on the level of the narrated I.

A udiences – P reliminary Thoughts Traditional narratology generally investigates the narrator; the counterpart is usually underestimated. Before I develop my own thoughts about how to include the narrator’s counterpart (the “you” of a text) into the discussion of postironic literature, I briefly address “reader-response criticism” as introduced by Stanley Fish. In his influential study, Is There A Text in This Class? (1980) Fish starts from the premise that [...] if meaning is embedded in the text, the reader’s responsibilities are limited to the job of getting it out; but if meaning develops, and if it develops in a dynamic relationship with the reader’s expectations, projections, conclusions, judgments, and assumptions, these activities (the things the reader does) are not merely instrumental, or mechanical, but essential, and the act of description must both begin and end with them. In practice, this resulted in the replacing of one question – what does this mean? – by another – what does this do? – with “do” equivocating between a reference to the action of the text on a reader and the actions performed by a reader as he negotiates (and, in some sense, actualizes) the text. (1980: 2-3 original emphasis)

This premise suggested by Fish is also my premise for the investigation of narrative’s meanings. I agree with the assumption that it is more important to analyze what a text does (within a communicative act with a reader) then what it means (as a general and ultimate interpretative end). In order to take into account what Fish calls “the reader’s expectations, projections, conclusions, judgments, and assumptions,” I feel it is necessary to include some narratological ideas that Fish could not act upon because they were established only after the publication of Is There a Text in This Class?. Consequently, whereas I perpetually keep Fish’s original idea in mind, I replace his theoretical toolkit 8 by including rhetorical narratology’s the-

all how he/she has become himself/herself from the ‘other’ which he/she was.” (2010: 258) Laura Marcus describes this as “[a]utobiography imports alterity into the self by the act of objectification which engenders it.” (1994: 203) 8 |  Because I will not follow Fish in his ideas of “interpretive communities” I do not discuss this approach. In Is There a Text in This Class? Fish elaborately discusses this concept, for further readings see for example “Inter-

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

ories in my analysis. But first, one other concept, namely metalepsis, has to be mentioned.

M etalepsis Fish and other “reader-response” critics regard the text and the reader as existing on one ontological frame. Rhetorical narratologists, however, believe that one has to consider the difference in ontology when exploring the communicative act between narrator and reader. Without entering a philosophical discussion about ontology in general, I include the concept of “metalepsis” in order to show why, in my opinion, (1) it is necessary to acknowledge ontological differences and (2) how it is possible to nevertheless analyze what a text does in respect to the reader. The whole idea of the narratee/audiences which I introduce below and which represents the real reader in the intradiegetic world of the narratives, has to be based upon the assumption that the narrative addresses different ontological planes. Monika Fludernik, summarizing Genette’s original idea, defines metalepsis as “[…] an existential crossing of the boundaries between the extradiegetic and diegetic levels of a narrative or the (intra)diegetic and metadiegetic levels […]” (Fludernik 2003: 383). For the discussion of the intradiegetic postironic narrator it is the crossing of the boundary between the intradiegetic- (narratee/audience) to the extradiegetic plane (real reader) that is of importance.9 This ontological trespassing seems to be illogical; an intradiegetic narrator cannot logically and directly address an extradiegetic reader. Any investigation of the reader’s reaction to the narrative has to follow from the discussion of the narratee’s/audiences’ role as (foremost) addressees of the narrative. Fludernik describes this form of metalepsis as an “ontological metalepsis” (ibid: 388), where the narrator and narratee step “onto the plane of the fictional world” in order to “enhance the reader’s immersion in the fictional world” (ibid). In the autobiographical texts under examination in this book, the narrator qua genre exists on the plane of the intradiegetic world (which, in these texts is a “nonfictional world,” but nevertheless ontologically different because it is mediated by a narrator), but at the same time, is to be seen as part of the reader’s

pretive Authority in the Classroom and in Literary Criticism.” (Fish 1980: 303-355) 9 |  Although I highlighted the transgression from real author to narrator as fundamental to the discussion of postironic autobiographies, I also stated and will further develop in the following close readings, that the reader can only ever assume this resemblance and this assumption alone is important, the real world proof is unnecessary for the engagement provoked in the reader.

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world.10 The explicit inclusion of the narratee/audience, addressed as “you,” in this intradiegetic plane, as I propose, actually enhances the reader’s immersion and thereby his perception of the world outside of the narrative. The crucial moment is the narratee’s/audiences’ feeling for the characters that enables the real readers to “[...] feel for the actual persons the characters represent” (Warhol 1986: 815-816). Here metalepsis becomes the intermediary tool for the narrator/the ideological I to engage the real reader (through the narratee/audience) in a very direct and “real” way. The narrator thereby becomes postironic by evoking the real reader’s feelings in (and for) the narrative but simultaneously enabling the real reader to transfer what she feels for the diegetic characters to people in her own world/reality.

A udience – N arratee

and

N arrative Audience

For further establishing an interpretive frame to discuss the postironic nonfiction I introduced above, it is useful to clarify what the different agents in the narrative are and how they interact with one another. In the “I” of an autobiographical narrative the real author (without being part of the interpretive frame), the ideological I, the narrator, and the protagonist are united, while the “you” combines a narratee, a narrative as well as an authorial audience, and an actual audience. I understand Gerald Prince’s concept of the narratee as an indispensable basis for the investigations of audiences in general. However, Peter J. Rabinowitz’s critique that the “narrataire […] is someone perceived by the reader as ‘out there’” (1977: 127), is of importance for the examination of the “engagement” of the real audience. Phelan, in discussing Rabinowitz and Prince, believes that in contrast to the narratee as “[…] a separate person who often serves as mediator between narrator and reader […]”, the narrative audience “is a role which the text forces the reader to take on” (Phelan 1996: 142). In the preceding chapter I discuss different forms of postironic writings; despite their differences, what they share is a directly addressed “you.” Because the “you” appears in that prominent (and for the narrator, important) form, a clear conception of the “you” in literary texts is inevitable. Hence, I will firstly outline Prince’s concept,11 then look at Rabinowitz’s alterations of the “audience” term, and finally, by incorporating Phelan’s ideas, I will find in

10 |  Cp. Lejeune’s assumptions in “The Autobiographical Pact” discussed on pages 133-135. 11 |  Gerald Prince notes, that “[…] numerous critics have examined the diverse manifestations of the narrator [while] few critics have dealt with the narratee […]” (ibid: 7). His own examinations show an unaccountable variety of narratees, I will therefore constrain the explanations here to the facts of interests for postironic texts.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

the combination of all concepts an applicable toolkit for the investigations of audiences of postironic texts. First of all, it is important to clarify how the narratee is constructed within a narrative. Obviously, every narrator needs to have a narratee; a narrative cannot logically exist without someone to whom it is addressed. Prince – in his original definition of the narratee in “Introduction to the Study of the Narratee” (1973), which he slightly alters in “The Narratee Revisited” (1985) – defines the “zero-degree narratee” as the inevitable basic form of narratee in a narrative. This narratee is defined as covert, not directly addressed by the narrator and without “any personality or social characteristics” (Prince 1980: 10). Nevertheless, this narratee is able to understand the account of the narrator: “the zero-degree narratee knows the tongue […] and the language(s) […] of the narrator. In his case, to know the tongue is to know the meanings […].” (ibid) Furthermore, this narratee is able to “note semantic and/or syntactic ambiguities” (ibid), and is aware of “a temporal dimension and that [the narrative] necessitates relations of causality” (ibid). These aspects are not restricted to the zero-degree narratee but rather describe characteristics of (almost) all narratees. The most important and differing aspect to note about the zero-degree narratee, in contrast to a defined narratee, is his/her inability […] to interpret the value of an action [or] to grasp its repercussions. He is incapable of determining the morality or immorality of a character, the realism or extravagance of a description, the merits of a rejoinder, the satirical intention of a tirade. (ibid: 11)

Consequently, narratives with a postironic claim to engage their readers necessarily need to engage their narratees first and therefore hardly ever work when addressing a zero-degree narratee. Exemplarily, Dave Eggers (the narrator, not the real author), as early as in the “Acknowledgements” to AHWOSG, addresses a particular kind of narratee: Besides, if you are bothered by the idea of this being real, you are invited to do what the author should have done, and what authors and readers have been doing since the beginning of time: PRETEND IT’S FICTION. (Eggers 2001a original emphasis)

By directly addressing the narratee, the narrator of AHWOSG enables her “to interpret the value of an action,” to “grasp its repercussions,” etc. Furthermore, he (the narrator) actually asks the narratee to even change the literary status (memoir)

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of the narrative (“PRETEND IT’S FICTION”), thereby giving her the possibility to be an active contributor to the narrative rather than only a passive consumer.12 Obviously this narratee goes far beyond a zero-degree narratee. By being openly addressed (“you”) and taken as a serious instance within the narrative, by being invited to “pretend it’s fiction,” this narratee functions as a stand-in for the real reader. Furthermore, she morally and ethically judges the narrator’s deeds. While postironic texts tend to directly address their narratees,13 even passages that do not obviously include a “you” or a “dear reader” can be of importance for the understanding of the narratee.14 As Prince suggests, “[…] the portrait of a narratee emerges above all from the narrative addressed to him.” (Prince 1980: 12) In the beginning of AHWOSG, the narrator describes the unsuccessful cancer surgery his mother had to undergo: “[b]ut of course they didn’t get it all. They had left some of it and it had grown, it had come back, it had laid eggs, was stowed away, was stuck to the side of the spaceship.” (Eggers 2001b: 4) The idea of the “eggs” and “spaceship” refers to science fiction narratives (most prominently Ridley Scott’s Alien, in which hidden eggs guarantee a sequel and the return of the monsters). By using this metaphor for his mother’s disease, the narrator self-evidently believes the narratee to know popular cultural icons, such as Scott’s movie, that are not part of the narrative itself. So the expectations the narrator has towards his narratee paint the latter as someone who (most likely) (1) lives in a consumerist society and (2) watches contemporary movies. In the close readings I will shed more light on direct and indirect characterizations of the varying narrates. The two exemplary readings done here are meant to establish the idea of a narratee in postironic writings who is directly addressed in the narrative (without being an overt character in the story), who is expected to have a similar background and world view as the ideological I, and who is taken seriously by the narrator (and ideological I) and accepted as an entity for the text’s actual interpretation. Different critics, in particular Robyn Warhol, put forth the proposition that this sort of narratee functions as a “rhetorical” (in Phelan’s sense) bridge to the real reader. She states that in some cases, and in my opinion most certainly in postironic narratives, “[…] a narrator addresses a ‘you’ that is intend12 |  Which, in the postironists’s idea, enables the reader to take positive impact out of the text for her own life. 13 |  This chapter, in the following, offers two short close readings of fictional postironic texts. This highlights that not merely the nonfictional texts discussed later address a “you” but that this is a standard move in postironical texts. 14 |  Prince calls the address of the narratee in meta-fictional passages of the text “overjustification” (Prince 1980: 15). I will discuss this idea in the readings of David Foster Wallace’s, Jonathan Lethem’s, Nick Flynn’s, and Dave Eggers’ meta-comments to their respective autobiographical texts.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

ed to evoke recognition and identification in the person who holds the book and reads […]” (Warhol 1986: 811). While I agree with Warhol’s thesis, I want to add that in my opinion, ideology, morals, and ethics are only in part transported by the narrator. More often they have to be seen as part of the ontological plane of the ideological I. Therefore, the narratee, who is addressed by the narrator, cannot logically be the only addressee at the diegetic level. I will later come back to Warhol’s overall theme of an “engaging narrator,” which is a very interesting and useful idea to employ for readings of postironic nonfiction. For a full understanding of the diegetic “you,” however, Peter J. Rabinowitz’s important work on audiences, “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences” (1977), needs to be included in my discussion. Rabinowitz establishes an audience model that takes the above established idea of the differing “I”s in an autobiographical narrative into account. Before I discuss the consequences of Rabinowitz’s ideas in detail, a brief mapping of the different addressees should clarify the connections of “I” and “you” in a narrative:15

Sender

Addressee in Rabinowitz

Addressee in Prince / Warhol

Addressee in Phelan

Real author

Actual Audience

Actual Audience

Actual Audience

Implied Author / Ideological I

Authorial audience

----------

Authorial Audience

Narrator (Narrating I)

Narrative audience / Ideal Narrative Audience

Narratee

Narrative Audience / Ideal Narrative Audience and Narratee

The actual audience, just like the actual author, is inaccessible. Statements dealing with the former have to stay hypothetical; however, by looking at the authorial audience and narrative audience and their differing positions to the narrative, spe15 |  For reasons of clarity I include Phelan’s concept here. This, being mostly a composition of the Prince and Rabinowitz models can only be discussed after Rabinowitz’s terms are clarified.

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cifics of the text’s effects become clear. The authorial audience can be defined as “[...] the more or less specific hypothetical audience which is posited by the author in constructing his or her text and which understands that text perfectly” (Prince 1987: 8).16 The narrative audience is the one for whom the narrator is narrating. In contrast to the authorial audience, it “believes in the reality of the world presented” (ibid: 61).17 Furthermore, Rabinowitz’s theory includes the “ideal narrative audience,” which differs from the “narrative audience” “[along] the axis of ethics and interpretation. The ideal narrative audience agrees with the narrator that certain events are good or that a particular analysis is correct, while the narrative audience is called upon to judge him” (Rabinowitz 1977: 135). But what are the consequences of Rabinowitz’s multi-leveled audiences? For postironic nonfiction, I draw the following conclusions: 1. Congruency of Audiences: The narrative audience and the authorial audience are almost congruent. This is due to the autobiographical aspect of the books under investigation; the close readings will expose these congruencies. Even though Rabinowitz claims that “[w]hen the distinction between the two [audiences] disappears entirely, we have autobiography […]” (ibid: 131), one has to carefully examine this fact. Fictional autobiography has the same congruency in audiences as autobiography; however, its genre is the novel.18 2. Morals and Audiences: The closeness or distance of authorial audience and narrative audience has the effect “[…] that the greater the distance between authorial and narrative audience […], the less impact a moral lesson learned by the narrative audience is likely to have on the authorial audience” (ibid: 132). Following this idea, I conclude that the lesser the distance, the greater the impact. That postironic nonfiction tries to have the least possible distance is to be shown in the audience examinations later. 16 |  To speak of the “author” here instead of the “implied author” might lead to confusion, in my understanding of Rabinowitz, it has to be the implied author/ideological I who is the counterpart to the authorial audience. 17 |  In nonfiction this difference vanishes, the nonfiction-contract (cp. Lejeune’s ideas on pages 133-135) assumes that the reality in the narrative is a representation of the reality outside of the narrative. 18 |  Texts like Eggers (2006) and Langer (2010) use this effect that Rabinowitz defines as a nonfiction-marker. Thereby they try to establish a particular feeling of the actual audience towards the text. If the reader would accept them as nonfiction, these markers were correct but since the titles themselves state the genre description “novel,” most readers will not understand them as nonfiction.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

3. Morals and the Real Reader One can assume (this has to stay hypothetical) that the greater the impact on the authorial audience, the greater the impact on the actual audience. This can be hypothesized because “[t]he distance between authorial and actual audiences, in sum, may be inevitable – but […] it is generally undesirable; and authors usually try to keep the gap narrow” (ibid: 130).19 However improvable this assumption is, since metafictional comments in postironic narratives make this claim, it has to be discussed as an effect of the diegetic demand for the extradiegetic world.20 4. Ideal Narrative Audience and the Real Reader Because “irony” and “postirony” are concepts that are not self-evidently understood but require a special linguistic competence, the ideal narrative audience in postironic narratives has to understand instances of ironic speech. If certain speech acts are not understood as ironic, the postironic approach of the narrator cannot be understood by the audience. Traditionally, ideal narrative audiences share the values of the narrator (this is most prominently the case in the audience of the sentimental novel, as depicted by Warhol). In postironic texts, the narrator tries to convince his audience in the course of the narrative, they do not necessarily share the same values at the beginning of the narrative. Nevertheless, the ideal narrative audience needs to share certain contemporary skills with the narrator; it has to understand the concept of ironic speech acts. I conclude that including different forms of audiences in the analysis of “narrative as rhetoric” leads to a better understanding of moral and ethical claims within the narrative. I need to point out again that I am aware “[…] that both the authorial and the narrative audience are ‘fictions’ […]” (ibid: 130) and that therefore all conclusions drawn upon these audiences deal foremost with the intradiegetic reality. Nevertheless, following Rabinowitz, it is comprehensible that “[authorial and narrative audience] are fictions in radically different senses. When speaking of the authorial audience, we might more accurately use the term ‘hypothetical’ than the term ‘fictional’; for as I have suggested, most authors, in determining the authorial audience they will write for, will try to come as close to the actual audience as possible.” (ibid)

Although Rabinowitz’s ideas are quite convincing, it is still necessary to include the concept of the narratee who is also part of the narrative. Phelan, by reexamin-

19 |  This hypothesis has to be further curtailed, the gap can only be kept narrow with the author’s contemporaries, s/he can never construct the authorial audience after/for a future readership. 20 |  Cp. the discussion of “metalepsis” above.

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ing Rabinowitz’s concept, also comes to this conclusion and therefore models an approach that combines Rabinowitz’s audiences with Prince’s narratee. Phelan has to be seen in the same tradition Rabinowitz works in, namely rhetorical narratology. He stretches this point by repeatedly pointing out that: […] my approach is indebted to rhetorical theorists such as Kenneth Burke and Wayne C. Booth who also emphasize narrative as a distinctive and powerful means for an author to communicate knowledge, feelings, values, and beliefs to an audience: indeed, viewing narrative as having the purpose of communicating knowledge, feelings, values, and beliefs is viewing narrative as rhetoric. (Phelan 1996: 18)

I also see narratives as rhetorical acts; nevertheless, instead of following a dogmatic line of thought I will also include structural approaches which I find inevitable and necessary. Rabinowitz states that the narratee is “out there” while the narrative/authorial audiences are roles “[…] which the text forces the reader to take on” (Rabinowitz 1977: 127). The zero-degree narratee obviously always stays “out there,” however, as Phelan states: While the clear distinction between the narratee and the narrative audience allows us to infer so much about the narratee’s behavior and situation, the “you” address also invites us to project ourselves – as narrative audience, authorial audience, and actual readers – into the narratee’s subject position. Consequently, the inferences we make as we occupy the narrative audience position leads us to a complicated vision that mingles narratee and self in the narratee’s position. We both occupy the position and know what the position is like in a way the narratee herself does not. In this way, we feel addressed by the narrator but not fully coincident with the narratee. (1996: 151)

I agree with Phelan, especially that the “you” address in postironic narratives functions in the way he describes here.21 Before discussing further technical aspects, I will show how the ideas developed so far are applicable for a reading of postironic narratives. In Dave Eggers’ short story “After I was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned,” an autodiegetic narrator tells the story that leads to his death. In his 21 |  I am aware that Phelan, in his assumptions, crosses ontological planes with ease and without any concern. While I will use his propositions in my close readings and verify their claim by showing that post ironic narratives do exactly what he proposes, I feel uncomfortable to do so without discussing the logically impossible transgression of extradiegetic real readers to an intradiegetic narratee position.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

account, he addresses a “you,” which, in its generality, is a narratee with whom almost every reader can identify. The only excluded reader is someone who does not know dogs, because the only constraining comment is: “You know fast dogs. Dogs that just run by and you say, Damn! That’s a fast dog!” (Eggers 2005: 211). We can assume that the levels of narrative audience and ideal narrative audience are congruent, since a reader, whichever role she would take on, would answer “yes, I know fast dogs that make me say ‘Damn! That’s a fast dog!’” and we can also assume that the reader on the level of the authorial audience will approve of the statement. Because the narratee in the imperative address already agrees with the narrator, there is seemingly a complete congruency of all addressees. However, this changes because of the next sentences: “Well that’s me. A fast dog. I’m a fast dog.” (ibid: 211) This means that any actual reader and the authorial audience still feel somehow addressed by the “you,” but both categorize the story as purely fictional, because in the “real” world, a dog simply cannot speak.22 The reader who chooses the role of ideal narrative audience is still with the narrator, because it is an audience that accepts everything about the narrator’s tale. More of a problem are the narratee’s and the narrative audience’s reactions. On the one hand, both (assuming that the narratee is not zero-degree) deny the idea of speaking dogs; on the other hand, on the intradiegetic level, nothing contradicts this fact. They still feel addressed by the “you,” and because there is no sign that this acceptance of the tale as “true” vanishes in the course of the story, they can be seen as even accepting the fact of a speaking dog. Because of this difference in acceptance, “[w]e both occupy the position and know what the position is like in a way the narratee herself does not. In this way, the reader feels addressed by the narrator but not fully coincident with the narratee.” However, speaking animals are not new to literature.23 The second narrative fracture in the story is the moment of the narrator’s death: “After I died, so many things happened that I did not expect.” (ibid: 222) Not only does the narrative tempus switch from present tense to past tense, which marks a change in the narrative’s status (living narrator vs. dead narrator), but another logical rule, that death ends narration, is also abolished. For the audiences, this means the same as above. Their acceptance will not further change, what changes is the intensity of engagement. The narrator lifts the narrative to another level by shifting his interest from “dogs” (his private affairs) to general matters: “I thought we were all the same but as I was inside my dead body and looking into the murky river bottom I knew that some are wanting to run and some are afraid to run and maybe they are broken and are angry for it.” (ibid: 223) I will not decipher the metaphorical depth of this passage, but rather point out the narrator’s interest in something 22 |  Cp. my discussion of Rabinowitz’s claim that congruency in narrative and authorial audience means the text is nonfiction above. 23 |  Another postmodern but by no means postironic animal narrator is also a dog. Cp. Auster (1999).

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fundamental: what makes people “run.” The narrator’s insistence on addressing a “you” to whom he is reporting, and the seriousness in his idea of that audience, make him a postironic narrator. The story in itself is homage to traditional fables that use animals to describe the human condition. The narrative shows a lack of ironic fracture, and the audience never feels a postmodern doubtfulness and critique of the traditional format. Moreover, the “you” in its general form (addressing a narratee whom every real reader can identify with), is a sign for an engaging narrator. That the narrator addresses grand themes, “what makes people run” or in other words, what do we live for, can be seen as a postironic marker. Audiences that live in an ironic environment are challenged by accepting a contemporary text that discusses the human condition sincerely.24 In this story, the authorial audience differs strongly from the narrative audience. While this is, in Rabinowitz’s definition, a marker for fiction, it is noteworthy that the narrative is nevertheless postironic and engaging. The narrator shifts the tale to a general level where he asks fundamental questions: what it means to die, and what is/was a fulfilled life. However, the reader might not see the attempt as sincere communication, since the narrator is a dog and the narrative environment obviously fictitious; it is hard to fully identify with the narrative. The last obstacle – that the narrator and the ideological I obviously differ – is a restrictive moment in the process of reader engagement. I am not arguing that fictitious texts do not engage; Robyn Warhol’s discussion of engaging narrators (which I will look at in the following) solely treats fictional texts, and she gives convincing proof of the engaging aspect.25 What I want to point out is that in an ironic environment, when every statement has to be taken with a grain of salt because the listener can never be sure whether she deals with an ironic or a sincere utterance, the intrinsic promise of nonfiction’s truthfulness strengthens this engagement. Nevertheless, the deferral from narrating private concerns in favor of discussing public/general matters is what makes “After I was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned” postironic. Furthermore, the transfer of private concerns to a public level is a major characteristic of autobiographical narratives. In the close readings, I will point again at this shift, highlighting the doubly applied engaging effect of autobiography in general and postironic autobiographical narratives in particular. Although so far I mostly have spoken about the importance of audiences for postironic texts, the above outlined audiences can only become what they are by interacting with a special form of narrator. Robyn Warhol coined the term “engag-

24 |  Concerning the term “sincerity” see my discussion on pages 10-11. 25 |  Lee Konstantinou and Nicoline Timmer also show that engaging communication is at work in Wallace’s and Eggers’ fiction. Cp. Konstantinou (2009b) and Timmer (2010).

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

ing narrator,” and her assumptions serve as a starting point for my examination of the postironic narrator.26 The postironic narrator differs from Warhol’s sentimental narrator in one aspect, namely that the “real readers” addressed by the narrator of a sentimental novel were a rather homogenous group. Sentimental novels mainly addressed (and were read by) middle-class female readers. To engage these readers, sentimental narrators could rely on certain “expectations, projections, conclusions, judgments, and assumptions” (Fish 1980: 2) as comparable in all her/his readers. In contrast, postironic narrators address a heterogenous group, which means that they can easily fail, if the reader does not also consider her environment highly ironic. Only a persistent ironic surrounding leads the reader to recognize a speech act as sincere in postirony.27 Interestingly enough, Warhol begins her discussion of the engaging narrator by looking at the narratee of the narrative under examination. She explains this approach by stating: The reader may or may not be interested in how closely the narrative “I” resembles the actual author; readers can only speculate about such a resemblance, which – even if it exists – would have no bearing on the rhetorical effect of the text. But one can know whether or not the narrative “you” resembles oneself, and the way one experiences the fiction is affected by how personally one can take its addresses to “you.” (Warhol 1986: 812)

This idea is noteworthy, because while only the reader can “know” whether the “you” of the narrative resembles her, only the narrator, the “I” of the text, can establish this resemblance.28 The autobiographical mode emphasizes a resemblance (if not sameness) of narrator, protagonist and real author.29 It is nevertheless true 26 |  Even though Warhol uses 19th century sentimental novels as models for engaging narrators, she herself states that “[t]he use of the engaging narrator is more a pattern in the narrative interventions […] than it is a perfectly consistent technique within any given novel or within any novelist’s career.” (Warhol 1986: 816) While sentimentalism has always been portrayed as “engaging,” postmodern texts are usually seen as breaking the “engagement” through irony. Postironic texts, in stark contrast, might include irony but do not consider engagement in an ironic sense. 27 |  Dave Eggers explicitly addresses this issue in AHWOSG. Cp. the chapter “Justifying the Narrative.” 28 |  Or, in heterodiegetic narratives the third person pronoun. However, since I only investigate first-person accounts, I omit including the narrating s/he. 29 |  See the discussion of Philip Lejeune’s “autobiographical pact” on pages 133-135.

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that, whatever the autobiographical narrative proposes, real “knowledge” can only be gained about the “you” in the text, never about the “I.” Prince asserts that “[i]f it should occur that the reader bears an astonishing resemblance to the narratee, this is an exception and not the rule” (Prince 1980: 9), however, this is untrue for postironic texts. They usually attempt to present a narratee who makes most of his or her readers feel “an astonishing resemblance.”30 Following Warhol’s line of thought, this resemblance is produced by the narrator for a purpose: [the engaging narrator] strives to close the gaps between narratee, the addressee, and the receiver […] such a narrator addresses a “you” that is intended to evoke recognition and identification in the person who holds the book and reads […]. (Warhol 1986: 811)

That different postironic narrators use various ways to close this gap will be shown later. What I mean to argue here is that a narrator can only be called postironic if s/he actually tries to close this gap. The postirony of a text can only establish itself by claiming “to evoke recognition and identification in the person who holds the book” – this is the foremost aspect of any postironic narrator. In order to provide an applicable theory of the “engaging narrator,” Warhol names five forms of narration that differentiate between the “engaging” and “distancing” narrator. I will briefly discuss these five forms, showing that they establish a comprehensible foil for the following discussions of the narrator, narratee/ audience, and reader problematic in postironic nonfiction. Warhol’s first point has already been mentioned above: the name that is used for the narratee. While a “distancing” narrator usually refers to a narratee by a particular name and/or a description that excludes many actual readers, “engaging” narrators “will usually either avoid naming the narratee or use names that refer to large classes of potential actual readers, [s/he] addresses the narratee simply as ‘Reader’ or ‘you,’ designations that can signify an actual reader” (ibid: 813). All of the postironic texts to be discussed later will provide narrators who address the narratee/narrative audience as “you.”

30 |  As stated above, this resemblance can only appear if the actual reader is a member of a postindustrial society that exists (as postironists claim) in an ironic state. A narratee that is addressed within the narrative and thereby portrait as someone having a particular cultural background and other particular character traits can obviously never resemble every possible reader of a book, however, I will discuss these problems in the close reading section and show how and when it works, as well as, the failures of this attempt.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

Secondly, Warhol discusses the “frequency of direct address to the narratee” (ibid: 813). This is more of a technical aspect and does not need much explanation. In some instances, numerous direct addresses of the narratee in a particular part of the narrative have an idiosyncratic effect and will be discussed in detail in the close readings. Warhol’s third distinctive mark is one of great importance for the discussion of postironic literature. It is “the degree of irony present in references to the narratee” (ibid). She assumes that […] the [engaging] narrator’s earnestly confidential attitudes toward ‘you’ encourage actual readers to see themselves ref lected in that pronoun,” and she continues that “this mode of address encourages actual readers to identify with the narratees, unlike the sarcasm of distancing narrators, which ironically embarrasses readers out of such identification. (ibid: 814)

I will pick up this idea again throughout all of the following discussions in this book, especially when discussing in detail the actual difference of “postirony” and “irony” in Eggers, Wallace, etc.31 Point four of Warhol’s listing is strongly connected to point three above. It is the “[…] narrator’s stance toward the characters” (ibid) that she believes to be important. While, in her opinion, the distancing narrator constantly reminds the narratee of the fictionality of all characters in the narrative, the engaging narrator insists on the “realness” of the characters (ibid). At this moment, to understand Warhol’s steps, it is important to note that she leaves a purely text-based narratology and includes “extradiegetic” planes (she is not any longer primarily interested in the narratee’s intradiegetic reality, but rather in the real reader’s world). She does not explicitly state the term “metalepsis,” but her argument follows the metaleptic conception discussed above. This last example of the differences of engaging- and distancing narrators given by Warhol deals with the “narrator’s implicit or explicit attitude toward the act of narration (ibid: 815). This, again, includes the idea of a metaleptic narration, and because it is a central character trait of the postironic narrator, I quote in some length: Like any intervening narrator, the engaging narrator, too, intrudes into the fiction with reminders that the novel is “only a story”. In doing so, however, engaging narrators differ from distancing narrators in that their purposes are 31 |  A narrator who takes the “you” and the characters of the narrative serious, and what this means for the reader, is examined in McHale (1987). I will discuss his ideas later and combine them with Warhol’s conclusions about the engaging narrator.

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Taking apart the different assumptions made here and transferring these ideas onto the postironic narrator, one can theoretically outline this particular type now. The postironic narrator is not trying to establish a traditional realist account; s/he interrupts the story with metafictional passages and includes meta-commentary in her/his tale. However, since s/he has to be described as an engaging narrator, I agree with Warhol’s assumption that these interruptions are not meant playfully, but rather further strengthen the narratee’s – who in these narratives represent the actual reader – engagement with the narrative (especially the inherent characters). The metaleptic aspect, where the fictional/nonfictional representation (in particular the narratee’s emphatic reactions) changes the reader’s perception of his/her actual “real-world” environment, is a crucial feature of the postironic narrator. Warhol shows in interesting readings how the engaging narrator works. Because she uses 19th century sentimental novels for that purpose, I abstain from quoting her in this case and offer a brief close reading of a postironic short story to show the applicability of her ideas. However, another brief discussion of an idea closely connected to the concept of the engaging narrator will precede and must then be included in the close reading. The idea of feelings evoked in the real reader by the engaging narrator needs some further clarification. Warhol’s assumptions are mostly convincing, but nevertheless, she does not overtly discuss the ontological gap between diegetic planes and how these are bridged.32 Brian McHale, concerned with “postmodernist fiction,” notes some interesting aspects of the relations of authors and readers to the narrators, characters, and narratees in fiction: he talks about “love” that violates ontological boundaries (cp. 1987: 222). His thoughts lead in the same direction Warhol’s theory does: namely, toward a narrative that is not merely representative but becomes engaging by the ways the narrator functions. McHale states that “[a]n author, by definition, occupies an ontological level superior to that of his or her character; to sustain a relation with a character […] means to bridge the gap between ontological levels” (ibid). “Love” for McHale means that an author who “respects and takes delight in the character’s independent existence” (ibid) shows 32 |  Cp. my discussion of metalepsis above.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

a form of “love” for these characters, and he continues that “[…] love as a metaleptical relation across ontological boundaries is evoked […] whenever characters change ontological levels […]” (ibid: 223). This explanation will become clearer later in this book; I think it is important to expand McHale’s last cited statement by including the narrator and narratee/audience in the discussion. The more independent the narrator’s and narratee’s ideology appear to be (independent in the sense of comprehensible for the reader), the more the real reader will feel engaged not merely in/for the text, but also for his own world. McHale, even though forgetting about the ontological level the narratee/audience inhabits, makes an interesting statement by describing postmodern literature as “[…] exploiting the relational potential of the second-person pronoun. The postmodernist second person functions as an invitation to the reader projecting himself or herself into the gap opened in the discourse by the presence of the you” (ibid: 224). The opened gap – which allows the metaleptical intrusion of the real reader into the intradiegetic plane – is a reoccurring theme in my discussion of postironic narratives. The appearance of the “you” is the most prominent moment of the metaleptic crossing of boundaries;33 however, as described above, the narrator uses different methods to engage the narratee, all of which will be discussed via examples later. In order to visualize these theoretical steps towards the engaging narrator and the relationship between ontological levels, I will discuss as an example one more postironic short story before employing the concept as a whole to the longer nonfiction postironic narratives. Without doubt, I could go on discussing Eggers’ “After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned.” All major aspects of the engaging narrator can be found there; however, since this book is not solely about Eggers but treats postironic literature in general, I will turn to another postironic author, David Foster Wallace, and discuss his story “Octet.” Part of the short story collection Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (1999), the story is, besides “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way,” the most prominent example of Wallace’s quarel with postmodernist forms (in particular metafiction). “Octet” is a narrative cycle of four short belletristic pieces ending in a metafictional meditation. The different episodes are titled “pop quizzes” and describe very distinct situations that usually conclude in a content-related question to the reader. The heterodiegetic narrator presents tales of people in distress. The second quiz, for example, titled “Pop Quiz 6,” is about two friends and the betrayal of the friendship by one of them. However, this pop quiz abruptly ends without a question. It concludes with the sentence: “In fact the whole mise en scène here seems too shot through with ambiguity to make a very good Pop quiz.” (1999: 113) “Octet” ends in a metafictional debate about the weaknesses of the preceding pop quizzes, and interestingly, is narrated by a homodiegetic narrator. 33 |  But only, and Warhol makes this clear, when the “you” is taken as sincere and not as an ironic address.

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The narrator of “Pop Quiz 9” describes the story as “a cycle of very short belletristic pieces” (ibid: 123). The first sentence, “[y]ou are, unfortunately, a fiction writer” (ibid), is notable in various ways: it addresses a “you” that seems to be a self-address, but although the “you” is foremost and obviously meant to address the narrator himself, it also addresses the audience. If the narrator did not mean to directly address the audience, it would be unnecessary to use the second person pronoun. The primary aspect of the “you” is the narrator’s urge to communicate with his reader, an idea that was already present in the preceding pop quizzes by including the direct questions to the reader. The narratee and the narrative audience accept this role, while the authorial audience is aware that the narrator (mis)uses the narratee to describe his own problems with writing “Octet.” Nevertheless, even though the authorial audience is aware that the “you” is a technical trick to talk about the “I” of the narrator, the level of engagement is hightened by the direct address, because the address seems to be meant sincere.34 While the authorial audience understands that the “you” is foremost a self-address of the narrator, the aspects of emotions, which are connected to the “you” in the latter part of the story, are directed toward all audiences. The self-address in the beginning is very detailed. The narrator asks: How exactly the cycle’s short pieces are supposed to work is hard to describe. Maybe say they’re supposed to compose a certain sort of ‘interrogation’ of the person reading them, somehow – i.e. palpations, feelers into the interstices of her sense of something, etc… though what that ‘something’ is remains maddeningly hard to pin down, even just for yourself as you’re working on the pieces. (ibid: 123)

Here the authorial audience is aware that the narrator describes his own feelings, that it “remains maddeningly hard” to actually tell what the meaning of the story is. At the same time, the authorial audience knows that the narrator includes this question in order to call the audience’s attention to the fact that meaning cannot actively be intended by the (implied) author or the narrator, but rather evolves from the communication of the text (the implied author’s ideological propositions and the narrator’s active communication) with the audience.35 In this case, the aim is to address the real reader by developing a congruency of authorial audience/ narratee and real reader. This trick played by the narrator – that is, to make the reader (through addressing the narratee / authorial audience) overtly aware of this 34 |  As always, the reader might not find it sincere, it depends on the reader’s attitude towards the text. However, the story’s permanent struggle with sincerety on the intradiegetic plane attempts to lead the audience to understand the address as sincere. 35 |  Cp. my discussion of Stanley Fish’s ideas above.

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis

fact – is to invite her to the implied author’s point of view. The narrator continues this twofold tactic; he criticizes his own inclusion of metafiction (the whole of Pop Quiz 9): “[M]etafictional self-reference […] which in the late 1990s, when even Wes Craven is cashing in on metafictional self-reference, might come off lame and tired and facile […].” (ibid: 124) He then combines this critique with another direct address to the narratee: “[W]hatever it is you feel you want the pieces to interrogate in whoever’s reading them. This is an urgency that you, the fiction writer, feel very…well, urgently, and want the reader to feel too […].” (ibid) Thus the narratee/ audience experiences that the narrator/implied author is aware of the possible “negative” outcome of the metafictional comments, that they might be contra-productive to the aim of the narrative: to make the reader feel too. Following Phelan’s idea that a text is a sort of communication between author and reader, that the reader actively wants to join the authorial audience “in order to understand the invitations for engagement that the narrative offers” (Phelan 1996: 210), I see “Octet” as actively inviting the reader with the question, “do you feel it too?” In order to show how the engaging narrator addresses his audience in “Octet,” I will apply Warhol’s and McHale’s ideas to exemplary parts of the story.36 First of all, Warhol states that “[the engaging narrator] addresses a ‘you’ that is intended to evoke recognition and identification in the person who holds the book and reads […]” (1986: 811), and she asks, “how personally one can take [the narrative’s] addresses to ‘you’” (ibid: 812). In “Octet,” the narrator applies the role of “the unfortunate fiction writer” to the “you” he is addressing, asserting that this “you” […] will have to puncture the fourth wall and come onstage naked […] and say all this stuff right to a person who doesn’t know you or particularly give a shit about you one way or the other […]. And then you’ll have to ask the reader straight out whether she feels it, too, this queer nameless ambient urgent interhuman sameness. […] Again, consider this carefully. You should not deploy this tactic until you’ve soberly considered what it might cost. What she might think of you. Because if you go ahead and do it (i.e., ask her straight out), this whole ‘interrogation’ thing won’t be an innocuous formal belletristic device anymore. It’ll be real. (Wallace 1999: 133)

Here, the narrative picks up the problem every narrator faces, namely that s/he cannot know the (real) person who is reading the text and vice versa. However, this lack of knowledge does not stop the narrator from asking the one question the whole story circles around: whether the reader feels it too. By admitting that no one can actually pin down this it, but by simultaneously insisting on the urgency of this “nameless ambient urgent interhuman sameness” (the narrator wants to believe 36 |  Extensive analyses of “Octet” that discuss all aspects and parts can be found in Timmer (2010) and in Smith (2009).

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that the other can feel this it), the narratee and authorial audience become convinced that there is this important it that the narrator wants them to feel as well. By declaring that this act could embarrass the “unfortunate fiction writer” (obviously this is the narrator himself as well as the role that the narrator ascribed to the narratee and audience), the narrator shows his awareness of the possible misreading/ misunderstanding of the whole narrative’s attempt to honestly show how seriously the narrator wants to address his audience. As narrative and authorial audience, this is read as a reconfirmation that this narrative actually is meant sincerely, culminating in the statement that “[i]t’ll be real.” One of Warhol’s core ideas can be read as a direct commentary to this passage: [the] engaging narrator, too, intrudes into the fiction with reminders that the novel is ‘only a story’ [however] their purposes are seldom playful: they intrude to remind the narratee – who, in their texts, should stand for the actual readers – that the fictions ref lect real-world conditions for which the readers should take active responsibility after putting aside the book. (1986: 815-816)

The narrator of “Octet” takes the narratee/audience seriously, proposing what Warhol theoretically states; that is, that the real reader should change his real world behavior “after putting aside the book.” This attempt of the narrative to “reflect real-world conditions” works because the real reader can put herself in the audiences’/narratee’s position, and the narrative is understood as commenting on the actual reading act of the real reader: “It’ll be real.” (Wallace 1999: 133) Warhol’s interest in the “frequency of address” can be easily answered with regard to “Octet;” the addressing appears frequently. Another of Warhol’s ideas about “the narrator’s stance towards the characters” is not applicable for this text; in “Pop Quiz 9,” no character outside the narrator and narratee exists. That the narratee/audience is addressed as “you” and “reader” is, as stated above, typical for postironic narratives and is the case in “Octet.” Two other parts of Warhol’s conception are of immense interest for postirony; hence I will end the discussion of the engaging (postironic) narrator by investigating (1) the degree of irony to the narratee (audience) and (2) the narrator’s attitude toward the act of narration. The narrator is very self-conscious about the authorial audience’s state of mind concerning contemporary literature. The audience (including the real, contemporary reader) is constantly exposed to an ironic environment in her own world and the first reaction to a narrative that uses words like “feel, truth, etc.” is one of ironic disbelief. The narrator’s reply to this disbelief is an iterant explanation that the “you” should […] use terms like be with and relationship, and use them sincerely – i.e. without tone-quotes or ironic undercutting or any kind of winking or nudging – if you’re going to be truly honest […] instead of just ironically yanking the poor

Reading the Postironic – Audience, Narrator, and Metalepsis reader around and she’ll be able to tell which one you’re doing; even if she can’t articulate it she’ll know if you’re just trying to save your own belletristic ass by manipulating her – trust me on this […]. (ibid: 132 original emphasis) 37

While this (the main narrative-interrupting) footnote could be read as a playful way of showing the reader how aware the author is of standard (postmodern) literary maneuvers, the narrator actually does exactly what is stated in this footnote: All through his narrative account, he uses the idea of a reader (addressing the narratee/audience) who “is with him” and thereby establishes the “relationship” to his audience in a postironic way. In other words, the postirony of this story becomes obvious in the usage of literary modes that are characteristic for ironic texts of the postmodern era.38 But the narrator of “Octet” turns these modes against themselves by proposing, both in metafictional as well as standard narrative ways, the seriousness and sincere attitude he has towards the narratee. The distinctive line between attitudes to the narratee vs. attitudes towards the narrative is rather thin. Since the whole of “Octet – Pop Quiz 9” addresses a “you,” every part of it can be read as directed at the narratee/reader. However, the overall structure, beginning with “[y]ou are, unfortunately, a fiction writer” (ibid: 123) and ending in “[s]o decide”39 (ibid: 136), shows the inherent seriousness in the narrative, and particularly the seriousness that the narrator applies to the narrative. Adam Kelly rightly states about the ending: “Octet” must end with the demand, or appeal, “[S]o decide.” Even though this phrase is directed, diary-like, at the writer’s self, it can only be answered by the reader, the text’s true other. In this spiraling search for truth of intentions, in an era when advertising, self-promotion and irony are endemic, the endpoint to the infinite jest of consciousness can only be the reader’s choice whether or not to place trust and Blind Faith. (2010: 145 my emphasis)

37 |  That the narrator addresses the reader with the pronoun “she” does not imply any gender specification. Whether in interviews or in other texts, Wallace always refers to all readers by using “she.” 38 |  Cp. my remarks on postmodernist literature in the “Introduction” and in the chapter “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea.” 39 |  This imperative ending the story is the clearest signal that the narrative itself wants to communicate with the reader. The “so decide” can only be directed at the reader (there is no logical sense in directing the “so decide” to an intradiegetic agent. Whether the story could actually engage its reader has to be answered by every individual reader. The narrator is aware that he cannot claim to be (un-)successful, he leaves it to the reader: “So decide.”

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There is no disruptive element in the text that undermines the “you” address used throughout the narrative. The narrator and the ideological I both understand the narrative as a rhetorical (engaging) act that actively communicates with its audience. By pointing to the rhetorical aspects of postironic narratives again, I arrive at the last part of this close reading of “Octet.” I concluded my discussion of Warhol’s “engaging narrator” by including in the concept Brian McHale’s idea of “[…] love as a metaleptical relation across ontological boundaries […]” (1987: 223), and I conclude the examination of the engaging postironic narrator by applying McHale’s ideas to “Octet.” The rhetoric the narrator of “Octet” uses is the act that transgresses ontological boundaries. The ambiguity of the “you” (being both the narrator addressing himself as well as an address to the narratee/audience) leads, on the one hand, to the real reader’s identification with this “you,” meaning the real reader feels that the engagement the narrator hopes to evoke in this “you” is an engagement she should apply to her own world. On the other hand, the authorial audience’s knowledge of the “you” as a formal trick to talk about the “ideological I” makes the real reader believe that the narrator of the text actually portrays the real author. This is a twofold transgression of ontological borders. The extradiegetic author seems to transgress the border to the intradiegetic narrator, and the intradiegetic narratee transgresses the border to the extradiegetic reader. While “Octet” uses this equation of extra- and intradiegetic planes in a fictional setting (there is no literal claim that the equation on the author’s side happens, only the narratee to reader transgression is verbalized), postironic autobiographical narratives include and directly formulate their claim to be transgressing on the authorial as well as on the reader side of the diegetic spectrum. In conclusion, the narrator of “Octet” is anxious about the narratee’s (real reader’s) reaction to words like “feel, sincere, be with, relationship. etc.” By narrating the story in this metafictional way, McHale’s concept of an author’s “love” for his characters can be applied to the narrative. This “love” appears through the independent, free choice that exists in the metaleptical gap; that is, in the “so decide” that can only be answered by the reader. The narrator’s engaging addresses of the audiences are supposed to make the real reader aware of this “love” between author and narrator, as well as between narrator and audiences, and by accepting this “love,” the reader should accept the it that the narrator wants her to feel.40

40 |  I stated above and want to highlight again here that these assumptions about real readers are only hypothetical. What the actual real reader feels or interprets in “Octet” cannot be answered. My assumptions here are based on Rabinowitz’s and Warhol’s ideas that the authorial audience/narratee is meant to represent the real reader.

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic How blessed are we to have each other? I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with our words. […] All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist. (Eggers 2006: 535)

David Marshall, Graeme Turner, and Frances Bonner diagnose the contemporary literary market by asserting: “[B]ook publishing has become more and more concerned about the nature of the author’s image/identity and how it might assist sales.” (2000: 12) Dave Eggers can be described as an author whose (public) identity is very suitable for assisting book sales. Authors like Pynchon and Salinger established one form of marketable American author, the solitary type. Eggers is the opposite. He is not “[…] the Great American Novelist living in self-enforced seclusion in order to wholly concentrate his intellectual powers on the society he devotes his life to examining” (Hamilton 2010: 2). Hamilton continues her observation by stating: “His career and the success of his memoir were both built on his willingness to acknowledge his desire to be a visible and representative part of literary culture in the United States.” (ibid: 3) Essentially, Eggers’ public persona is just as much that of a socially engaged citizen as it is that of a publicly acknowledged author. He used the money he inherited after his parents’ death and the royalties he received for AHWOSG to found not only his own publishing house (McSweeney’s Books) but also the nonprofit enterprise 826 Valencia, which offers its service for free and “[…] is dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the literary arts” (826 Valencia | the Writing Center). Furthermore, the royalties of What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006) go to the Achak Deng Foundation, which founds schools and trains teachers in Sudan, while the royalties of Zeitoun (2009) went to the Zeitoun Foundation that helped victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

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These facts are well known to Eggers’ readers. They are stated in epilogues and forewords in the books and are mentioned in numerous reviews and interviews,1 and also are used to advertise Eggers’ books. Furthermore, Eggers establishes himself as a charitable character. Particularly the reading of a memoir that concentrates on the author persona can be influenced by such extratextual facts. Liesbeth Korthals Altes thus argues that [o]n the basis of such information about his personal life and his professional and social activities, the reader may shape an image of the author’s extra-textual ethos as ‘sincerely committed’ to social cohesion, which can have an impact on his appreciation and interpretation of Eggers’ work. Especially in cases of ambiguity, some readers tend to rely on such a writer’s ethos in order to disambiguate his work. (2008: 122)

I think that to include the extratextual author’s ethos is one way of describing Eggers’ texts as postironic and sincere. However, as true as this assumption might be, it is only of small help for an understanding of AHWOSG’s postironic characteristics. In order to analyze a narrative like AHWOSG, what the actual reader thinks of the book as a result of the real world knowledge she accumulates about the actual author must either be proven by empirical data about actual readers, or it cannot be used for cogent claims about the book. Thus it is important to have in mind that actual readers have an additional interpretive frame because of their extratextual knowledge. The text‘s intrinsic postirony and sincerity, however, have to be explored by putting the real author and actual reader aside and instead concentrating on the narrator and audiences within the text.

M eta -A utobiography When Dave Eggers’ AHWOSG was published in 2000, it was only one amongst numerous memoirs concerned with personal loss, mourning, desperation etc. The memoir boom had reached its peak, and the former praise for the directness of 1 |  Cp. exemplarily the Preface to What Is the What written by Valentino Achak Deng: “[Dave and I] agreed that all of the author’s proceeds from the book would be mine and would be used to improve the lives of Sudanese in Sudan and elsewhere.” (Eggers 2006: xiv) Or an interview with The Rumpus: Rumpus: “You’re setting up a nonprofit for Zeitoun the same way as with What Is the What.” Eggers: “With the help of some lawyers working pro bono in New Orleans, we’re setting up a foundation to distribute the funds from the book.” Rumpus: “So you’re not being paid.” Eggers: ”Not for this, no.” (Elliott)

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

the narratives had mostly become an irksome weariness over writers outdoing each other with increasing exhibitionism of more and more private, shameful, and hair-raising confessions.2 This deep interest in the memoir in the late 1990s established the “nobody memoir,” whereas the traditional memoir could be called the “somebody memoir” – ‘somebody’ meaning that the writer was famous before publishing his memoir and therefore not in need of shocking details concerning her/his life in order to justify the writing of a memoir. In case of the nobody memoir, the authors become famous after publication,3 though only if the story that is told is shocking enough to find a wide readership. Whereas these nobody memoirs are progressive in their exhibitionism – no more taboos, regardless of the feelings and reactions of the people depicted within the narrative – they are rather conventional in their form.4 Couser argues that “[t]he memoir boom has produced a few postmodernist memoirs. But only a few. I can think of only two […] Lauren Slater’s Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir and Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.” (2011: 166) However, Slater and Eggers are in no way new or idiosyncratic in general. Their postmodernist styles (metafiction etc.) are literary standards in late 20th century literature. But interestingly enough, these literary experiments are mostly restricted to fictional narratives, while nonfiction (the memoir in particular) usually remains conventional. The question of why this is the case cannot be answered here. Eggers, interestingly, lets a fictional character in his first fictional publication You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002) argue that [...] nonfiction, when written well, is unequivocally more powerful than fiction, because if all details and evocations are equal – meaning, if the writing brings alive people and places described with equal skill, then the story that is true will 2 |  In a New York Times Magazin special issue concerned with the “memoir boom,” James Atlas states that “[i]n an era when ‘Oprah’ reigns supreme and 12 step programs have become adopted as the new mantra, it’s perhaps only natural for literary confession to join the parade.” (Atlas 1996) 3 |  Thomas Couser dedicates a whole chapter to the “Nobody Memoir” in his notable survey Memoir: An Introduction. Cp. “The Contemporary American Memoir” (140-168). 4 |  As an eye-opening example of the way the “nobody memoir” is supposed to work one can name James Frey’s infamous memoir A Million Little Pieces (2003). In order to satisfy the reading publics’ expectations, Frey exaggerated in the description of his drug abuse and time spent in jail. The celebration before and the indignation after he was found guilty of having fabricated the “facts” in his memoir shows both the reading publics’ expectation of something “special” and the frustration about having been deceived.

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It is hard to prove such a statement, but this argument is also used by other writers.5 The best proof one can give is the negative reactions to fraud in the memoir genre. If people respond to fraud with such indignation, this shows the “stronger response in the reader.” The whole James Frey incident can be seen as highlighting this idea.6 This statement nevertheless hints at the attempt of AHWOSG to go beyond the “power” of a fictional narrative trying to “evoke a stronger response in the reader.” In AHWOSG it is Dave, a figure that strongly resembles the author, who addresses his audience. For the audience, this is a partial fulfillment of the autobiographical pact, and therefore the story (the narrator, the characters etc.) seems to be true.

Trauma – True Feelings

and the

P lot

My argument rests on the assumption that the postironic is created through the way the story is narrated and through the interaction between narrator and audience. Before I further explore those assumptions, I want to put attention on another possible attempt to postulate AHWOSG as a sincere narrative.7 This can be done by looking at it from a psychoanalytical angle. The fact that AHWOSG deals with the traumatic loss of the narrator’s parents in the metafictional as well as in the memoir part can be used as an argument for its sincerity. The audience can expect that a trauma narrative is per se a sincere narrative; the more serious a topic, the less the reader expects it to be narrated in an ironic tone. In particular, the psychoanalytic critic Elise Miller situates the book in this tradition of serious “trauma” accounts: “Heartbreaking is catastrophic loss and trauma literalized, as if it is being enacted rather than depicted.” (2011: 987) While I see only parts of AHWOSG as exclusively and explicitly concerned with the loss of the narrator’s parents – and I agree that these parts are, in Miller’s sense, “trauma literalized” – the idea that AHWOSG “enacts” rather than “depicts” is one that is connected to the postirony of the narrative. However, it is not chiefly the traumatic as a part of the plot that is enacted, but rather the narrating that becomes an enactment. Miller describes a scene at the end of the narrative as an example. When Dave returns to Chicago to look for the remains of his parents, he finally takes possession of them and decides to scatter the ashes at the shores of Lake 5 |  Cp. “Genre Matters” on pages 11-18 and my discussion of Wallace (2011) on pages 129-131. 6 |  Cp. Harker (2008). 7 |  For a definition of the term “sincerity” see my “Introduction.”

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

Michigan. During this encounter with his own past, Dave reflects for the first time – at least insofar as he lets the audience be part of these thoughts – what he has actually lost and how sad and traumatizing the whole episode was for him. Dave’s indecisiveness and doubtfulness about what is right or wrong never appear stronger than in this part of the narrative. About to let go of the ashes in his hands into the water for good, he hesitates: How lame this is, how small, terrible. Or maybe it is beautiful. I can’t decide if what I am doing is beautiful and noble and right, or small and disgusting. I want to be doing something beautiful, but am afraid that this is too small, too small, that this gesture, this end is too small – Is this white trash? That’s what it is! […] Oh this is so plain, disgraceful, pathetic – Or beautiful and loving and glorious! (Eggers 2001b: 399)

This lamentation shows his ongoing preoccupation with both the guilt he feels about his mother’s death (as unreasonable as this is) and the loss he is still unable to deal with. Miller’s analysis of this scene – bound to her psychoanalytical approach – is interesting. She concludes that “[w]e are all witnesses of Eggers’s decision to live.” (2011: 1000)8 She sees the liberating act of finally putting the ashes to rest as the turning point in Dave’s handling of the traumatic loss of his parents. I see another notable aspect in this passage that is not part of Miller‘s analysis. The indecisiveness of the narrator is not particularly bound to the traumatic aspect, but rather is a zeitgeist phenomenon.9 The ironic environment makes the individual (almost) unable to decide what is truly valuable and what, in contrast, is an empty gesture. The awareness that everything we do has been done before (especially in television, which means we have seen it performed) lets the individual doubt whether her own action is original and therefore truthful and beautiful.10 8 |  Miller does not distinguish a narrator and author in her analysis. This obviously happens because her approach is not one of literary studies but of psychoanalysis, however, her assumptions are justified in literary studies if one follows Lejeune’s “Autobiographical Pact.” My reading of her argument adds the narrator as the “object of investigation” because I earlier concluded that the real author is not palpable on the intradiegetic plane of the narrative. 9 |  Above I mentioned that indecisiveness is a symptom of contemporary times. Benjamin Kunkel’s novel Indecission takes this symptom up as its major theme (cp. Kunkel 2005). 10 |  My discussion of “Octet” above shows another narrator dealing with this question. The story tellingly ends in the words “So decide.” The afore mentioned novel Indecision by Benjam Kunkel is also primarily concerned with the inability of postmodern men to decide. The narrator and protag-

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In her argument, Miller is aware that the narrative at this moment is dually tracked in its depiction of the events. On the one hand, “[w]e know we are reading about what must have been an agonizing night in Eggers’s life”, while on the other, “[…] those familiar with his memoir will recall that this section of the book is hilarious, […] Eggers’s readers are laughing.” (ibid: 1000) Here the narrator shows an awareness of the enriching effect of “mediated experience,” which helps him to overcome (part of) his trauma and puts the audience in a position of feeling the relief in the protagonist and in the narrator.11 Miller concludes her reading of this scene by talking about this relief, and convincingly argues that we cannot resist the relief that comes from both his comical self-consciousness and his emotional strength – relief […] that he himself might also have been enjoying, both in the moment and then later while narrating the scene. (ibid: 1001)

Miller sees and describes AHWOSG as a nonfictional account that is mainly (as her title suggests) a self-therapeutic “pain-relief device.”12 The “relief,” as described by Miller, which results in the scattering of Dave’s mother’s ashes, is a strong postironic device: when the audience realizes that the narrator was not merely liberated by the act of scattering but even more so by the act of telling (to this same audience), the narrative once more authenticates itself as a truthful depiction of facts (at least if the reader joins the narrative audience).13 It is the reenacting in front of the audience’s eyes that verifies the narrative for the audience, and it is the hesitation in the decision process that makes the reader (who lives in an ironic environment) connect to the narrator, because the feeling of indecision became a universal feeling in postmodern society. Miller describes this scene as one of closure, a possible ending for the therapeutic narrative. The narrator has reached a point of acceptance as he completes the quest for his mother’s remains: “[...] But it turns out that Eggers wasn’t finished onist, ref lecting upon his character that is unable to make decisions states: “It wasn’t very unusual for me to lie awake at night feeling like a scrap of sociology blown into its designated corner of the world. But knowing the clichés are clichés doesn’t help you to escape them. You still have to go on experiencing your experience as if no one else has ever done it.” (Kunkel 2005: 29) 11 |  I discuss the narrator’s explicit statements about “mediated experience” on pages 102-104. 12 |  And it is noteable that Miller is one of only a few critics who take AHWOSG’s demand to be nonfiction serious and who constructs her argument upon the fact that nonfiction leads to different reaction in the reader. 13 |  Cp. my discussion of authenticity and audiences in the chapter “Reading the Postironic.”

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

writing Heartbreaking after he put his mother to rest in Lake Michigan.” (ibid: 1001) I share Miller’s opinion that a therapeutic narrative could have ended at this crucial time. If AHWOSG were to lack the metafictional parts and be merely an account of the narrator’s trauma, closure would be possible at this moment. However, the narrator is trapped in his own awareness of mediation; if he were to finish his narrative here, the authentication would rely on plot elements, something the avant-gardist demand of the narrative forbids. That the narrator is aware of the impossibility of an original tale14 makes the metafictionality necessary. In an environment that experiences trauma even in television’s daily soaps and afternoon talk-shows, this narrator feels that an unmediated narrative in a traditional realist form is impossible, or would at least make his memoir one that couldn’t be called “postmodern” (cp. Couser 2011: 166).15 This analysis of the traumatic in AHWOSG shows that there is no direct connection between the traumatic and the postironic. Neither the sincerity nor the authenticity of the narrative is restricted to the trauma elements of the plot. And even though Miller does not discuss non-traumatic parts of the book, she comprehensibly states that “[the narrator] could not bear the prospect of terminating the connection he has imagined with the readers who have sustained him during the drafting process.” (Miller 2011: 1001) This narrator has to let go at some point but he is always aware of the postmodern crisis of representation and of the media saturated audience he is talking to; therefore, he cannot end by means of a traditional closure (mother dies – mourning – putting mother to rest – end).16 He rather continues by including more plot elements and culminates in another metafictional comment in the end: he wants the act of communication with his readers to continue.

The N onfictional Frame AHWOSG picks up the theme of what it means to write (and publish) a memoir in its “Acknowledgements.” The narrator recognizes that 14 |  There are countless examples of contemporary memoirs dealing with trauma, a well-known example amongst others is Harrison (1997). 15 |  Cp. my discussion of “Octet” on pages 83-88 and the following chapter “The Narrating Dave and His Audience,” particularly the narrating Dave’s assumptions about mediated experience. 16 |  If the story ended here, the narrative would be more conventional then it is in its actual form. If the narrator were to believe in a conventional therapeutic closure, the metatextual framing would be unnecessary. Compare David Foster Wallace’s doubtful exploration of 12 step programs in contemporary US culture (cp. Wallace 1996).

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At this point, Eggers does not give any reason why he is nevertheless writing a memoir. The audience is even presented with a paratextual motto preceding the title page: “THIS WAS UNCALLED FOR.” That the narrator admits that AHWOSG was uncalled for contrasts with his upcoming justifications in the text. However, for the audience at this point, it establishes the narrator as down-to-earth. The narrator in the “Acknowledgements” tries to justify the composition of his autobiography by pointing at a friend of his, who questions the narrator’s wisdom in indeed writing a memoir: “Oh no! said Oswald […] Don’t tell me you’ve fallen into that trap! […] Memoir! C’mon, don’t pull that old trick, man!” (ibid: xxii original emphasis). After briefly doubting his own plan, the narrator retorts by asking his friend what he is working on: “What he said was: a screenplay.” (ibid: xxiii) By implicitly making fun of writers who hope to become successful by writing for Hollywood, the narrator overcomes his doubt (for the moment) and declares: Well, suddenly the clouds broke, the sun shone, and once again, the author knew this: that even if the idea of relating a true story is a bad idea, and even if the writing about deaths in the family and delusions as a result is unappealing […] there are still ideas that are much, much worse. (ibid: xxiii original emphasis)

I understand this declaration as a causal follow-up to the motto stated earlier. The idea that AHWOSG was uncalled for may seem unappealing to a reading audience; since apparently other ideas are even worse, however, the motto becomes a statement of value. Returning to Couser’s idea that AHWOSG is an idiosyncratic “postmodern” memoir, it is interesting to include Bran Nicol’s investigation of AHWOSG. He looks at its formal distinctiveness and concludes that there is an “[…] absence of a radical formal experimentation in the genre before Eggers” (Nicol 2006: 107). He gives an interesting and convincing explanation for that absence. By opposing the “confessional” and “metafictional,” which he believes to be “almost opposites in literary criticism” (ibid), he gives a plausible explanation for the absence of postmodernist styles in the autobiographical genre.17 Whereas the “confessional” goes without saying to be “authentic” (it is at least usually understood as the latter), he describes the “metafictional” as

17 |  The autobiographical is per definition a confessional genre cp. Lejeune (2007).

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic […] a practice which is skeptical about the very nature of “authenticity” and the “genuine,” as it questions the possibility of art representing faithfully anything in the external world without disfiguring it or remarking it in its own image. (ibid)

Here I introduce two of the main headwords to the discussion. I outlined in my introduction that the ideas of “authenticity” and “sincerity” are of great importance for postironic texts. Nicol’s debate about metafiction’s role for an (non-)authentic understanding of the text is the debate also undertaken in this chapter.18 Caroline Hamilton, in contrast to Nicol, understands the metafictional parts of AHWOSG as fundamentally different. In her reading, the idiosyncratic metafiction of AHWOSG is, instead of a weakening element, further support for the memoir part’s confessional urge, thereby strengthening the narrative’s authenticity (as understood by the audience). She observes that: Eggers subverts the conventional use of spaces such as the copyright page, preface, contents page and acknowledgements, in order to reiterate to the reader that sincerity and authenticity should not be assumed in all texts. […] By acknowledging the ethical difficulties and artistic impossibilities of writing about real life, he seems more honest than other writers. (Hamilton 2009: 37) 19

The authentication that the metafiction of the narrative grants AHWOSG is twofold. One the one hand, the narrator discusses possible ambiguities of his own tale, but on the other, he addresses the reader’s judgment by pointing at the missing authenticity and sincerity in other texts. The fact that this takes place within a memoir points at the assumption that the reader should be aware of inauthenticity and insincerity even in this genre. AHWOSG demands for itself to be different to other contemporary memoirs, particularly by avoiding the pitfall of automatically assumed sincerity. In my discussion of Wallace’s ideas in the essay “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevky” I pointed at Wallace’s idea that Dostoevsky’s success lies in his explicit struggle with what he saw as wrong in society and literature: “[…] not by ignoring (now a.k.a. ‘transcending’ or ‘subverting’) the unfriendly circumstances in which he was writing, but by confronting them, engaging them, specifically and by name” (Wallace 2007: 272). Dostoevsky thereby was able to engage his readers (in Wal18 |  That confession and metafiction seem to be mutually exclusive is one of the paradoxes Plönges describes as productively overcome by postironists. Cp. my discussion on pages 39-40. 19 |  Cp. a more general description: “[N]on-fiction novels focus on contemporary themes and dispense with fictive elements. Since journalistic validity is part of the author-reader contract, authors frequently legitimize their knowledge in paratexts or metanarrative commentary.” (Zipfel 2008: 397)

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lace‘s opinion). Eggers, in his prototypical postironic narrative, does exactly the same thing. He actively struggles with postmodernism’s pitfalls and thereby establishes a sincere basis that the reader can rely on. To further follow this idea, one particular postironic principle has to be taken into account; namely, that postironic narrators take their audience seriously. A narrator who uses a literary method traditionally seen as undermining the audience’s belief in authenticity in order to strengthen this belief has to have trust in the seriousness of the audience; expecting serious engagement by the audience presumes real sincerity and veracity in the narrator’s account. Thus, Lee Konstantinou, similar to Hamilton, argues: […] Eggers’s text/paratext conf lation is not designed to undermine our faith and confidence in the primary text of the memoir […]. Eggers’s transformation of paratext into primary text is meant to build the reader’s confidence in the truthfulness and veracity of the text, to leave the reader even more convinced of the authenticity and validity of Eggers’s narrative […]. (2009b: 163-164)

It is important to add one decisive issue to Hamilton’s and Konstantinou’s readings: who or what is the narrative’s “you?” By assuming that the “you” is the actual reader and not taking into account that the narrator first of all tells his story to a “you” inherent in the text, these readings omit a key question for the proper understanding of the narrator in AHWOSG as postironic. It is neither the real author’s life, which means that the narrative is sincere and postironic, 20 nor is the actual reader to be seen as addressee without taking the diegetic planes into consideration. The narrator (and his relationship with the ideological I) and the narrative/ ideal narrative audience (interestingly, they are very distinctive in AHWOSG)21 have to be analyzed on basis of the narrative. Metaleptic assumptions about the actual reader‘s reactions in her own environment can only be made after having established an understanding of the mechanics on an intradiegetic level (are authorial and narrative audience congruent? Does the actual reader join the narrative audience?). While my readings will follow Hamilton’s and Konstantinou’s approach, I will have Nicol’s interpretation at hand to show that some metafictional parts of the postironic memoirs under investigation can be understood as weakening the authentic frame. Nicol’s idea is very convincing if one looks at traditional postmodern/ironic memoirs.22 Here writers use metafiction as a means for criticizing their own approach (“I know that what I undertake is impossible because there is neither a coherent self nor a way to depict reality in literature”). But in contrast – 20 |  Cp. pages 87-89. 21 |  Cp. “The Narrating Dave and His Audience.” 22 |  For example Nabokov (1966) or Barthes (1975).

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

and Nicol disregards the idea that Eggers’ memoir is different to traditional ironic examples – the postironic autobiographical narrative (1) shows its awareness of the postmodern discourse but (2) simultaneously proposes that honest representation is nevertheless possible (if only by including the metafictional).23 Nicol claims that the “[…] complete book is neither unremittingly metafiction nor entirely ‘straight.’ What we have instead […] are two different kinds of writing which sit together rather uneasily […].” (2006: 106) In a similar vein Elise Miller writes that “Heartbreaking is really two books – an autobiographical narrative […] and a book of critical commentary.” (2011: 985) I, on the other hand, believe that the different parts of AHWOSG not only “sit together easily” but indeed call for each other.24 Taking into account what was said about metafiction (dis-authenticating a narrative’s truth claim), but keeping in mind what constitutes the postironic (a claim for authenticity), the metafictional parts are necessary for the autobiographical parts of the story. As Konstantiou concludes, [traditional] metafiction removes the foundations of our belief in realism. By contrast, postironists attempt to use metafictional form as a way of reconnecting form and content, as a way of strengthening belief. (2009b: 135 my emphasis)

Both conceptions of metafiction’s role (authenticating as well as dis-authenticating) in AHWOSG can rely on textual features that will be discussed later in this chapter. However, I see as very important one formal aspect, that followers of the Nicol/Miller theses do not discuss. While they distinguish a “Dave-as-author” responsible for the metafictional part from a “Dave-as-narrator” who presents the memoir part, their argument lacks evidence for this distinction. I describe the narrator as a first-person narrator (autodiegetic, situated on only one ontological plane),25 who retrospectively narrates the story of his life and simultaneously describes how he wrote about his life.26 The narrating persona in the metatext and in the text is named Dave, and nothing but the different value-status of metafiction vs. memoir narrative could distinguish the two. Interestingly, critics distinguish 23 |  Cp. my discussion of David Wallace’s “Octet” on pages 83-88. 24 |  Cp. Konstantinou (2009b) in which the author also sees AHWOSG as a hybrid of metafiction and memoir. 25 |  Which means that he knows the same things, has the same world view and the same point of view concerning the narrative both in his metafictional statements and in the confessional memoir parts. 26 |  Rabinowitz’s claim that in autobiography narrative and authorial audience are congruent, which I share, would be abrogated by two different narrators in AHWOSG and the narrative would have to be seen as fictitious. The paratext (A Memoir) and the narrative’s assertions to be truthful are contrary to such a fictitious reading.

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the “I” of the two parts while the “you” remains the same in their readings; they describe the “you” as us, the actual readers. Following my idea that addresser and addressee (before any metaleptic move is possible) have to be on the same ontological plane, the “I” of the metafiction as well as the “I” of the memoir part are both “Dave-as-narrator” addressing a single, rather specific narratee.27 It follows that by investigating the narrative for its postironic ideology, it is important to take the whole of the narrative (as a coherent unity) into account and to explore the narrator and narratee as conscious of both: the metafiction as well as the memoir part.28 The following explorations will show, just like Konstantinou assumed for postironists in general, that Eggers’ memoir tries to highlight its demand for authenticity by consciously assimilating metatextual doubts concerned with the belief of a postmodern impossibility of an authentic narrative. Eggers’ memoir, only by including the “meta-autobiographical,” overcomes gridlocked autobiographical traditions and thereby tries to authenticate itself and to establish a new form 29 of sincere communication with its audience.

Struggling With Postmodernism It is important to further expound the idea of whether the narrative should be read as a whole or as two distinctive texts. This is crucial for the question of genre. Memoir as nonfiction demands a greater degree of authenticity than fiction.30 Furthermore, in an age of doubt towards authenticity,31 it becomes a task of assigning a label to a narrative. The narrator of AHWOSG refuses to be labeled postmodern:

27 |  I discuss the characteristics of the narratee of AHWOSG in the concluding section of this chapter. 28 |  This is important because metafiction is traditional seen as “alienating.” Cp. my discussion of Liesbeth Kortals Altes above. An elaborate discussion of and further arguments about postmodernist metafiction’s alienation can be found in Hutcheon (1984). 29 |  That sincerity can be established in more traditional forms as well is not doubted hereby. However, the avant-gardist demand of Eggers’ leads him to his attempt of establishing a highly topical way of postironic sincerity. 30 |  For readers, fiction’s authenticity is bound to the diegetic fictional world, while nonfiction’s authenticity is measured by its reference to the real world. 31 |  I see that curtailing postmodernism to its questioning of authenticity is unfair to the much broader aspects of postmodern thought, however, this is the aspect of importance here.

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic I do not live in a postmodern time. I did not live in a time when something new was called modern, so for me there is no such thing as modern, and thus there cannot be anything postmodern. (Eggers 2001c: 34 original emphasis)

This refusal, however, can be read as postmodern (what in Eggers’ sense is equivalent to insincere) in itself. I will discuss different parts of the narrative, both the metatext as well as the memoir text, and show that the narrative effectively shows permanent markers for a sincere reading.32 The style of AHWOSG, without any doubt, is to be seen in the postmodern tradition of authors like William Gass, William Gaddis, John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, and others. However, the rhetoric effect of the narrative, seen in Booth’s, Phelan’s, and Rabinowitz’s view,33 is postironic. It highlights an urge for sincere communication with another human being (the narrative audience, and then, via metalepsis, the actual reader). Critics and readers of AHWOSG sometimes take a look at the style and form of the narrative and hastily conclude that the tone of the narrator is tantamount to its message. The possibility that a narrative could turn metafictional doubt about mediation‘s weaknesses against itself and thereby overcome postmodern skepticism is excluded from any further investigation. The same is true for the discussions of irony in AHWOSG. Critics tend to overlook that the narrating Dave ridicules his former, ironic self (the narrated Dave) and that the narrative on the discourse level is not ironic.34 Two sequences of the memoir part of the narrative are particularly understood by some critics as undermining the veracity of the narrator. First, the interview with a selection committee for MTV’s reality-show “The Real World,” and secondly, the episode of John’s (the protagonist’s friend) suicide attempt. I will investigate “The Real World” interview in a separate part of this chapter35 in order to show the narrative’s conscious handling (if not manipulation) of the postmodern discourse. The narrator’s attitude towards the suicide attempt of John is an eye-opening passage. Dave finds his friend John after he has taken a huge amount of unnamed pills. After Dave calls the police and an ambulance, he sits in the waiting room of the hospital, waiting for the doctors to tell him what his friend’s state is. While he is watching TV his thoughts start to drift: “I start wishing I had a pen, some 32 |  Sincere seen as contrary to a postmodern playfulness for playfulness’ sake which is the narrator’s definition when he talks of “postmodern.” 33 |  Cp. Booth (1961), Phelan (1996), and Rabinowitz (1987). 34 |  I will discuss parts of the narrative that are seen as ironic by critics and suggest a reading that distinguishes humorous irony – which is to be found in postironic texts – and the skeptical irony many critics insinuate the narrator. 35 |  Because both its length and its centrality as the book’s middle passage demand for a detailed exploration.

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paper. Details of all this will be good. This will make some kind of a short story or something.” (Eggers 2001b: 268) This is one example of the narrator reflecting on writing (on himself as being a writer) in the memoir part, a reflexivity that is not undermining but constructing authenticity (due to the nonfiction status of memoir). The idea of writing about the tragic event while it is still taking place might repel part of the audience (or, alternately, confirm the poststructuralist part of the audience that believes that the whole narrative is a postmodernist reflection on the impossibility of representation). These readings are further strengthened by the next sentences: “Or no. People have done stuff about suicides before. But I could twist it somehow, include random things, what I was thinking on the way to the hospital […]. People have done that, too.” (ibid) The narrator is aware (and wants his audience to know that he is aware) of a poststructuralist/postmodernist crisis of representation. He knows that whatever he is about to narrate has been told before. Nevertheless, he wants to do something else: “[...] But I could take it further. I should take it further. I could be aware, for instance, in the text, of it having been done before, but that I have no choice but to do it again, it having actually happened that way.” (ibid original emphasis) This is a turning point in his description. He denies the impossibility of representation by confidently asserting that there is no other way of description, because of “it having actually happened that way.” The whole of this plot congruent narration highlights once more the narrator’s anxiety for veracity as well as his awareness of a crisis in representation. The narrator’s fear that the audience will misunderstand this approach and see his metafictional commenting on what he is narrating as showing off his smartness ends the paragraph: “[...] But then it will sound like one of those things where the narrator, having grown up media-saturated, can’t live through anything without it having echoes of similar experiences in television, movies, books, blah blah.” (ibid) 36 This recurring theme, the narrator’s awareness of the mediation of experience (in contrast to real experience), is typical for postironic narratives.37 Dave finds no way out. He tries to by explicitly stating his view, that “[…] instead of lamenting the end of unmediated experience, I will celebrate it, revel in the simultaneous living of an experience and its dozen or so echoes in art and media, the echoes making the experience not cheaper but richer, aha!” (ibid: 270 my emphasis) This statement is, in its directness, more convincing than his lamentation about labels affixed to AHWOSG in the ep36 |  This circulating around the problem of sincere presentation is similar to the narrator in David Foster Wallace’s “Octet.” Dave only selectively comments on his descriptions and asks himself (and his audience) whether it looks like “media-saturated” playfulness in order to look smart. The narrator in Wallace’s story constantly asks the same questions, coming to the conclusion that it is a very fine line between bragging about one’s own “smartness” and a sincere struggle with the problem. 37 |  Cp. my discussion of Wallace’s “Octet” on pages 83-88.

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

ilogue.38 Here, Dave puts a postmodern standard – the lamentation about the “end of unmediated experience” – upside down. As Timmer concludes: So this narrator moves in the opposite direction than a postmodernist narrator (who usually ref lects on the “loss” involved with being always one step removed from direct experience […]). Dave here acknowledges that his natural state is that of having mediated experiences, and now he is brooding on how to create a story with that knowledge that could still convey something “more” than the endless ref lection on the impossibility of conveying more (more direct experience for example). (2010: 238-239 original emphasis)

The postironic in this approach is that Dave does not simply deny the crisis of representation. Instead he begins at the same point a “postmodernist” narrator begins, but, as Timmer describes, he then moves in the opposite direction. While lamenting the status quo can be seen as accepting it as an insurmountable obstacle, Dave tries to overcome this obstacle by accepting it as his “natural state.” Furthermore, by welcoming it, he turns it into something enriching. I showed that the form of self-consciously questioning the success of the narrative by the narrator can be described as typical for postironic narratives. Dave uses this method in a way the title of the memoir proposes: the heartbreaking tale of a suicide attempt becomes verified as authentic by the narrator’s metafictional confession (his staggering genius). The audience supposedly realizes that the only way that someone who lives in a postmodern environment can honestly present a tragic event without seeming to be naïve is to acknowledge the postmodern trouble of “media saturation.” But instead of resigning oneself to this condition, one needs to actively and consciously struggle with it in a positive manner. This, however, is of particular importance for a nonfictional narrative: if Dave would not acknowledge that whatever he might narrate has been narrated before, the audience could read his account as a secondhand description, or at least categorize the narrator as conventional in contrast to the hoped-for avant-garde. Just like the narrating Dave, the audience in a postmodern environment is aware of numerous representations of suicide in television, literature, movies, etc. While the status of a fictional narrative is not questioned by this, a nonfictional narrative needs to authenticate itself by confessing the weaknesses of representation in postmodern times in order to remain credible. Dave’s references to his “media saturated” upbringing and his positive approach towards “mediated representation” which he sees as enriching – both descriptions lack an ironic tone – is an attempt to truthfully and honestly present to the audience something that seems (in postmodern times) unrepresentable. The importance of this scene for the whole 38 |  “And to understand it we do not need to label it, categorize it.” (Eggers 2001c: 35)

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narrative lies exactly in opposing the hopelessness towards a postmodern environment that leaves each one of its inhabitants as a media-saturated human being and at the same time creates cynics when it comes to accepting honesty and veracity in an others’ account. The narrating Dave counters this postmodern condition with his indestructible conviction that his tale is different and therefore able to create postironic “believers” rather than ironic cynics.39 Coming back to the question I posed at the beginning of this chapter – the question of whether AHWOSG is a postmodern text – I conclude that, in its formal arrangement, it is strongly connected to a postmodern tradition. The pitfall for some critics, however, is the transvaluation of these postmodern values. Many critics do not see that AHWOSG overcomes postmodern skepticism by concluding a skeptic approach with a positively connoted, sincere worldview.40 An early review by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times states exactly that: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius may start out sounding like one of those coy, solipsistic exercises that put everything in little ironic quotation marks, but it quickly becomes a virtuosic piece of writing, a big, daring, manic-depressive stew of a book. (2000)

Thus, at first glance, like Kakutani proposes, AHWOSG might appear to be ironic and skeptical in its outlook, but a second glance shows the audience that the narrator is actually sincere and postironic. Interestingly enough, if the audience only takes the major epigraph41 as sincere, the reading of the book will be one of sincere engagement on both sides (narrator and audience), and there is nothing in the text that makes the audience believe that the epigraph should not be taken as truthfully. It states: “First of all: I am tired. I am true of heart! And also: You are tired. You are true of heart!” (Eggers 2001b: v) A narrator who characterizes himself to be “true of heart” and “tired” of pretending to be anything else should be expected to give a truthful account (at least until textual evidence puts the audience on a different track). Furthermore, by directly addressing his audience and thereby putting it on a level with himself, the narrative anticipates a connection between narrator and audience that is based upon the belief that sincere engagement (being true of heart) on both sides (narrator and audience) is presupposed in (and for) the whole narrative. Consequently, a reading that understands AHWOSG as ironic and playful (both meant in a specific postmodern context), misses or ignores the literal demand to be “true of heart.” Timmer also points at this problem: “That […] ‘sin39 |  For a detailed discussion of the “postironic believer” see Konstantinou (2012). 40 |  Cp. among others Nicol (2006) and Altes (2008). 41 |  There is more than one epigraph as the “Acknowledgements” section explains, I will come back to this later.

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

cerity’ [in AHWOSG] was considered remarkable, noteworthy, shows how much critics had come to expect irony in such books; it shows the frame of reference invoked by reviewers […].” (2010: 223) A reader who self-evidently expects a book like AHWOSG to be ironic is the most natural reader in a postmodern environment. This again is already assumed by the narrator, whose “narrative audience” is modeled after such a skeptic reader.42 The formal difficulty and idiosyncrasy of AHWOSG try to overcome this skepticism, merely and foremost by “being true of heart.” The appendix added to the paperback edition of AHWOSG reinforces this relationship between ironic readers,43 who are meant to join the narrative audience within the book and thereby change to an authorial postironic reader who conveys this postironic belief onto his real world environment. The remarkable aspect about this audience situation is the direct connection of “narrative audience” and “authorial audience” presented by the text, while the appendix longs for an “authorial audience” resembling the “ideal narrative audience,” which is not directly addressed in the main narrative.44 While this might at first appear as another traditional postmodernist move, even this elaborated audience concept is directly strengthening the urge for authentication. It shifts the memoir away from being read as an ironic postmodern account and moves it towards being understood as a postironic and sincere narrative.

“I Want to B e D oing S omething B eautiful” – N arrating Dave and N arrated Dave That the “I” in an autobiographical narrative is divided into different “I”s is shown above. There exists a narrated I on the plot level, a narrating I on the story level, and an ideological I on the interpretative level. In AHWOSG, the difference between the narrated- and narrating I is of central importance to the understanding of the narrative. The narrating Dave – temporally closest to the reader – is older and more experienced than the narrated Dave. In the following examination, I will show that while the narrated Dave is an ironic character, the narrating Dave’s attitude towards his former self and his environment is one of postirony. The biggest gap between the two Daves becomes visible in the descriptions of the work at Might Magazine.

42 |  The following chapter, “The Narrating Dave and His Audience” will further highlight and discuss this idea. 43 |  Depicted as “[…] a few readers who have taken even that passage as ironic. […] What is wrong with you people?” (Eggers 2001c: 35) 44 |  A detailed description of the audience relations will follow later in this chapter.

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The whole idea of Might Magazine has to be seen as an ironic endeavor in an ironic environment.45 A characteristic endeavor of the Might crew is a letter written to MTV’s The Real World, which describes Dave (being the head of Might) as “[…] a Kirk Cameron – Kurt Cobain figure, roguishly quirky, dandified but down to earth, kooky but comprehensible […] angsty prophet of the already bygone apocalypse, yet upbeat, stylish and sexy!” (Eggers 2001b: 168) By ranking Dave among such role model slackers as Cobain and Cameron, the retrospectively narrating Dave makes fun of his former self by exposing the narrated Dave’s non-authenticity in his anxiety to be cool.46 But it does not stop at this level of personal criticism; the whole idea of Might is ridiculed by the narrating Dave. He gives a short summary of the magazine’s agenda, stating that one of its main issues was “social security.” Dave talks about the organizations contacted by Might in order to build a network with others who worry about the future of US social security. However, while the narrated Dave might have seen some serious purpose behind this work, the narrating Dave criticizes these actions: […] we make contact with these organizations, pledge solidarity, though to be honest we have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. Though we share with them the desire to motivate and bring to action (some kind of action, though what exactly we are not sure) […], what we are most interested in is their mailing list. (ibid: 175)

Interestingly, the narrating Dave abstains from retrospectively judging the superficiality of his former self, but I want to argue that through the use of present tense, he gives the impression that the narrated Dave already saw the ambiguity of his actions while committing them.47 The effect is that the reader who joins the narrative audience becomes aware of the development Dave underwent (ironic in the mid-nineties, postironic when writing the memoir). That Dave, who has agency over the narrative and could therefore make his former self look better than it actually was, does not sugarcoat his former self is a further sincere move. However, as Konstantinou claims, “[c]ritics might be forgiven if they do not discern much of a formal difference between ‘Dave’ as Might editor, and Eggers the memoirist.” (2009b: 173) AHWOSG can be described as a conventional bildungsroman in its 45 |  Cp. “[…] there are a few ironic moments in this book […]. The ironic parts occur when the writings and themes of Might magazine are related.” (Eggers 2001c: 35) 46 |  For a discussion of ironic coolness and its postironic handling in literature see Konstantinou (2009a) and (2016). 47 |  Interestingly, in scenes that criticize his former “ironist” self, the narrating Dave often uses “we” and the present tense instead of “I” and the past. I discuss the implications in the next paragraph.

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

attempt to judge a former self by a more mature one. But the complexity of differentiating the two selves might give the audience the impression that the mindset of the narrated Dave and of the narrating Dave correlate to one another. Konstantinou’s assumption that there are no “formal differences” between the two Daves can be seen in the quote about social security above; the language and style give no clear hint about whose judgment the audience is witnessing. Nevertheless, there is a difference between the narrating and narrated Dave, which Konstantinou describes tellingly: [a]s an ironist, Eggers ends the solipsistic chain of self-conscious self-devouring with a “wink” or a “smirk”; as a postironists, Eggers insists that the metafictional self-ref lection of his Memoir is […] a way of getting closer to full truth […]. (ibid)

This distinction can be made by separating plot and story level. The narrated Dave’s opinion is embedded in the plot, while the narrating Dave’s judgments and opinions are mostly to be found on the metafictional level and in metafictional asides in the narrative. Especially when the Might team expects to be filmed by an MTV crew, they unveil their media-saturated, ironic selves. They receive an application from a current participant of The Real World48 and while deciding that “[…] he is not at all a good fit for Might […]” (Eggers 2001b: 243), they nevertheless “[…] clamber for the phone […]” (ibid) in order to invite the applicant (Judd) for an interview. The narrated Dave’s Freudian slip, “[y]eah, why don’t you come down and bring the cameras – er, your portfolio” shows the real interest of these young magazine editors: To be on national television. As soon as the camera team has arrived, the narrating Dave describes the scenario as: We talk to Judd, with both grave seriousness and measured nonchalance […] all the while choosing our words carefully, needing to sound both articulate and casual, of our demographic, loose but smart, energetic but not eager, because, of course, we are also young people pretending to be young people, putting across an image of ourselves […] of how we acted when we were pretending not to act while pretending to be ourselves. (ibid: 245 my emphasis)

While the narrative is bound to a strong and centered “I” most of the time, the narrating Dave chooses to include the whole Might team in this scene, assuming that they have the same motivations for their behavior as his former self had. The “we” makes the narrated Dave part of a group and somehow excuses his “acting” 48 |  Participants of the show are filmed continuously. The concept of The Real World is to show all daily routines of the participants.

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(in contrast to being authentic) by including others who act the same. While this narrative maneuver pushes the responsibility for the artificial behavior from a personal level to a group level, it has further significance for the audience. The presumption that the narrated Dave’s behavior is not unusual but rather common in his environment makes the audience aware of where the narrating Dave comes from. But even though the group acts in unity, the repetition of “pretending” emphasizes the narrating Dave’s discomfort with this behavior. The narrated Dave is eager to appear authentic; however, in his media-saturated environment and because of his media-saturated self49 his idea of authenticity is corrupted. For him, it became impossible to just be. Everything is seen through the lens of a camera and is checked for its effect on others (in this scene particularly the audience of MTV). The narrating Dave does not just state this by highlighting the “pretending” aspect of this moment, he further elaborates his critique of the non-authenticity of the Might team in the way he phrases his description. They “talk” to Judd, and the reader experiences with the characters and the narrated Dave as the “pretending” happens. This is achieved by the use of the simple present form, which puts the audience right into the scene. In order to strengthen the pretense of direct observation, the next sentence elliptically uses the progressive form and thereby puts all emphasis on the “choosing” and “needing” aspect of the characters. The same accentuation is put on “pretending” in the following sentences; while the tense shifts to the past, the narrator remains in the progressive form to highlight the “pretending” and “putting across” aspects of the scene. That all of this happens because a camera is present also becomes visible in the act of narration. The progressive form that simulates immediacy is used for something ambiguous. While the camera supposedly shows unmediated reality – tellingly the show’s name is The Real World – all that is recorded is fake (the artificial behavior of the Might members). When everyone in the recording is acting instead of being authentic, the recorded product is doubly mediated, 50 first of all through the medium and secondly by the act of “pretending to be” of the participants.51 49 |  Cp. Kenneth J. Gergen’s analysis of the postmodern/saturated self: “[…] the individual is fragmented over an array of partial and circumscribed relationships, and life is lived out as a series of incoherent posturings. As the constructed character of ersatz identities becomes increasingly evident, the self loses its credibility to both actor and audience.” (Gergen 1991: 186) 50 |  Not to forget that the whole scene is also narrated, which makes it, for the audience, thrice mediated. 51 |  To describe theoretically what happens in this scene, a brief inclusion of Jean Baudrillard is helpful: “Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.” (Baudrillard 2004: 365) The real in The Real World is as absent as the authenticity in Dave’s behavior. What

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

The narrating Dave, in contrast, shows by his narrating awareness that he follows his motto to be “true of heart.” His authenticity springs out of his sincerity, and his sincerity is invigorated by his exact and pitiless account of his former self’s weaknesses. By describing the pretending aspect of his former self, and highlighting the artificiality even in the language he uses, the narrating Dave dismisses the phony authenticity of the narrated Dave (and his colleagues). The scene culminates in the observation that the camera team sees through the Might team’s act: “[...] the camera guy and the sound guy […] are clearly unimpressed, are almost rolling their eyes at us, because they clearly see through the whole thing […].” (Eggers 2001b: 246) This leads to the confession […] that we are using this to get exposure, to prove to all and ourselves that we are real, that we like everyone else simply want our lives on tape, proven, feel that what we are doing only becomes real once it has been entered into the record. (ibid)

In this context, Konstantinou’s aforementioned idea that there are no formal differences between narrating and narrated Dave again becomes important. At first glance, the narrative seems to display the narrated Dave’s realization of his “pretending to be.” However, I believe that the awareness of non-authenticity and the realization that others see through his/their act make it a retrospectively concluded statement and therefore clearly part of the narrating Dave’s mindset. The ambiguity in the formal resemblance of narrated- and narrating Dave leaves the audience with an inconclusive view of whose thoughts are presented. This complicates the reading, but I will show in the audience analysis of AHWOSG that different audiences draw different conclusions because of this ambiguity; the difference in the audiences/conclusions is another major postironic aspect of the book. I stated above that the “we” has an effect on the audience. Whereas the “we” in “we talk to Judd” obviously describes an intradiegetic group, the “we like everyone else” includes the audience in the pronoun and therefore is what Warhol calls an “engaging” move.52 The use of pronouns to pull the audience into the narrative is frequent throughout the narrative. Further examples in “The Narrating Dave and His Audience” will give evidence for the narrator’s conscious usage of “you” and “we”. Concluding the idea of two different mindsets of the postironic narrating- and ironic narrated Dave, it is important to point out that there is an ironic tone in the description of the “pretending young people” above. But this irony is not aimed at the audience experiences is a hyperreal state in which the participants have even lost the idea that what they are doing is hyperreal. 52 |  Cp. my discussion of Warhol’s concept of the “engaging narrator” in “Reading the Postironic” on pages 78-82.

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the sincerity of the narrative; rather, it highlights the superficiality of the narrated Dave. The narrated Dave is chained to his ironic environment, the narrating Dave is self-reflexive enough to accept this and make fun of it. He is not, however, denying anything that he retrospectively interprets as stupid, but instead includes his former ironic self throughout the whole narrative. The inclusion helps to accent the narrating Dave’s postironic position as sincere and the narrative as authentic because he supplies a counter example in his own past and by his former ironic self.

The N arrated Dave The narrated Dave is covered by the form and style of AHWOSG under a layer of narrating Dave most of the time. In its ambition to go beyond traditional memoirs, the narrating Dave tries to control all aspects of the narrative. However, in one central part of the story the narrating Dave seems to give up control. The style of the MTV interview simulates an unmediated recording. After the first question is asked, the narrating Dave responds: “‘Really?’ I say, feeling a format change coming, one where quotation marks fall away and a simple interview turns into something else, something entirely so much more.” (Eggers 2001b: 184 original emphasis) What he proposes here is “something entirely so much more” authentic, something unmediated and therefore closer and more real than a retrospectively narrated report of the interview (at least in a conventional understanding of mediation, which is not shared by the narrating Dave. Therefore the “so much more,” in its form as direct speech, has to be attributed to the narrated Dave‘s mindset). However, although the format change actually happens and the narrating Dave ostensibly vanishes, he does not completely hand over the narrative to the narrated Dave.53 The strongest aspect of the narrated Dave is his urge to be in The Real World. It takes him only a couple of questions and answers before he asks the interviewer: “Did I make the show? Am I on?” (ibid: 186). As in other parts of the narrative, the narrated Dave believes that the world owes him something because of the tragic death of his parents.54 In order to convince the interviewer of this, he tries to make himself look like the candidate he believes MTV is looking for. The interviewer’s 53 |  The narrating Dave intervenes and controls most of the interview anyway, a fact that only becomes clear to the audience after about 12 pages when the interviewer asks “This isn’t really a transcript of the interview, is it?” (Eggers 2001b: 196). I discuss this later. 54 |  This is connected to the trauma aspect discussed above. A trauma narrative supposedly lets the author overcome his trauma, Dave who is owed, earns recognition for his loss by selling the book which talks about this loss. However, the meta-narrative frame opposes this reading.

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

question, “[…] why are you telling me this?” is laconically answered with “I don’t know. These are the stories I tell. Isn’t that what you are looking for?” (ibid: 196). At this point the interview turns (in parts) metafictional. Before I discuss this turn, I will take a closer look at the stories he tells in order to illustrate the narrated Dave’s mindset. When talking about his hometown, a central description is: Our town was rigid in many ways, in terms of the uniformity of things, the colors of skin, the makes of cars, the lushness of the lawns, but on top of that it was sort of a blank canvas so – and again I guess this is true of any child – I was ready to quickly accept the sudden and total substitution of all I knew to be true. (ibid: 189)

This “blank canvas” metaphor is the best possible description for the narrated Dave who cannot think of himself outside of the concepts of a media-saturated being.55 In the second part of the interview Dave describes his youth: [b]ecause we’ve grown up thinking of ourselves in the relation to the political-media-entertainment ephemera, in our safe and comfortable homes, given the time to think about how we would fit into this or that band or TV show or movie, and how we would look doing it. These are people for whom the idea of anonymity is existentially irrational, indefensible. (ibid: 202)

Whatever he does and whichever situation he is in, the narrated Dave looks upon it as if he had an audience. “I feel like I’m being watched at all times” (ibid: 212) is his own description, and this confessional statement is of importance for the different audiences in the narrative. Many of the hyperbolic, parody-like episodes56 are not to be read as ironic or non-authentic, as some critics view them, but instead as 55 |  The “blank canvas” metaphor works on two levels. The narrated Dave is this “blank canvas” in the story, just as it is explained in the interview. Growing up in the seventies and eighties makes him a “blank canvas” for televisions triumphal procession. Whatever he experiences is compared to televisual styles, he (the narrated Dave) cannot think of an original, he mistakes television’s representation for the original. (Cp. footnote 51 in this chapter). That the narrating Dave has total agency over the narrated Dave is the second level of the metaphor. Whatever the audience learns about the narrated Dave is what the narrating Dave wants to convey. The blank pages that are filled with the tale of the narrated Dave are almost literally the “blank canvas.” 56 |  For example Dave’s description of him and his brother Toph playing Frisbee at the beach (cp. Eggers 2001b: 66-69).

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polished and mediated, because the existence of an audience is already accepted by both Daves.57 Being a “blank canvas” is not merely a passive state the narrated Dave is bound to, but rather a state that enables him to present to his environment what he believes it wants to see. Consequently, “I give you virtually everything I have […]” (ibid: 215) is his offer to the MTV interviewer. On another level, the narrating Dave does exactly that, give everything, by narrating his tale. The difference is that the narrating Dave discloses the narrated Dave’s non-authenticity and thereby reinforces his own authenticity. And the interviewer’s further inquiry “[b]ut what about privacy?” the narrated Dave dismisses by responding: “Cheap, overabundant, easily gotten, lost, regained, bought, sold” (ibid: 216). The interesting aspect of this statement is that the narrated Dave is convinced that he is really “giving everything he has” while, as the narrating Dave points out, he is only “[…] pretending not to act while pretending to be [authentic]” (ibid: 245 original emphasis). Whereas the narrating Dave is afraid of giving too many insights and reflects upon this critically, he nevertheless is “giving everything he has,” regardless of what the audience might make of it.58 The narrated Dave describes his way of living, his openness, and the privacy he exhibits with another metaphor. He believes that “[t]hese things, details, stories, whatever, are like the skin shed by snakes, who leave theirs for anyone to see. What does he care where it is, who sees it, this snake, and his skin.” (ibid: 215) While some other metaphors that the narrated Dave offers in the interview are rather inept, this snake skin idea points directly at the narrated Dave’s character. He cannot see any problem in disclosing his past and present privacy. Liesbeth Korthals Altes, whose narratological investigation of AHWOSG offers many interesting insights about the narrating Dave’s positioning in the text, reads this scene as contradicting the narrating Dave’s sincerity and claim for authenticity. She concludes that “[s]incerity, then, may be no more than such a snake’s skin – a mask that can be dropped – and trustworthiness may be reduced to a cleverly crafted effect.” (Altes 2008: 124-125) Korthals Altes does not distinguish narrated- and narrating Dave but explores the narrator and the author. She insinuates that “[t]hroughout his novel (sic!), Eggers and his narrator/alter ego Dave seem to rally their readers to an ethics of sincerity and authenticity.” (ibid: 107) While I approve of the idea of 57 |  The audience the narrated Dave accepts does exist in his own world. It is foremost his friends, neighbors, and colleagues, but also the imagined murderers and authorities who try to end his and Toph’s life (cp. ibid. 125; 321-25). The narrating Dave’s audience will be discussed in detail later in this chapter. 58 |  The narrative audience and authorial audience are almost congruent in AHWOSG, whereas the ideal narrative audience is contrasting the others. Cp. my discussion in “The Narrated Dave and His Audience.”

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

rallying the reader, Korthals Altes does not elaborate on where she sees the actual author at work. By excluding the narrated Dave from her discussion (or equalizing narrating- and narrated Dave), she concludes that scenes like the “snake’s skin” episode are contradictions to the narrative’s claim for authenticity. I will come back to Korthals Altes‘ ideas in “The Narrating Dave and His Audience.” For now, it is important to note that the narrated Dave’s exhibitionism and his claim that his “shed skin” is there to be shown to the public are not contradictory to the narrating Dave’s authenticity but rather strengthen it. When distinguishing the two Daves, and keeping in mind that the MTV interview presents the narrated Dave, the “snake skin” metaphor has to be read as an idea of the former self, not of the narrating self. While the narrated Dave also claims to be authentic, the narrating Dave’s descriptions and explanations show that he is “pretending.”59 While the narrated Dave is bound to cultural models that make him “pretend to be authentic,” the surplus experience the narrating Dave possesses makes him more authentic, especially by exposing the shortcomings of his former self. The “snake skin” metaphor and the “blank canvas” idea are idiosyncratic to the narrated Dave. They are important because the audience needs this clear boundary between narrated- and narrating Dave in order to accept the narrating Dave as an engaging narrator. Because, as discussed above, the formal distinctions are not sharp, to keep an eye on the differing character traits is the only possibility for keeping track of the narrative’s (Dave’s) development from media-saturated/ironic Dave to mediation-embracing postironic Dave. To sum up my description and discussion of the narrated Dave, I will briefly outline two more scenes in which the narrating Dave withdraws from the prominent position he inhabits in most parts of the narrative. This means that some passages are focalized through the narrated Dave rather than actually narrated by the narrating Dave. The implication is that the mindset and ideology the audience is confronted with is the narrated Dave’s, ergo, it is a rather ironic worldview. In Part I. Through the Small Tall Bathroom Window, Etc., right after the metafictional “Acknowledgements,” the narrative starts by putting the audience right into the action. The setting is the house of the Eggers family. Dave’s father has already died, as the audience learns in small intermissions concluding in “[y] ou should have seen my father’s service” (Eggers 2001b: 33). That his mother will also die soon is foreseeable for Dave and his siblings. The narrating Dave neither comments retrospectively, nor judges the behavior of the narrated Dave too obviously. Most of the things the audience learns are represented as the narrated Dave saw them when they were happening.60 While the audience learns about the death of the narrator’s parents, interestingly (and this becomes a reoccurring theme in 59 |  Cp. Eggers (2001b: 245). 60 |  Cp. “[Dave] appears to display his own emotional lability as nakedly and fully as possible […].” (Widiss 2011: 114)

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the narrative) the moment of departure is not narrated. The audience experiences with Dave how he feels during his mother’s slow decline. Because of the lack of metafictional commentary in this part, the audiences’ attention lies more on the narrated Dave than in other parts of the narrative. Whenever the narrative shifts from the narrating Dave to a focalizing Dave, it is the narrated Dave’s view of the world the audience is presented with.61 These passages feature fantasies and possible worlds rather than authentic experiences; they are not “true of heart” but rather illustrate desires and try to veil mistakes or bad memories. For example, in its mock interview style, the whole interview with The Real World works without the narrating Dave’s mediation. It is the narrated Dave’s voice directly talking to a “you” (at one level, the “you” is the interviewer, while at another, it is the audience).62 The tone of the narrative noticeably changes in the first chapter, when Dave’s mother is in intensive care and the narrated Dave lies sleepless in her hospital room. The story switches from reporting what happened, as focalized by the narrated Dave, to a dreamlike fantasy about what will happen. This free indirect discourse is again the narrating Dave, who takes over after having been invisible during the focalization. His use of free indirect discourse is an attempt to show the narrated Dave’s mindset in an unfiltered way. This becomes apparent because the worldview and tone in these parts are not as mature as the narrating Dave’s tone usually is. For a prime example of this assumption is the repetitive “we are owed” that becomes a mantra for the narrated Dave. Whether about the apartment hunting or his application for The Real World, the narrated Dave insists that the world has to compensate him and his brother for having taken their parents. After selling their parents’ house and moving to California, they have to find a place to live. In Dave’s opinion, the world should be aware of the tragedy he and his brother have just lived through. That the world is indifferent to their situation comes unexpected to the narrated Dave. In his logic, this means that “[t]he enemies list is growing quickly, unabated” (Eggers 2001b: 71). His media-saturated mind misconceives reality, and he ignores the fact that, however sad and tragic their personal history is, they are by no means the center of the world. He neither realizes that most people simply do not know about his personal past, nor accepts that personal tragedy does not equal a complimentary ticket for the future. Before examining the narrating Dave, I would like to shed light onto two other characters of the narrative: Dave’s little brother, Toph, and his [Dave’s] suicidal friend John. This is necessary because they are more than merely portrayed – like 61 |  Cp. the discussion of focalization in first person narratives, for example Phelan (2001). 62 |  The “you” and “we” in the narrative sometimes address intradiegetic characters, sometimes extradiegetic audiences, and sometimes both at the same time. Cp. “The Narrated Dave and His Audience.”

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

the other characters in the book – but rather used by the narrating Dave to voice ideas and thoughts that are actually the narrating Dave’s own.63 Toph is central to the narrative, because Dave describes the responsibility for his little brother as a chance to do things right that his parents did wrong.64 However, while Toph is mostly described as an attachment to Dave, he sometimes steps out of his eleven-year-old being and comments directly on the narrative. Confronted with one of Might’s ideas, Toph adopts the ideological Dave’s position. While the narrated Dave does not reflect on his own deeds and behavior, he has to respond to the criticism of his little brother. Toph, after listing different people Might had published stories about, claims that “[y]ou had to make them all look like imbeciles, even while in person you were smiling with them, joking, being kind, accepting theirs.” (ibid: 317) He thereby criticizes the core of the narrated Dave’s behavior. Toph calls out Dave on the idea that Dave is superior because of his ironic attitude while at the same time is always pretending in order to be liked by others. His observation drives the narrated Dave to a cheap maneuver: he tells Toph that he is too young to understand this grown up superiority (ibid: 319). The end of this conversation culminates in Dave announcing: “Just stay close to me and you will glean” (ibid) which is interestingly ambiguous. While in the context of the narrated Dave’s denial of any erratic behavior the request is a threat to Toph’s future, the implicit narrating Dave’s knowledge of the narrated Dave’s development points at the possibility that Toph will make the same development and overcome any superfluous ironic embodiment.65

63 |  In these cases, the metafictional commentary is embedded in the focalization by these characters. This is alienating for the reader at first since it is a technique known from fictional narratives. The narrative uses them anyway, the explanations in the “Acknowledgements” tell the reader beforehand that such fictionalizations will appear. Nevertheless, these characters breaking out of their role to give metafictional commentary can be understood – by a reader who is not part of the ideal narrative audience – as weakening the sincerity of the narrative, as proposed in Altes (2008). 64 |  “Anyway, with me you have this amazing chance to right the wrongs of your upbringing, you have an opportunity to do everything better [...].” (Eggers 2001b: 117-118) 65 |  The “you” is also ambiguous in another way. The narrating Dave uses Toph to give voice to his own ideas within the narrated plane. The narrated Dave’s statement (and the “you” address) can be understood as directed at the audience. The narrating Dave not only uses Toph to criticize Dave, but also the narrated Dave to tell the audience that (in the narrating Dave’s beliefs), the audience will develop and grow in character by staying with the narrative.

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But Toph’s role is not exhausted in stating the ideological Dave’s criticism of the narrated Dave’s behavior. Toph even comments on the narrative itself (including the metafictional parts). When the narrated Dave gives a description of things they did together, Toph responds: “I mean, it was almost as if it was too much to happen in one day, as if a number of days had been spliced together […]” and while he approves of this literary style, “[…] I think it’s good, it’s fine. Not entirely believable, but it works fine […]” (ibid: 114), he questions whether the metafiction is worthwhile. In Toph’s words, the metafiction could be understood as “little tricks, out of frustration […] a problem of conscience” (ibid: 115). This can be read as a meta-critique of AHWOSG as a whole; Toph verbalizes the narrating Dave’s anxieties that the authorial audience will not be like him, that readers will not understand the purpose of his narrative. Toph’s words about the literary style are also true for his own meta-comments: they are not believable but they are fine. Toph not only gives voice to the narrating Dave on the narrated plane, but also verbalizes possible doubts and objections of the audience without including another metafictional break of the actual narrative. John is the second character that functions on different diegetic planes. Whereas he is a friend of the narrated Dave, he is used by the narrating Dave as a possible, darker “Dave” figure. If the narrated Dave had not undergone his development and become the (postironic) narrating Dave, he could have ended as a bored, suicidal figure like John (this is at least the narrating Dave’s impression). Furthermore, John comments on the narrative in a metafictional way, leaving his role as character and standing in for the audience’s opinion. When Dave visits John in the hospital, John interrupts the conversation they have by stating: “Screw it, I’m not going to be a fucking anecdote in your stupid book.” (ibid: 272) While the narrated Dave tries to ignore this meta-statement,66 John goes on complaining: “Listen, fuck it. I want no part of that. Find someone else to be symbolic of, you know, youth wasted or whatever […].” (ibid: 273) The following discussion includes the narrated Dave’s assumption that John’s suicide attempt was only meant to elicit attention: “You’re the one who put yourself in here [the book] in the first place! […] I give you the attention you want […]” (ibid) and ends with John’s acquiescence: “Fine. Put me in the fucking book.” (ibid: 274) John, in contrast to Toph, not only comments on the literary means of the narrative and criticizes Dave for his motivations, but also includes himself in the discussion by questioning his own role in and for the narrative. The narrating Dave makes him aware of the fact that he is used as a character in a book and makes him phrase a concern many real persons have when becoming part of a public record.

66 |  Logically he has to ignore the statement since it is addressed to an audience outside of the intradiegetic plane, however, in order to respond to John’s criticism, the narrated Dave is forced to perceive the words.

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

The inclusion of focalizing characters who comment on the narrative is one of the fictionalizing elements discussed on the copyright page of AHWOSG: “This is a work of fiction, only that in many cases, the author could not remember the exact words said by certain people.” (ibid copyright) While the audience is aware that this conversation did not happen in the way it is described in the narrative (if it happened, it has to be later in time; the narrating Dave at least changes chronology here), it is nevertheless a sincere move. Doubts are phrased that the audience understands as real doubts of real people. To analyze why the audience understands the characters in AHWOSG as portrayals of real people, I must explore the communication between the narrating Dave and his audience.

The N arrating Dave

and

H is Audience

“Oh look at me I’m Dave, I’m writing a book! With all my thoughts in it! La la la!” (Toph) (Eggers 2001b: xvii)

In this chapter, I will show that the narrating Dave, even though he uses techniques attributed to distancing narrators, is an engaging narrator.67 His attitude is explicitly stated in the text: he wants his audience to like him, and he wants his audience to be engaged by the tale he offers. In order to expose his postironic ideology, I will look at his idiosyncratic form of engagement, combined with his claim for authenticity and sincerity. Korthals Altes asks, after pointing out that AHWOSG aims for authenticity: “But how reliable are the voices of the author and the narrator, and how sincere is this ethics of sincerity and pathos? Can we know? Does it matter?” (2008: 107) I find it interesting to follow in her footsteps by asking the same questions. But while her main concern is to find forms of unreliability and language markers for sincerity, I focus on forms of engagement with the audience that authenticate the narrative and are in themselves sincere. One major difference between Korthals Altes’ approach and my investigations is my conviction that AHWOSG’s status as memoir and therefore nonfiction is of great importance for the audience’s understanding of the narrator. Korthals Altes calls the book a “novel” (ibid) and does not explicitly discuss the memoir aspect. In the “Acknowledgements” of AHWOSG, the narrator points out that, in his opinion: “[…] the success of a memoir – of any book, really – has a lot to do with how appealing its narrator is,” and his main idea of an “appealing” narrator is: “[t] hat he is like you” (Eggers 2001a: xxvii). This is an interesting statement, especially 67 |  Cp. my discussion of Warhol’s concept of the engaging narrator in “Reading the Postironic” on pages 78-82.

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when compared to the narrated Dave’s attitude during the MTV interview, where he offers to be anything the producers want him to be. The narrator is inscribed into the narrative and he cannot change in order to please someone or be like him/ her. So the resemblance cannot be situational but instead must be general. While the “Acknowledgements” start to construct this “appealing narrator,” the epilogue, “Mistakes We Knew We Were Making,” elaborates on the idea and further reinforces the idea of AHWOSG as nonfiction. The narrating Dave begins his epilogue by pointing out that it is […] a corrective appendix to a nonfiction work […] necessary to keep this, or really any, work of nonfiction, from dragging around in arcana and endless explanations of who was exactly where, when, etc. (Eggers 2001c: 5)

The narrator comes full circle by repeating the copyright page’s claim that AHWOSG “[...] is a work of fiction, only that in many cases, the author could not remember the exact words said by certain people […]” (Eggers 2001b copyright). To repeatedly tell the audience that what is declared memoir is really nonfiction, both within the legal area of a copyright page and in a metafictional passage of the narrative, shows that the narrator is aware that his idiosyncratically fiction-style could be deceptive for his audience. To fully understand the narrating Dave I must also examine his audiences and the ways they complete the engaging narrator. Two forms of direct address of the audience exist within the narrative. The narrator talks to a “you,” or switches from “I” to “we,” which sometimes means that he includes other characters of the memoir, but more importantly, he takes for granted that “he is like you” (Eggers 2001a: xxvii) and therefore includes his audience in the pronoun. The interplay of narrator and audience is an indicator for the audiences’ (aiming at the actual readers) level of engagement. Beyond AHWOSG’s nonfictional status, the metafictional passages that discuss this status lead even more noticeably to a particular audience situation in the narrative. That the audiences, in form of a narratee, are addressed in the metafictional parts as well as in the main narrative, leads to a strong congruency between narrative and authorial audience. The address of a “you” in the metafictional part, in which the narrator claims to be (not only to represent) the author, simultaneously equates narrative and authorial audience. This can only happen in autobiography. As Rabinowitz states “[w]hen the distinction between the two [audiences] disappears, we have autobiography.” (1977: 131) The narrator admits that “[t]he weird thing is that while writing the original text, I had in my head not the usual Writer’s Ideal Reader, but instead my own potential reading person, the Mean/Jaded/Skimming Reader […].” (Eggers 2001c: 20) This is very important for the understanding of the audiences in AHWOSG. The ideological Dave anticipates an authorial audience that is neither benevolent nor

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

understanding, and the narrating Dave models his narrative audience according to the former. This is – following Warhol’s, Rabinowitz’s, and Phelan’s ideas – rather uncommon and, I think, characteristically postironic. By imputing the authorial audience to be mean and jaded instead of perfect and ideal, the ethical claim of the narrative – to be sincere and thereby engage its audience – manifests itself as targeted at a particular ideology. Rather than preaching to the saved, AHWOSG undergoes the effort of converting ironic readers to postironic ones. This explains the narrating Dave’s harsh criticism of his former self. By modeling the audience after the narrated Dave, the development of ironic Dave to postironic Dave should parallel the development of an ironic audience to the point of a postironic audience. The narrating Dave himself refers to this memoir particularity as: There is, intrinsic to the process of a memoir, the resulting destruction of one’s former self. Writing about those years, and being as cruel to who I was as I could be implicitly means that you are killing that person. (ibid: 20) 68

While the self-reflexivity of this statement is interesting in itself, the change of the personal pronoun is crucial. While he was “as cruel to who I was as I could” (my emphasis), it is “you” who is “killing that person.” This “you” is pointed at the authorial audience, one that is assumedly “mean and jaded” and asked to kill that person, so that it can recognize that to be such a person means “pretending not to act while pretending to be […]” (Eggers 2001b: 245 original emphasis). While this “you” is already a direct address, the narrator reinforces his engaging aspect by changing the pronoun again in the following paragraph: I was leaving that environment for a place where, I felt, I was needed urgently […] We all know that there are very few times when we feel like we are proving we are using this f lesh-life-thing […] We feel glad […]. (Eggers 2001c: 46)

Again the narrating Dave not only addresses his audience but joins himself and his audience with a “we.” In the center of this description stands the idea of “feeling something,” and not merely an individual “feeling” but a common feeling that enables this “we” to overcome an ironic pretending to be persona.69

68 |  That autobiographical narratives have to be seen as performative acts is discussed in countless articles and books. See among others Butler (2005) and Berridge (2008). 69 |  This does not coincidentally resemble “Octet.” The question posed in “Octet:” “Do you feel it too?” is central to postironic writings. However, besides “Octet” this is the most explicit occurrence of this theme in postironic narratives.

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In order to conclude these assumptions that the authorial and narrative audiences are congruent in AHWOSG, I want to return to the narrator’s claim from the “Acknowledgments.” His idea that he is appealing because he “is like you,” seen in connection to his explanations in “Mistakes We Knew We Were Making,” does not actually aim at a personal resemblance. What the narrating Dave proposes is a resemblance in the way he and his audience feel and the idea of an evolution of character of both the protagonist and its reader.

J ustifying

the

N arrative

To propose that the narrator “is like you” is the narrating Dave’s most explicit and obvious revelation as an engaging narrator. As Warhol states: “[…] a narrator addresses a ‘you’ that is intended to evoke recognition and identification in the person who holds the book and reads […].” (1986: 811) The narrating Dave expands this by additionally proposing “recognition and identification” between narrator and narratee. By stating this, the narrating Dave establishes on the one hand a strong basis for his postironic claim of a common feeling, while on the other, he risks that he will end up disappointing his audience. He sees this risk himself and literalizes it: […] being aware of and open about one’s motives at least means one is not lying, and no one […] likes a liar. We all like full disclosure, particularly if it includes the admission of one’s 1) mortality and 2) propensity to fail. (Eggers 2001a: xxxi-xxxii)

A narrator who is a liar is not appaling per se; a narrator who claims to be like you and is a liar would disgust his audience. The narrating Dave could easily fail in his attempt to be appealing and engaging if his audience ever felt betrayed in the course of the narrative. That the narrating Dave tends to be hyperbolic and humorous is perceived by some critics as unreliability. Korthals Altes, concerned with a possible unreliability of the narrator in AHWOSG, asks, “[…] on the basis of what clues, and according to what models and frames would a reader want to conclude that the book is indeed a plea for sincerity and communion, or rather an ironic staging of such a longing?” (2008: 124) I think that this question touches upon the very core of postironic narratives. As the narrator of “Octet” painfully describes, whenever real feelings are described in a contemporary narrative, the reader might ascribe an ironic meaning to them. Eggers’ narrative is no exception. If an audience really wants to see AHWOSG as ironic, it is impossible to prevent this within the diegetic planes of the narrative, because “[as Linda] Hutcheon observed, it is up to the reader to decide, as he or she ultimately is the ironist!” (ibid: 124) AHWOSG tries to oppose such an

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

ironic reading by uncovering the weaknesses of an ironic worldview: the narrated Dave – as seen in the Might episode – is, due to his ironic mind, not authentic but rather a pretender. Furthermore, the narrating Dave explicitly states in “Mistakes We Knew We Were Making” that to read AHWOSG as an ironic endeavor is to misunderstand both the narrative and the concept of irony. In the part of “Mistakes” that lists page numbers and offers “corrections or clarifications” (Eggers 2001c: 12), one comment starts: “p.235 to 237, and in general all over: Irony and its Malcontents” (ibid: 33 original emphasis). The following explanation is set in a smaller font and narrated in a reproachful tone: This section should be skipped by most, for it is annoying and pedantic and directed to a very few. They know who they are. Here we go: You can’t know how much it pains me to even have that word, the one beginning with i and ending in y, in this book. It is not a word I like to see, anywhere, much less type onto my own pages. It is beyond doubt the most overused and under-understood word we currently have. […] We do find some things that might have confused the reader prone to presuming this irony, so let’s address them one at a time: […] simply because humor is found in a context of pain, does not make that humor ironic […]. (ibid original emphasis) 70

It is the way the narrating Dave chooses to make this statement that is most telling about this passage. He adulates his audience by minimizing the number of “bad readers” to “a very few.” The length and tone of the passage, however, show how important it is to clarify his attitude that the ideological Dave’s postirony is the key for understanding the narrative (in the ideological Dave’s eyes). Consequently, the narrating Dave’s critique of an ironic reading goes on by listing more examples, by including dictionary definitions of the term, and culminates in his claim that attached to [this book] are labels: Post this, meta that. Here is my notion: These are the sort of prefixes used by those without opinions. In place of saying simply ‘I like it’ or ‘I did not like it’ they attempt to fence its impact by affixing to it these meaningless stickers. (ibid: 34 original emphasis) 71

70 |  Hutcheon also claims that confusing humor and irony is a widespread misunderstanding. “One of the misconceptions that theorists of irony always have to contend with is the conf lation of irony and humor.” (Hutcheon 1995: 4). 71 |  I am aware of the irony in quoting this statement. However, I involve the critique of criticism (even though it is my own approach) in the narrative in order to do justice to the narrative’s claims.

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I stated in my introduction that the mere declaration of a narrator to be sincere rather than ironic and that the idea that AHWOSG is neither “post this, meta that” cannot be seen as true in themselves. However, reading these statements in the frame of “Mistakes” and looking at the audience’s role in this appendix leads to an interesting assumption. “Mistakes” re-authenticates the memoir in two ways. While its “corrections and clarifications” bring closure to many themes in the text, more importantly, its belated status “[…] about eight brutal and then exhilarating and then more-brutal-than before months after the book was originally published, I’ve gone ahead and finished the appendix” (ibid: 6) metaleptically moves the narrator into the actual reader’s world. By referring to criticism and reviews of the book’s hardcover edition, the narrator enters the authorial audience’s plane (metaleptically, even the actual reader’s plane). One could say that the narrating Dave in “Mistakes” is almost purely the ideological Dave’s voice. The narrating Dave pushes himself into the author role, recapitulating and judging his own endeavor and his authorial audience. While this seems to be illogical at first, the narrator can – as shown in the diagram above – only address his own ontological plane (the narratee and the narrative audience). The form of nonfiction memoir allows this move. The parallel between authorial audience and narrative audience is mirrored in the likeness of narrator and ideological I. While this resemblance has to be assumed for the narrative as a whole, the distinctive features of the metafictional parts are (1) the narrator’s claim to be the author, and (2) the threefold situation, in which the narrator does the following: criticizes “bad readers,” speaks retrospectively about the already published book (in contrast to the metafictionality in the “Acknowledgements” which deals only with the unpublished narrative), and uses the unifying “we” that works metaleptically in both directions (including the actual reader in the narrative and the narrator in the real world). The consequences of “Mistakes” for the overall understanding of AHWOSG are immense. The ideological Dave’s justifications – corrections and clarifications are nothing else – and his attitude towards “bad readers” attack an authorial/actual audience that he earlier described as modeled after his own image. By pointing at possible misunderstandings of his endeavor and by putting things straight, he lifts his anxiety for sincerity above his anxiety to be liked and conclusively assures his audience that he is no longer the “pretending” narrated Dave. The authorial audience is left with the decision to approve of these explanations or refuse the narrator’s claim for authority of interpretation. Following the inner logic of AHWOSG, the reader who accepts the narrator’s claim to be like him accepts the narrative as postironic, while the reader who rejects the postirony is a “bad reader,” more equal to the narrated than to the narrating Dave.72 72 |  Konstantinou concludes this dialogue with the audience as: “[…] Eggers shapes his aesthetics not for the ‘99.9 %’ of readers who supposedly under-

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

Concluding AHWOSG “Eggers wants to use nonfiction to make us quirky, to enchant (or more accurately re-enchant) us.” (Konstantinou 2009b: 194)

I showed above that AHWOSG is ambiguous about which of Dave’s mindsets the audience is confronted with. Nevertheless, one central question about the narrating Dave can be answered now. By borrowing Warhol’s categories, the investigation as to whether Dave is a distancing or engaging narrator has to be concluded by declaring him an engaging narrator. Whether his engagement leads to a positive or negative reaction is a different question, but that the narrative provokes strong reactions in its audiences became clear above.73 In order to highlight and manifest this categorization of the narrating Dave as an engaging narrator, I will briefly return to Warhol’s five categories used to distinguish distancing and engaging narrators and apply them to the narrating Dave. Firstly, Warhol looks for the name used for the narratee. Engaging narrators “will usually either avoid naming the narratee or use names that refer to large classes of potential actual readers, [s/he] addresses the narratee simply as ‘Reader’ or ‘you’, designations that can signify an actual reader […].” (Warhol 1986: 813) The narrating Dave uses both “reader” and “you” throughout the narrative, his inclusion of “we” (talking of himself and his readers) further strengthens the engaging effect of AHWOSG. I discussed above that the “Acknowledgements” assumption – that the narrator is like you – is not meant to diminish the group of addressed readers, but rather refers to a character development of both narrator and audience over the course of the narrative. Secondly, the narrating Dave frequently addresses his audience. Warhol describes a high number of addresses as engaging; the “you” or “we” in AHWOSG appears permanently. The narrating Dave always directs his narrative straight at a “you,” and the audience thereby is assured that the narrator takes his audience seriously and tells his tale foremost for “you.” stand his good intentions, but rather for the Mean and Snarky Reader – the ‘sleeping’ ‘motherfuckers’ – for whom he has been performing the story of his life, whom he hates, and for whom he offers himself as a symbolic stand-in.” (2009b: 176) I approve of this conclusion but it is necessary to add that it is only the narrated Dave who works “as a symbolic stand-in” for the “bad reader.” 73 |  Particularly my discussion of “Mistakes” confirms this thesis. Hamilton’s statement that “[...] Eggers’s also holds the mantle for being one of the most disliked of contemporary American authors [...]” (2010: 5) also highlights the reactions of the audience.

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Thirdly, “the degree of irony present in reference to the narratee” (Warhol 1986: 813) is more complex and needs some elaborative explanations. In “Mistakes,” the narrating Dave talks about “mean and jaded readers” (Eggers 2001c: 20); however, I showed that this should be read as (1) a maneuver to reassure readers who are positively engaged by the narrative and (2) a last attempt to convince readers who understand the narrative as an ironic undertaking. By directly pointing out that whoever reads AHWOSG as an ironic endeavor is clearly misunderstanding the narrative – this is neither my opinion nor a general statement but the ideological Dave’s judgment presented by the narrating Dave – “Mistakes” is the opposite of an ironic reference. It is precisely the concluding postironic plea (directed at the narratee) for a postironic reading of the memoir. That AHWOSG can be read in parts as having a “degree of irony present in reference to the narratee” is due to its temporal layers. As I elaborated above, parts of the narrative such as the “Might episode” or the “MTV interview” are narrated in an ironic tone (which includes irony in reference to the narratee). This ironic tone is not directed at the audience in a “distancing” attitude but rather meant in order to uncover the falsity of the narrated Dave’s ironic worldview. This again is directed at the audience; by following the narrating Dave’s assumptions, the audience “is like him” and moves toward a recognition of the narrative as postironic. Ideally, the actual reader recognizes and accepts this “postironic belief” while being in the role of the narrative audience. However, the idea – as stated by Warhol in particular and postironic authors in general – is to free this “postironic belief” of its narrative embedment and apply it to the actual reader’s own environment. Warhol’s fourth idea is concerned with “[…] the narrator’s stance toward the characters” (1986: 814). Warhol believes that the engaging narrator insists on the “realness” of the characters; in her opinion, this connects the actual reader with the narrative (cp. ibid), or more accurately, facilitates the actual reader’s stepping into the role of the narrative audience. AHWOSG is a special case where “realness” of the characters is discussed.74 The narrating Dave not only presents them as real in his own diegetic world but even includes real phone numbers and addresses. Furthermore, he includes a letter to his readers written by the real world persona of one of the characters in “Mistakes” (cp. Eggers 2001c: 39-40). Additionally, characters like John and Toph are not merely depicted by the narrator but are allowed to comment on the narrating aspect of AHWOSG. Warhol’s last concern is “[…] the narrator’s implicit or explicit attitude toward the act of narration.” (1986: 815) An engaging narrator should take his actions seriously. I showed that the narrating Dave is absolutely serious about his narration; the foremost intention of the metafictional commentary and justifications is to show his seriousness and sincerity. 74 |  Whereas this assumption can be made for nonfiction in general, AHWOSG goes beyond traditional markers of authenticity.

Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic

The narrating Dave does not only fulfill all aspects of an engaging narrator as suggested by Warhol. By including metafiction and by equating himself and the reader (“we”), he also constitutes a role model postironic narrator. This leads to the second part of this conclusion, the postirony of AHWOSG. As demonstrated by the close readings above, the postirony in the narrative manifests itself within a connection of form and plot. The postironic requires a notion of irony. This notion is dually existent: first, in the anticipation of a “bad reader,” and secondly in the description of the narrated, ironic Dave. I have to point out again that the form of belief Eggers suggests has to be seen in this particular niche of contemporary literature. Eggers’ demand to be part of the avant-garde movement in American literature 75 forces him to show his awareness of “image fiction” and “televisual aesthetics.” I showed above that AHWOSG not only includes these avant-garde literary styles but also actively discusses them and constantly tries to change their meaning.76 This attempt to consciously transform “Avant-Pop” (cp. Schneck 2001: 413-415) into “Postirony” is bound to the ideology that televisual irony and the resulting alienation of viewers/readers can only be overcome by confronting the reader with these aesthetics. At the same time that AHWOSG uses these means, the narrative tries to show the weakness of “image fiction.” Both the characters as well as the narrative audience constantly encounter the narrating Dave’s credo to embrace the enriching effects of mediated experience (cp. Eggers 2001b: 238-239). One aspect that functions contrary to the means of “image fiction” is AHWOSG’s depiction of characters. The aforementioned inclusion of a letter written by one of the characters (rather, the real-world persona of that character) shows that Eggers “respects and takes delight in the character’s independent existence” (McHale 1987: 222). I agree with McHale’s conclusion that such a serious handling of intradiegetic characters is a signal for the reader to take these characters seriously too. McHale now assumes that the metaleptic movement the author describes by making the character an “independent existence” is mirrored in the reader’s metaleptic transfer of applying the intradiegetic “engagement” (in Warhol’s definition of the term) to his/her own world. Finally, I want to briefly describe the particularities of the narratee in AHWOSG. In my analysis of audience functions, I repeatedly pointed at the “you” and “we” addresses by the narrating Dave. While their function was described as “engaging” (in Warhol’s sense), I did not further elaborate on the textual address of the narratee but showed how the reader joins the narrative audience more willingly if the address seriously invites him/her to. However, for the sake of completeness, the narratee’s role in AHWOSG needs to be clarified. I showed above that this particular narratee is limited to someone with knowledge and experience 75 |  Cp. Schneck (2001). 76 |  Cp. my discussion of the hospital scene on pages 101-104.

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in Western cultures.77 This restriction can be seen as a general one for postironic narratives. As I show above, the avant-garde claim of postironic narratives makes these narratives use allusions and references to (Western) pop culture, televisual aesthetics, and postmodernist texts. Because the postironic goes beyond “image fiction’s” mere repetition of televised aesthetics,78 these narratives need to address an individual that is familiar with these aesthetics. A text that goes beyond the means of irony and metafiction by self-consciously using them can only be seen as postironic by a narratee who is familiar with these modes of narration (and familiar with the environment that is criticized by the narrator). This implied elitist claim will be analyzed further in the next chapter on David Foster Wallace, whose narratives are oftentimes categorized as highly elitist and inaccessible. However, as I showed, even complexities such as the affinity of narrating- and narrated Dave in AHWOSG, which at first confuse readers and critics, are purposeful for the postironic ideology that the narrative wants to convey.

77 |  Cp. the chapter “Reading the Postironic.” 78 |  Cp. Schneck (2001: 409-413).

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition The really important kind of freedom involves […] being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. (Wallace 2005b: 7-8)

David Foster Wallace entered the literary scene in the late 1980s, at about the same time a whole bunch of new young writers were publicly celebrated. The so-called literary brat pack – Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, and Donna Tartt – reached out for literary and monetary success. Wallace’s prose, right from the beginning with Broom of the System (1987), differed from the image fiction1 that Ellis, McInerney et al. produced. However, as I discuss in my introduction, Wallace himself, in the “Conspiciously Young” essay, saw this group of young writers as a new emerging generation in U.S. letters. Aware of the differences to his own prose, he nevertheless highlights the similarities he shares with his contemporaries: most importantly, the influence television had on all of them. Thus, the differences became more obvious only later, in the mid 1990s, when Wallace attacked Ellis in “E Unibus Pluram” and steered his own literary output into a different direction. Returning to the 1980s, The Broom of the System2 shows Wallace’s first attempt to leave his career in analytical philosophy behind (he drops out of Harvard’s philosophy program) and instead use fictitious ends to describe his thoughts. Broom, however, remains a highly philosophical novel; its inherent discussion of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s language philosophy is seen by many critics as a lifelong occupation of Wallace.

1 |  Cp. Schneck (2001). 2 |  Which was written as his senior thesis at Amherst College and made him an acclaimed novelist at only 23. In the following abbreviated as Broom.

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Whereas Broom struggles with philosophical problems, Wallace’s next publication, the story collection Girl with Curious Hair3 (1989), is occupied with the literary heritage of postmodernism. Wallace feels uncomfortable with repeating Pynchon’s, Carver’s, and especially John Barth’s skeptical, ironical postmodernism. In “Westward the Course of Empire takes its Way,” the concluding novella of the story collection, he explicitly depicts the feature of metafiction and points out what he believes to be its weaknesses. That contemporary fiction should overcome the trap of metafiction’s narcissism is another lifelong struggle Wallace deals with in his works (both in his fiction and in his nonfiction). Some critics view his constant inclusion of metafiction as a failure to fulfill his own demands; I show in my earlier discussion of “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky” that Wallace actually actively includes the foes he wants to criticize in his works. He sees any omission as an inconsistent escape from literature’s purpose.4 While Broom and Girl had put Wallace on the literary map, a later novel established him as one of the major writers of the late 20th century. Infinite Jest5 (1996) is often described as the most influential and progressive novel in contemporary US literature.6 In general, Wallace is best known and mostly praised for his novelistic work. The impact Jest had on the literary community was immense. Since most criticism concerned with Wallace almost exclusively concentrates on this novel, I omit a discussion here.7 His second story collection, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (1999), which followed the publication of Jest, is oftentimes read as a progression of the early Wallace of Broom to the more mature author of Jest (even though published later in time, most of its stories were written at the same time Jest was composed). It was followed in 2004 by Oblivion: Stories, which was written after the author had to deal with the success and sudden fame he received for Jest. The stories in Oblivion again can be seen as a progressive development of Wallace; they are less avant-gardist in style than their predecessors and often described as more emotional and therefore more empathetic than Wallace’s earlier work. In 2011, the unfinished novel The Pale King was published posthumously, and most critics agree that the published fragment of the novel bears the logical next step after Oblivion: Wallace’s growing interest in directly and emotionally communicating with the reader.8 3 |  In the following abbreviated as Girl. 4 |  This will be discussed in detail again in this chapter, all works chosen for this investigation include huge chunks of metafictional commentary. 5 |  In the following abreviated as Jest. 6 |  Cp. among others: Cohen (2012) and Kelly (2012). 7 |  For example Burn (2012), Cioffi (2000), and Nichols (2001). 8 |  Exemplarily Samuel Cohen claims: “[…] it has become a critical commonplace that this struggle [‘struggle to be free from his own inherited literary inf luences’] happened early in his career – that Broom is the postmodern-

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

The number of articles and monographs concerned with Wallace’s fiction is steadily growing,9 partly justified by the literary value of these texts, but also in part due to the author’s own repetitively stated self-description of being a novelist first and foremost. Critics oftentimes follow this claim. In the introduction to a special issue of the journal Studies in the Novel (exclusively devoted to Wallace, more concretely, to his novels), the editor Marshall Boswell remarks that “[Wallace] published as many story collections, essay collections, and works of nonfiction as he did novels […]” and continues by asking “[…] why critics and readers don’t regard Wallace as primarily a short story writer, or perhaps a journalist and story writer who also published novels […]” (Boswell 2012: 263). Boswell’s interesting question is answered rather unsatisfyingly: he refers back to biographical information10 that states that Wallace was occupied with novel writing all the time, whereas writing the nonfiction and short stories meant only “[…] taking a breather before his next big book” (ibid: 264). That most critics and readers concentrate on the novelistic work of Wallace bears one danger: Oftentimes Wallace’s nonfiction is (mis-)used as being merely a commentary to his fiction. Many critics refer in particular to “E Unibus Pluram,” “The Conspicuously Young,” and the “McCaffery Interview” in order to highlight their approach to an understanding of Wallace’s fiction. The problem of this approach lies in what W.K. Wimsatt Jr. and M.C. Beardsley criticized as “intentional fallacy.”11 The idea, proposed and defended by the New Critics, that the author’s intention cannot be part of interpretation and the reading of a text will not be judged in this book. I see great achievements in critical texts concerned with Wallace that either use intention as a basis or see Wallace’s texts as having an inherent meaning that does not need any biographical background. In contrast to Wimsatt Jr. and Beardsley, Walter Benn Michaels criticizes the concept of “intentional fallacy.” He claims, “[…] not only that intention should matter to literary study but also that intention is the only thing that should matter” (qtd. in Boswell 2012: xiii). I will not take part in the debate about whether or not intention is legitimate for literary studies. What I want to highlight, however, is the negative outcome for the understanding of Wallace’s nonfiction if one reads it merely as a commentary ist apprentice novel and that the fiction and nonfiction […] are the places where he explicitly works out a way to break free of inf luence and so to write Infinite Jest […].” (Cohen 2012: 68) 9 |  Two special issues of the journal Studies in the Novel, published in 2012 and 2013, exclusively deal with Wallace’s novelistic work. 10 |  Biographical information about Wallace is mostly (and not only by Boswell but also by other critics) drawn from an interview of Wallace by the literary critic Larry McCaffery. More recent articles rely on the insightful memoir of journalists Lipsky (2010) and Max (2012). 11 |  Cp. Wimsatt and Beardsley (1946).

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to his fiction. Wallace’s nonfiction is collected in three volumes: A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (1997), Consider the Lobster (2005), and Both Flesh and Not (2012).12 These volumes include essays on various topics, ranging for example from professional tennis (“Federer Both Flesh and Not”) to the porn industry (“Big Red Son”), from political observations (“Up, Simba”) to the state fair of Indiana (“Getting Away From Already Pretty Much Being Away From It All”), and from David Lynch (“David Lynch Keeps His Head”) to Arnold Schwarzenegger (“The (As It Were) Seminal Importance of Terminator 2”). I noted that his nonfiction receives only little critical attention for its own sake. One exception to this trend is David Shields. In his book How Literature Saved my Life (2013), Shields insists that: “In their verbal energy, comic timing, emotional power, empathy, and intellectual precision, Wallace’s essays dwarf his stories and novels.” (Shields 2013: 118) I will analyze different essays, showing that Wallace’s nonfiction, although never autobiographical per se, nevertheless is strongly autobiographical in the sense of autocriticism. Which role this autocriticism plays for a possible postironic reading and why the narrators in these essays are to be seen as engaging narrators will be analyzed. Finally, to conclude this chapter, I examine the effect of the engaging narrator on the audience, especially the effect bound to the nonfiction status of the texts. Almost all of Wallace’s essays are written in an autocritical manner. For lack of a better method of choice, I will concentrate on the essays that gave their title to the essay collections: “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”13 and “Consider the Lobster.”14 They are exemplarily for Wallace’s postironic attitude towards society in general and writing in particular. On the other hand, they are not trying to define a postironic attitude (like “E Unibus Pluram,” “The Conspiciously Young,” and “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky”), but rather deal with a particular cultural situation and the subject’s struggle in this environment. It is interesting and important to show that the postironic worldview does not necessarily need to postulate itself explicitly but is instead present in autocritical narratives about everyday life. Before discussing these essays, however, I look at a chapter of The Pale King that, although embedded in a fictional narrative, explicitly deals with memoir writing. While at the time of writing this book most authors under investigation are still publishing, Wallace’s death in 2008 makes him an exception. Concerning his work, I argue that Sidonie Smith’s and Julia Watson’s (among others) most recent definition of life writing is useful in order to explore the autobiographical aspects to be found in nonfiction produced by Wallace. I highlighted in my chapter on 12 |  He published numerous other essays in journals and newspapers, as widespread as The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, etc. 13 |  From now on abbreviated “Fun Thing.” 14 |  From now on abbreviated “Lobster.”

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

Dave Eggers that only few contemporary memoirs can be described as idiosyncratically postmodern. Wallace’s nonfiction is undoubtedly, both in style and content, postmodernist,15 and my analysis will show that these nonfictional accounts are also highly autobiographical.

“A uthor ’s F oreword ” – Faking M emoir , Talking Truth The popular view of Wallace was of a coolly cerebral writer who feared fiction’s emotional connection. But that’s not what he was afraid of. His stories have it the other way around: they are terrified of the possibility of no emotional connection. (Smith 2009: 275)

The “Author’s Foreword” to the posthumously published novel The Pale King is a starting point to investigate Wallace’s nonfiction/autocriticism. This chapter 16 is, in its attempt to discuss contemporary memoir and the problems writers have to deal with when writing one, similar to the metafictional parts that frame Dave Eggers’ AHWOSG. Before entering the discussion of autobiographical aspects, namely the role of the “you” and the postironic aspects of this text, its distinctive features have to be clarified. “Author’s Foreword” is part of the fictitious The Pale King. Nonetheless, I want to point out different aspects that make it worthwhile to discuss the text as if it was a piece of nonfiction. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas made different drafts of “Author’s Foreword” available on their homepage.17 Draft one is not yet entitled “Author’s Foreword” but is simply headed by the line: “Ultimate Fiction: Fake Memoir of Job at IRS by Fake Name.” (“The Pale King, Chapter 9, ‘Au15 |  Roiland claims the opposite: “Wallace’s nonfiction is decidedly not postmodern, ironic, or avant-garde. Although it does share the same maximalist writing style as his fiction, and utilizes rhetorical techniques like parody and pastiche, the narratives are also linear, realistic, and most important, earnest.” (Roiland 2012: 36) I will come back to this idea later, however, as insightful and right Roiland’s argument is in most parts, I contradict the statement that Wallace’s nonfiction might not be postmodern. My close readings will elaborate my claim that Wallace has to be seen as postmodern and avant-gardist in all his published genres. 16 |  Even though it is called “Foreword” it functions as a chapter in the book, put in as an intermezzo between the actual narrative. 17 |  For an overview of the effort put into online publishing Wallace’s manuscripts see Schwartzburg (2012).

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thor’s Foreword’ Draft 1”) Whereas the fake memoir aspect can only be found in parts of The Pale King (probably due to its unfinished status), the fake name aspect is already discharged in draft two of “Author’s Foreword,” in which David Wallace appears as the narrating I’s name. However, I do not want to argue that The Pale King should be read as a memoir, neither do I have a keen interest in the development of different drafts of “Author’s Foreword.” This brief overview shall merely highlight the difficulties a posthumously published text contains for its audience. Brian McHale observes about The Pale King that [i]ts factuality is strenuously asserted, and also slyly discredited. But beyond what appears to be its obvious purpose, that of problematizing life writing and authorial presence, it is hard to speculate about what other purposes “David Wallace” might have served had the real David Wallace (as opposed to the textual one) lived to complete it. (2013: 207)

Earlier in his essay, McHale also stated a particularity about the “obvious purpose” of “Author’s Foreword,” namely that “[t]he text literally draws us [in], addressing us in the second person, metaleptically reaching across the divide between worlds […].” (ibid: 191) Combining these statements, I want to point out that the “problematizing [of] life writing and authorial presence” mostly works by “metaleptically reaching across” to the addressed “you” of the text. By defining the “you” as outside of the diegetic level of the narrating I (addressing it as the real reader), the narrating I’s metaleptical move makes the reader aware of the problem that the veracity of life writing is hard to prove intradiegetically.18 McHale’s observation that “it is hard to speculate about what other purposes ‘David Wallace’ might have served” leads me to base my argument on the published version of “Author’s Foreword” as part of a fictitious novel but strangely particular in (1) its reference to the nonfiction genre memoir and (2) its claims to be “true” (cf. Wallace 2011: 67). These particularities lead to my reading of “Author’s Foreword” as nonfiction and autocriticism. The narrator of “Author’s Foreword” does not hesitate in straightforwardly telling his audience how he sees himself and his narrative: But this right here is me as a real person, David Wallace, age forty, SS no. 97504-2012, addressing you from my Form 8829-deductible home office at 725 Indian Hill Blvd., Claremont 91711 CA, on this fifth day of spring, 2005, to inform you of the following: All of this is true. This book is really true. (ibid: 66-67 my emphasis)

18 |  Cp. my discussion of the “you” in AHWOSG on pages 118-120.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

While the major claim of this passage is to be seen in the “all of this is true” statement, the construction of the whole paragraph is interesting in its implication: While any narrator of any possible narrative can claim the narrative to be true, the narrator of “Author’s Foreword” wants to substantiate this claim by including extra-textual information any reader can fact-check.19 This narrator establishes a congruency of “author = narrator = protagonist” in the sense Lejeune proposed for autobiography not only by stating his name (David Wallace20) but furthermore by including the home address and also the social security number verifiable as the real person/author’s address and SSN. The David Wallace who narrates here seems to be willing to overfulfill Lejeune’s autobiographical pact that states that an autobiographical text is a “[r]etrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality” (Lejeune 2007: 298).21 The narrator explains where and when the text was written, and by his overt unification of narrator and author persona, he invites his audience to agree with his declaration that “all of this is true.” Nevertheless, serious fact-checking would expose fictitious parts in “Author’s Foreword.” Toon Staes notices that […] the actual David Foster Wallace was never kicked out of an “extremely expensive and highbrow” college for plagiarism (Wallace 2011: 74). Yet this is obviously very specific information that not all readers can know about, and even if they do, these “untrue” plot elements might still be explained as the “willed incongruities” (Wallace 2011: 72) and literary embellishments that come with the memoir genre. (2012: 424)

While incongruities like the one examined by Staes would be understood as violations of the autobiographical pact in a traditional autobiography, the autocritical aspect of “Author’s Foreword,” the surrounding fictitious stories of The Pale King, 19 |  I pointed out above that the logical f law of an intradiegetic narrator’s inclusion of extradiegetic information has to be seen as a metaleptic movement idiosyncratic for autobiography and thereby no longer a f law but a justifiable literary maneuver. Cp. pages 69-70. 20 |  The narrator even takes the effort to explain why the name on the cover is David Foster Wallace. The inclusion of the middle name for his pen-name is connected to a mix-up with another David Wallace. Cp. Wallace (2011: 295). 21 |  I already discussed Lejeune’s idea in the “Introduction” to this book in some length. However, because the statements made in “Author’s Foreword” almost literally use and fulfill assumptions made by Lejeune, I include a short discussion of these elements to make clear how “Author’s Foreword” permeates the fictional limits of The Pale King.

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and the unfinished state of the narrative all alleviate such an accusation in this case.22 As my chapter title already suggests, the memoir claim of “Author’s Foreword” is exaggerated. The simultaneously ongoing discussion of life writing and possible “writer-reader-contracts,” however, establishes the (intradiegetic) truthand nonfiction-claim again. That “truth,” for Wallace, is only a means to communicate with / connect to the reader is discussed above. Staes also looks at this aspect and concludes: The Pale King thus gives a specific narrative voice to its author – be it fictional or not. [R]eaders might be more emotionally involved in the story of someone they know, and its arguably with this inclination in mind that the I-narrator “Wallace” foregrounds himself as the author of The Pale King. (ibid: 423) 23

Lejeune, who elaborately discusses the “truth” question in “The Autobiographical Pact,” assumes that the actual autobiographical pact that the author24 proposes should include the following: ‘I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’ The oath rarely takes such an abrupt and total form; it is a supplementary proof of honesty to restrict it to the possible (the truth such as it appears to me, inasmuch as I can know it, etc., making allowances for lapses of memory, errors, involuntary distortions, etc.), and to indicate explicitly the field to which this oath applies (the truth about such and such an aspect of my life, not committing myself in any way about some other aspect). (Lejeune 2007: 316-317)

The narrating David Wallace’s statement in “Author’s Foreword” comes close to Lejeune’s demand for a truthful (autobiographical) narrator. He constructs a literary environment that makes the audience aware of the autobiographical pact 22 |  This will be different in the following investigations of Wallace’s essays which are clearly defined as pure nonfiction. 23 |  Staes – when discussing emotional involvement – refers to Susan Lanser who argues that “[...] even when [readers] ‘know’ that a speaking ‘I’ is fictional and ‘ought’ to be considered purely as such [...]” (2005: 211) they nevertheless “attach” (2005: 208) the (familiar) author’s identity to the speaking “I.” 24 |  Agreement of the author can – for the audience – only be seen in the narrator’s words. Lejeune does not differentiate between diegetic levels, therefore every word narrated is the author’s word. I showed earlier that judgments about the author’s veracity are almost impossible to make, while the veracity of the narrator is, if not definitely allocable, at least possible to be evaluated by the audience.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

and asks readers to join it. The narrator is not only stating that the book is true but openly puts it in a specific literary tradition: “The Pale King is, in point of fact, more like a memoir than any kind of made-up story.” (Wallace 2011: 67) The inclusion of extradiegetic data and the emphasis on the narrative’s genre fulfills two claims Lejeune names as essential for the autobiographical pact: by giving his name in the narrative, Wallace “undersigns” (cp. Lejeune 2007: 302-303) the pact (that is, he leaves no doubt about “author = narrator = protagonist”), and by defining his narrative as a memoir, he uses a “title” (cp. ibid: 308) which straightforwardly tells the reader how this narrative should be read.

The Audience

and the

Autobiographical

Lejeune talks of an “Autobiographical Space” (Lejeune 2007: 321) in which writer and reader are bound to a “Reading Contract” (ibid: 323). He states that the autobiographical genre is a contractual genre [consisting of] a contract proposed by the author to the reader, a contract which determines the mode of reading of the text and engenders the effects which, attributed to the text, seem to us to define it as autobiography. (ibid: 323-324 original emphasis)

I agree with this concept that autobiography can only become a “referential text” (ibid: 316) through the reader’s acceptance of the author’s truthfulness. The narrator in “Author’s Foreword” directly asks his audience to join in the contract he proposes: Our mutual contract here is based on the presumptions of (a) my veracity, and (b) your understanding that any features or semions that might appear to undercut that veracity are in fact protective legal devices […] and thus are not meant to be decoded or “read” so much as merely acquiesced to as part of the cost of our doing business together […]. (Wallace 2011: 73)

The narrator highlights this request by using a bureaucratic language that seems appropriate for a contract.25 The direct inclusion of the audience’s “understanding” – that any contract the narrator proposes can only become valid by the audience’s acceptance – is a first hint at the narrator’s strong and direct address of an audience: It is the audience, asked by the narrator, who has to sign a proposed contract 25 |  Staes also makes this argument: “The contractual language in the Author’s Foreword evidently refers to Philippe Lejeune’s theory of autobiography.” (Staes 2012: 423)

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that thereby shifts the audience’s perception into a referential mood. By that, the narrator puts responsibility into the reader’s hands. Either the veracity of the narrative is accepted, or the audience might “Pretend it’s fiction” (Eggers 2001a: xxiv). The permanent direct address of a “you” further highlights the narrator’s interest in a direct communication with his audience. In “Author’s Foreword,” everything that Lejeune claims to be problematic for the genre of autobiography is discussed. The audience learns that “name of the author” equals “name of the protagonist.” The narrator states that “[a]ll of this is true,” and by reassuring the audience of the narrative’s “veracity” – while simultaneously explaining that/why some parts of the narrative may “undercut that veracity” – he guards himself against the charge of “lying.” Still using the “contractual tone” described above, the narrator points at “slight changes and strategic rearrangements” due to successive drafts in response to feedback from the book’s editor, who was sometimes put in a very delicate position with respect to balancing literary and journalistic priorities, on the one hand, against legal and corporate concerns on the other. (Wallace 2011: 70)

The narrator relies on the audience’s knowledge of memoir-scandals like James Frey’s fraud A Million Little Pieces (2003) and their consequences: Publishers became more careful in publishing true memoirs. Thus, it is not surprising that the narrator explicitly deals with the legal disclaimer of the book. That the legal disclaimer states that “the characters and events in this book are fictitious” (ibid: 67) leads the narrator to declare that: This might appear to set up an irksome paradox. The book’s legal disclaimer defines everything that follows it as fiction, including this Foreword, but now here in this Foreword I’m saying that the whole thing is really nonfiction […]. That’s why I’m making it a point to violate protocol and address you here directly, as my real self […]. So that I could inform you of the truth: the only bona fide ‘fiction’ here is the copyright disclaimer – which, again, is a legal device: The disclaimer’s whole and only purpose is to protect me, the book’s publisher, and the publisher’s assigned distributors from legal liability. (ibid: 67-68)

The narrator’s struggle with the paradoxical situation is one that he deals with in favor of his audience. The claim by Rabinowitz discussed above that narrative and authorial audience are congruent in autobiography is of interest for this passage. A reader who accepts the legal disclaimer’s pretense that the narrative is fictitious remains on the level of the authorial audience. Conversely, a reader who believes the narrator’s claim that the narrative is actually true and to be seen as nonfiction elevates the narrator’s intradiegetic claim to a level above the legal disclaimer’s pre-

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

tense; this reader automatically joins the narrative audience and thereby establishes the congruency of the audience. This short passage must be seen as important for the reader because her conclusion of what to believe either manifests the autobiographical pact – and her acceptance of the narrative’s veracity – or, if she believes the legal disclaimer to be superior to the narrator’s words, she will sign a fictional pact and remain on the authorial audience level. Which audience plane the reader occupies is important for her comprehension of the “you” in “Author’s Foreword.” When joining the narrative audience, this “you” is read as a direct address of the real reader, which, by implication, strengthens the acceptance of the reader that the narrating I is the stand in for the real author. The role of the “you” for an engaging narrator is elaborately discussed above. The main concepts Warhol determined as crucial for an engaging narrator, namely that the address is meant sincerely and the “you” taken seriously by the narrator, are fulfilled in “Author’s Foreword.” Even a reader who sees the chapter as a fictional part of The Pale King and not as a nonfictional interjection can hardly deny the seriousness of this address.26 The narrator’s inclusion and discussion of legal aspects is repetitive in “Author’s Foreword.” The importance of legal protection for contemporary writers is thereby highlighted, and the narrator appears to the audience as aware of memoir’s pitfalls. Through the admission of this awareness and literaral communication with the audience about it, the contract between reader and writer is strengthened.27 Furthermore, the narrator not only describes general legal aspects of nonfiction but also explicitly discusses memoir as a genre. This is necessary for him, because the authorial audience he metaleptically addresses is one that has to be convinced of the sincere veracity of the narrative. For the narrator, who himself doubts absolute truth,28 a belief in truthfulness and sincerity cannot be assumed on the audience’s side; these qualities must be actively established. In one instance, the narrator explicitly discusses memoir as a genre and the difficulties connected with it. He anticipates possible questions a reader might pose to the text: “[…] why a nonfiction memoir at all, since I’m primarily a fiction writer?” (ibid: 79) Before I look at the intradiegetic response to the question, it is necessary to note that here the narrator once more forces his audience to decide whether or not it believes in his nonfiction’s veracity. If the audience accepts the nonfiction claim, authorial 26 |  Cp. McHale (2013). 27 |  This is at least the narrator’s attempt. Whether the reader accepts the contract at all and in which strength always remains in the reader’s responsibility. The narrator merely offers a strong contract. I show similar concerns of the narrator of AHWOSG on pages 120-123. 28 |  Due to his awareness of postmodern discourse, which he also includes in his narrative. He also assumes that his readers are aware of a postmodernist doubt and therefore the narrator tries to actively dispel this doubt in the reader.

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audience and narrative audience are congruent, which, argumentum e contrario, means to accept the “I” of the statement as a stand-in for the real author. Only the fact that the real world David Wallace is “primarily a fiction writer” makes the narrator’s argument comprehensible: an audience that does not include in its reading this extradiegetic fact (that is hinted at on the intradiegetic level) remains on the authorial audience level and reads “Author’s Foreword” as fictitious. But the audience that accepts the fact that the narrator refers to the historical author signs the “autobiographical pact” and thereby becomes engaged in a different way. The narrator himself explicitly refers to the differences in fiction vs. nonfiction contracts between writer and reader: The main way you can tell that the contracts [for fiction and autobiography] are different is from our [the readers’] reactions to their breach. The feeling of betrayal or infidelity that the reader suffers if it turns out that a piece of ostensible nonfiction has made-up stuff in it (as has been revealed in some recent literary scandals […]) is because the terms of the nonfiction contract have been violated. There are, of course, ways to quote-unquote cheat the reader in fiction, too, but these tend to be more technical, meaning internal to the story’s own formal rules […], and the reader tends to feel more aesthetically disappointed than personally dicked over. (Wallace 2011: 73)

The reference to “recent literary scandals,” which points the reader’s attention to James Frey, Binjamin Wilkomirsky, and others, gives – for the narrator – proof to his idea of different reactions on the readers’ side. When the frauds of A Million Little Pieces and Fragments were revealed, not only scholars and critics were “personally dicked over” but the reading public as a whole reacted shocked and disgusted.29 This can be described as a second “irksome paradox” (ibid: 67) the narrator has to face. On the one hand, he is fully aware of the impossibility of absolute truth telling, on the other, he wants to distinguish his own narrative from texts like Frey’s and Wilkomirski’s. He attempts to overcome this problem by including explanations like the discussion of the legal aspects discussed above. Following this, while “Author’s Foreword” in its fictitious frame is no real memoir, the reader becomes aware that through the autocritical debate the narrator leads, the truth claim of the narrative is stronger than in the aforementioned real memoirs. To further strengthen this claim, the narrator points at literary traditions that allow fictionalization without changing the status of a text as nonfiction. He looks for examples to the notebooks the narrated David (in the past) filled and that he uses as a traditional memoir marker for veracity (by not relying on memory but notebooks he counts out memory flaws), as “[…] many of the notebook entries on which parts of this memoir are based were themselves literarily jazzed up and 29 |  Cp. Harker (2008).

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

fractured; it’s just the way I saw myself at the time.” (ibid: 73) That he saw himself at the time as “primarily a fiction writer” was stated above. This implies that the notebooks are subjective in and because of their literary ambitions; nevertheless, they are (subjectively) truthful in what they document.

S ubjectivity, Veracity, S incerity See this thing. See inside what spins without purchase. Close your eye. Absolutely no salesmen will call. Relax. I want nothing from you. […] Hear it? It’s a love song. For whom? You are loved. (Wallace 2003: 373)

The aspect of subjectivity is always to be discussed when autobiographical writings are scrutinized. That any truth in autobiography (and nonfiction in general) has to be seen as subjective became apparent through 20th century criticism and philosophy.30 The autocritical narratives by Wallace, however, are idiosyncratic in their handling of subjective truth. Therefore, I will discuss these particularities before analyzing postironic sides of “Author’s Foreword” and the results for readers.31 Josh Roiland, who looks at criticism of Wallace’s nonfiction, claims that: [No critic] describe[s] his magazine and newspaper stories as literary journalism. Although this omission may point more to a mainstream marginalization of the term rather than a willful oversight on behalf of critics, it is nonetheless important to understand that Wallace wrote in that tradition. Literary journalism is a form of nonfiction writing that adheres to all of the reportorial and truth-telling covenants of traditional journalism, while employing rhetorical and storytelling techniques more commonly associated with fiction. (2012: 26)

I agree with Roiland, both in his analysis as well as in his judgment that it is important to understand that Wallace’s texts have to be seen in this tradition. One definition for literary journalism by Norman Sims describes it as “[...] a humanistic approach to culture as compared to the scientific, abstract, or indirect approach taken by much standard journalism” (2007: 12). Following this description, literary journalism is bound to the nonfiction marker of truth-telling combined with literary techniques in order to become a humanistic approach 30 |  Cp. among numerous others: Foucault (1997) and Habermas (2003). 31 |  This discussion should be understood as a general discussion of Wallace’s nonfiction, its conclusions are of importance for the following investigations of essays as well.

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to culture.32 The following readings of Wallace’s autocriticism will show that this definition is fitting for his work. However, while Roiland and Sims express what literary journalism is, its purpose and meaning are still to be described. John Dewey’s famous description of artists is helpful here: “[A]rtists have always been the real purveyors of news, for it is not the outward happening in itself which is new, but the kindling by it of emotion, perception and appreciation.” (1927: 184) When I discuss Wallace’s autocriticism in detail, it will become apparent that neither the remarks on nonfiction in “Author’s Foreword,” the depiction of the Maine Lobster Festival in “Consider the Lobster,” nor the Caribbean Cruise experience narrated in “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” are important as news in themselves. It is the subjective perception, the purveyed emotions, and the lack of appreciation on the narrator’s side that convey a truth to the audience. Thus, while this truth is subjective and portrayed through “storytelling techniques,” these texts are nevertheless nonfiction. Moreover, particularly because of their subjective mode, for which an omnipresent “I” is necessary, they are highly autobiographical. Halfmann also comments on this aspect of Wallace’s essays: Wallace setzt sich einem Ereignis aus, beispielsweise einer Seereise, und macht im Grunde sich selbst zum Thema, seiner Haltung zu den partikulären Ereignissen innerhalb des Großereignisses. Wobei er diese bestimmte Haltung sofort von allen Seiten beleuchtet, bewertet und – vor allem – auf ihr Klischeepotential hin abruft. 33 (2012: 148)

To include the ideas of literary journalism into the discussion of Wallace’s nonfiction is helpful because it enables the reader to understand Wallace as part of a literary tradition. However, I argue that Wallace goes beyond literary journalism’s ethics by not only following the aspect of telling the truth but also insisting on sincerity. While this statement might sound redundant at first, I want to point out main differences between telling the truth and being sincere. These differentiations are crucial to an understanding of the postironic in Wallace. In order to clarify what the concept of sincerity means in Wallace’s (and other postironists’) works, I briefly return to “Octet,” the story I also investigated in the chapter on the engaging narrator. In footnote 9 of “Octet,” the narrator names the core of his undertaking:

32 |  For a broader discussion of literary journalism see Hartsock (2000). 33 |  “Wallace exposes himself to an event, a cruise for example, and, at root, makes himself the subject: his attitude towards the particular events within the great event. He instantly shines a light on this attitude from every angle and judges it. Especially looking for its ‘cliché-potential.’” (my translation).

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition Let’s not be naïve about what this 100 %-honest-naked-interrogation-of reader tactic is going to cost you if you opt to try it. You’re going to have to eat the big rat and go ahead and actually use terms like be with and relationship, and use them sincerely – i.e. without tone-quotes or ironic undercutting or any kind of winking or nudging – if you’re going to be truly honest […] instead of just ironically yanking the poor reader around (and she’ll be able to tell which one you’re doing; even if she can’t articulate it she’ll know if you’re just trying to save your own belletristic ass by manipulating her – trust me on this). (Wallace 1999: 132)

I discussed the narrator’s tactics that – in my opinion – clearly position him as an engaging narrator above. What I want to highlight here is something else. The idea of 100 per cent sincerity is always bound to the reader’s belief. Adam Kelly points out that “[t]he last four words of this phrase are vital, because they repeat the maneuver of reinscribing trust in the very place where knowledge is claimed” (2010: 144). In other words, the narrator’s page-long hubbub about his intended sincerity will be deflected by the reader who does not have trust in the narrator. This leads Kelly to the conclusion that […] even the writer him- or herself will never know whether they have attained true sincerity, and the reader will never know either. And yet true sincerity happens, is in fact made possible by the impossibility of its certain identification. As Derrida makes clear on many occasions, what is at stake here is not primarily a question of knowledge, because knowledge can always be challenged by the claim a deeper level of reading and exposure, in a chain of spiraling and ironic infinity. (ibid: 140 my emphasis)

This paradox is at the center of all postironic undertakings. The postironist believes (but never knows) that s/he can communicate with the reader in a sincere way and transport a sincere message, just as the reader (might) believe (but never can know) that the communication proposed by the narrative/narrator (who, in nonfiction is a stand-in for the author) is truly sincere.34 While on the one hand, belief cannot be proven like knowledge can, it cannot, on the other, be refuted.35 Thus, the narrator of “Octet,” bound by his insistence that he offers a sincere communicative act to the reader, concludes with the words: “So decide” (Wallace 34 |  Jane Taylor describing sincerity offers an interesting definition: “[…] its affects and its effects must remain beyond calculation, must exceed rational description and instrumental reason. Sincerity cannot be deployed. Whenever ‘sincerity’ names itself, its ceases to exist.” (Taylor 2009: 19) 35 |  This lies in the nature of belief, as Meriam Webster’s defines the term: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing.

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1999: 136). That the reader will “be able to tell [what] you’re doing; even if she can’t articulate it she’ll know […] trust me on that” (ibid: 132) is the narrator’s earlier claim. I agree with Kelly’s conclusion that “Octet” must end with the demand, or appeal, “So decide.” Even though this phrase is directed, diary-like, at the writer’s self, it can only be answered by the reader, the text’s true other. In this spiraling search for truth of intentions […] the endpoint to the infinite jest of consciousness can only be the reader’s choice whether or not to place trust and Blind Faith. (2010: 144-145)

Postironic narrators try to create a belief in the reader; they try to establish trust by offering a sincere account, but “[…] it [is] abundantly clear that it could not simply be a question of contemporary literature’s returning to the precise kind of sincerity [of pre-modern times].” (ibid: 134) All postironic writers agree on the fact that the postmodern ironic times cannot simply be ignored but have to be struggled with actively and explicitly. This again is implicitly due to sincerities resistance to positive descriptions: “[…] there is no way to present sincerity positively in cognitive terms.” (ibid) Postironists who include an explicit critique of irony in their works must at the same time struggle with sincerity’s refusal to exist blatantly on the page. Kelly finally declares: “[T]he guarantee of the writer’s sincere intentions cannot finally lie in representation – sincerity is rather the kind of secret that must always break with representation.” (ibid: 143) In order to show how sincerity is part of Wallace’s work, I return to “Author’s Foreword.”

“A uthor ’s F oreword ” Part II – A utocriticism , the R eader , and Postirony “Author’s Foreword” is autobiographical in two aspects. First, in a rather general sense, it is autobiographical because the narrator metafictionally discusses the act of writing “Author’s Foreword” (and many connected implications), and secondly, it is so because parts of the text are explicitly about Wallace’s time at Amherst College. This is what the narrator calls “SOP Memoir:” the depiction of one particular event of the past (cp. Wallace 2011: 74-79). The more prominent of the two aspects is the former, because even when discussing the events that happened at Amherst, the narrator does not cease to reflect on the act of memory and writing. While metafictional comments are made in the main narrative throughout the chapter, the idiosyncratic Wallace footnotes are the main purveyor of autocritical commentary. Above I discussed Wallace’s literal inclusion of the autobiographical- and fictional pact; these discussions are completely undertaken in footnotes. Wallace’s use of footnotes is, in my opinion, due to his ideas stated in the Dostoevsky essay. While he is aware of the weaknesses of metafictional narcissism, he

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

nevertheless uses the explicit metafictional form of footnotes to actively struggle with this literary maneuver. Furthermore, the idea that the reader should not have easy access to the text but rather should be forced to put hard labor into inferring what happens in the narrative is accomplished by interrupting the reader’s flow of reading with the permanent disruption of footnotes.36 A couple of pages into “Author’s Foreword” the narrator (still discussing the legal status of the disclaimer) gives a long treatise on attorneys, publishers, and the IRS. This is put into a two-page-long footnote, confining the main narrative to only a couple of lines per page. It begins by declaring: At the advice of its corporate counsel, the publishing company has declined to be identified by name in this Author’s Foreword, despite the fact that anyone who looks at the book’s spine or title page will know immediately who the company is. Meaning it’s an irrational constraint; but so it be. As my own counsel has observed, corporate attorneys are not paid to be totally rational, but they are paid to be totally cautious. (Wallace 2011: 68)

More examples and direct quotes of different (unnamed) lawyers’ assessments are concluded thusly: End of data-dump. If you’re still reading, I hope enough of all that made sense for you to at least understand why the issue of whether or not I explicitly say the name of the publishing company was not one that I chose to spend a lot of time and editorial goodwill arguing about. You sort of have to pick your battles, as far as nonfiction goes. (ibid: 69)

Both the beginning and the end of this footnote are interesting. While it starts out in a sober tone explaining serious legal conditions (however absurd they might sound), the last paragraph, by dismissively calling the whole preceding footnote “data dump” and by showing awareness that the reader might not even be reading anymore, turns to an ironic tone. I point this out because it is a good example of verbal irony in Wallace. That he declares – after two pages of condensed explanations on the matter – that he did not “spend a lot of time and editorial goodwill 36 |  Cp. Greg Carlisle’s comment on the use of footnotes in Wallace: “Although Wallace’s use of footnotes and endnotes is usually cited as his method of creating work for the reader, those techniques are actually more for reminding the reader that what he or she is reading is mediated. It is this undefined-climax technique that allows Wallace to put the onus of completing or making decisions about the narrative on to each individual reader, perhaps giving them the perspective and practice for making decisions in their own lives.” (Carlisle 2010)

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arguing” is a classical instance of irony. He says the opposite of what he just did.37 However, this sort of irony is not skeptical, ideological irony, but rather meant as a humorous conclusion to the preceding explanations. It in no way undermines the facts of the first part of the footnote; the name of the publisher really is not given in “Author’s Foreword,” and the explanations of why this is the case remain intact. The question of why this page long explanation is included in the narrative at all is a different matter. I argue that the “data dump” serves foremost to further establish the nonfictional status of “Author’s Foreword” for the reader. By referring not only to the act of writing but also to the act of publishing nonfiction, the narrator wants to verify his status as a reliable addresser of the autobiographical pact to the reader. Another important aspect of both the footnotes and the main narrative of “Author’s Foreword” is the prominent “you.” This direct address of the reader appears all over the text.38 I will analyze different occasions of direct-reader-addressing and thereby examine to what extent the narrator in “Author’s Foreword” can be called “engaging” and how the aspect of sincerity is established by (the idiosyncratic) address of the reader. This idiosyncrasy lies in the difference to more traditional approaches towards an engaging literature. As I stated above, Wallace tries to force the reader to actively struggle with the text, to put energy into the act of reading and processing the narrative. While John Gardner, in his influential study On Moral Fiction (1979), demands that fiction should maintain “[…] an imaginary world so real and convincing that when we happen to be jerked out of it by a call from the kitchen or a knock at the door, we stare for an instant in befuddlement at the familiar room where we sat down, half an hour ago, with our book” (1979: 112-113), Wallace always reminds his reader that she is savoring mediated reality. Whereas Gardner would claim that this sort of mediation is counter-productive to a moral assignment of a literary text, Wallace’s texts follow the ideas (as stated in the Dostoevsky essay) that serious fiction has to include and discuss its foes (i.e. postmodernism’s occupation with impossible immediacy). Nevertheless, the inclusion of the “you” in the metafictional parts of “Author’s Foreword” serves “[…] to highlight the reader’s inclination to empathize with a narrative, and it is indeed fascinating to think that here we have the actual voice of the author reaching out to us” (Staes 2012: 426 my emphasis). To briefly clarify this aspect: the traditional idea that a reader’s immersion into the narrative is a precondition for engagement on the reader’s side is denied by Wallace. The reader in a postmodern environment is more than aware that ev-

37 |  Cp. my discussion of verbal and existential irony on pages 59-64. 38 |  In my discussion of Warhol’s different markers for the engaging narrator, I point out that she insists on the frequency of address as important. Cp. pages 78-82.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

erything media and art offer is mediated.39 Following this, by sharing the reader’s knowledge of mediation of media through overt discussion of this aspect in the narrative, postironists try to convince the reader of their (the postironists’) sincerity. They never pretend to convey reality and even embrace the idea that immediacy is a blessing instead of a curse.40 Returning to the “you” in “Author’s Foreword” and the “I” which is “reaching out to us,” some of the footnotes have to be explored in detail. I think that footnote 13 on page 76 is a good example to show the particular style of metafiction (and metaleptical moves) in “Author’s Foreword.” This footnote is part of the fictitious description of the narrator’s expulsion from college. The narrator’s report of how he supplied his classmates with coursework for money and how he got expelled while the others stayed in school is interrupted by footnote 13: I’m just mentioning this. There’s no expectation that you’re going to wring your hands over whatever hypocrisy and unfairness you may discern in this state of affairs. In no sense is this Foreword a bid for sympathy. (Wallace 2011: 76)

In this short passage, the narrator anticipates the reader’s reaction to the narrative. While the ideal narrative audience would not need such an explanation (and a text trying to immerse its audience would not address any other audience), the narrator is aware that in order to further41 establish the congruency of narrative and authorial audience, he has to show his awareness of the banality of the events. It is notable here that the events actually were of great importance for the narrated I (albeit fictitious, which is to be neglected for the moment), but that the more mature narrating I feels he should not wail about something long gone. The narrator includes this aspect by ending the footnote with “[…] it’s all water long under the bridge now, obviously” (ibid). I believe the last word here, “obviously,” is of interest. On the one hand, the reader is directly addressed; she is told that the narrator does not expect sympathy. The “obviously,” however, addresses the reader in a different form, similar to the “So decide” in “Octet.” The “obviously” is directed at the reader, meant as a reassuring note for the narrator’s and reader’s equality in mind.42 It is these small but reoccurring moments of the narrator’s display of how seriously 39 |  Cp. Baudrillard (2004). 40 |  Cp. my discussion about “mediated experience” on pages 101-103. 41 |  The original act of equating the two audiences with each other is the narrator’s explicit claim to write nonfiction. Cp. Rabinowitz’s ideas examined on pages 70-76. 42 |  “For no writer can help assuming that the reader is in some level like him: already having seen, ad nauseum, what life looks like, he’s far more interested in how it feels as a signpost toward what it means.” (Wallace 2012:

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he takes the reader that are responsible for McHale’s assertion that The Pale King “[…] literally draws us into […], addressing us in the second person, metaleptically reaching across the divide between worlds […]” (2013: 191). Instead of Gardner’s “immersion,” Wallace attempts a metaleptical connection between narrator and reader. The intradiegetically addressed “you” never remains an intradiegetic narratee but always, like McHale states, “reaches across to our world.”43 To address the reader as an equal interlocutor is one of the tactics of the narrator of “Author’s Foreword” to prove his sincerity. Footnote 13 serves only the purpose of connecting to the reader – not something specifically postironic but that is found in many narratives – while in contrast, the aforementioned footnote 3 combines an urge for communication with the reader with more particular postironic themes. The abstract legal language of footnote 3 goes on for about a page before it is suddenly broken: […] Examinations is the IRS division tasked with combining and culling various kinds of tax returns and classifying some as ‘20s,’ which is Service shorthand for tax returns that are to be forwarded to the relevant District office for audit. Audits themselves are conducted by revenue agents, who are usually GS-9s or -11s, and employed by the Audit Division. It’s hard to put all this very smoothly or gracefully – and please know that none of this abstract information is all that vital to the mission of this Foreword. So feel free to skip or skim the following if you wish. And don’t think the whole book will be like this, because it won’t be. (Wallace 2011: 69 my emphasis)

Indeed, the information given about the IRS is of no importance for the rest of the book; nevertheless, I think that, contrary to the narrator’s claim, the “abstract” aspects of “Author’s Foreword” are “vital to the mission” of the narrative. Once more, the specific language that mirrors in its abstractness the functional principle of the IRS is important for strengthening the nonfiction aspirations of “Author’s Foreword.” But I have said enough about this – the more urgent question concerns the overall mission of the nonfictionality in The Pale King. As the narrator proposes a nonfiction contract and points at the pitfalls in nonfiction (i.e. disappointing the reader by not strictly following the nonfiction rules), he merely names the pos47). I lead this discussion also above, where I point at AHWOSG’s assumption that “the narrator is like you.” Cp. page 117-118. 43 |  Staes argues that the role of the movie “Infinite Jest” in Infinite Jest is Wallace’s most direct critique of immersion in art: “[…] complete immersion seems to be more dangerous than helpful. Viewers of the eponymous film Infinite Jest in Wallace’s book are so captivated by what they are watching that the film becomes ‘lethally entertaining.’” (2012: 415)

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

sible negative side effects for the communication with the reader. Interestingly, the narrator tends to highlight the possible negative traits instead of foregrounding his actual intention: persuading the reader to accept the narrative as true and sincere by connecting with her in order to make her get something out of her reading experience that she can transfer to her own world. The tone/voice the narrator chooses for this endeavor is an apologetic one, suggesting that the readers “skip or skim” parts and reassuring them that the rest of the book will be different. This tone contrasts with the self-assured abstractness of the preceding explanations and establishes the postironic momentum. In “Author’s Foreword,” nearly the entire narrative is metafictional. But this metafictionality differs; parts are concerned only with the narrative itself – the traditional form of metafictional commentary – while other parts deal exclusively with the narrator’s urge to communicate with the reader. This communication is most explicit when the readers are told “[...] to skip or skim the following if you wish.” The narrator’s direct address can be taken seriously here (one aspect that Warhol thinks important for engaging narrators). There is no indication that the narrator does not mean what he is saying. That he makes contact with the reader about the rather technical parts of the narrative and that he offers an apology and points out that the rest of the book “won’t be” like this are additional markers of his call for sincere communication. That the metafictionality is such a strong feature in “Author’s Foreword,” but that its aim is to engage the reader instead of alienating her, is the initial postironic situation of the narrative. Staes rightly assumes that, in addition to the claim to be autobiographical, the narrator’s foremost urge is sincere communication: The Author’s Foreword in The Pale King clearly feeds into this interpretive process by again playing around with the assumption that narrative involves direct communication. “Wallace” arguably brings up the autobiographical contract to highlight the reader’s inclination to empathize with a narrative, and it is indeed fascinating to think that here we have the actual voice of the author reaching out to us. (2012: 426)

While the overall fictional setting of The Pale King makes “Author’s Foreword” a complex text to discuss in this book, which actually discusses nonfiction, I leave the discussion like this. However, to conclude this argument, I want lastly to point out that even the topics chosen in “Author’s Foreword” are prominent topics of postirony. The metafictional aspect of discussing memoir while writing the same was elaborately examined for AHWOSG, and I do not need to add further investigations. That the narrator’s example for “SOP memoir” is his time at an expensive private school points to Wallace’s ideas in “The Conspiciously Young,” in which he

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defines his generation of writers as mostly being educated at elitist schools.44 Furthermore, that he invents his expulsion of such a school in the supposedly “true” “Author’s Foreword” points at his idea of a new literature that overcomes the image fiction and brat pack literature (which is composed and published by graduates of such schools).

A S upposedly Fun Thing I’ll N ever D o Again In contrast to “Author’s Foreword” there cannot be any doubt about the status of “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”45 as a piece of nonfiction. Its original publication in Harper’s Magazine in 1996 as a reportage and also its inclusion in the collection of the same title, which is subtitled “Essays and Arguments,” clearly indicate that the text is nonfiction. Thus, my discussion will show that “Fun Thing” is not a piece of ordinary journalism, but rather an idiosyncratic example of Wallace’s literary journalism.46 Before discussing “Fun Thing,” some general remarks on Wallace’s early – i.e. written before Infinite Jest – journalism are necessary. Steven Moore claims that Wallace’s journalistic pieces “[...] built on the New Journalism of Wolfe and Thompson [...]” (2009: 2) and Troy Patterson, looking at different New Journalists, states that Wallace most closely resembled Mailer. Both earned their celebrity and electric esteem – becoming not just famous writers but author-heroes – on the strength of maximalist novels of ambition-announcing bulk and scope (Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, Wallace’s  Infinite Jest). And both produced nonfiction so bold and inventive as to surpass their achievements as novelists. As a journalist, Wallace […] left American literature with a body of work as fine as any produced in America in the last two decades. (2009)

I showed above how aware Wallace was of contemporary literary theory, how often he included references to other postmodern works, and how important his philosophical knowledge is for his writing. Thus, that his journalism should be influenced by predecessors like Wolfe, Thompson, and Mailer does not come as a surprise. However, one should not overestimate the influence of the New Journalists on Wallace. Their main similarities lie in their subjective approach, as Christoph Ribbat rightly assumes: “[o]ne of the key issues here is subjectivity – not the subjectivity of a common-sense reporter hero, but the shaken, frustrated, disoriented kind.” (2010) I discussed above that subjectivity and literary means in journalistic 44 |  Lethem, Ellis, and Tartt were even classmates at Bennington College. 45 |  From now on abbreviated “Fun Thing.” 46 |  Cp. my discussion of literary journalism on pages 139-141.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

work are features of all literary journalism, used long before the New Journalists started publishing. An examination of Mark Twain’s and Stephen Crane’s journalistic pieces gives proof of this.47 Nevertheless, the stylistic influence of the New Journalists on Wallace can be considered a fact. What distinguishes him from them lies more in their differing approaches to culture. Whereas the New Journalists tried “[...] to establish themselves as maverick heroes in the cultural landscape of the American 1960s” (ibid) by addressing counter-cultural themes like the Hell’s Angels and drug abuse, Wallace’s topics can be found in the center of American society. Ribbat vividly describes that: Wallace’s journalism needs the alienated Midwesterner Wallace all over his state fair text, needs the clumsy rookie political reporter all over the McCain piece, needs the writer breaking down in tears trying to buy a small plastic American f lag on September 12, 2001 […] in “The View from Mrs. Thompson’s.” (ibid)

And the same is true for “Fun Thing.” The distinctiveness that makes this cruise ship essay the best known of Wallace’s nonfictional pieces is the doubtful intellectual Wallace – an autodiegetic narrator named Wallace – who self-deprecatingly tells the tale of his seven days on a Caribbean cruise. Marshal Boswell describes “Fun Thing” as […] one of Wallace’s most beloved and widely read works, and for a very good reason [“Fun Thing”] display[s] all the hallmarks of Wallace’s inimitable style without the forbidding structural devices that make his fiction so challenging. […] The erudite and loquacious reporter who appears in [“Fun Thing”] is a wide-eyed word-freak who f luctuates between Wordsworthian wonder and neurotic self-doubt. (2003: 180)

Boswell’s emphasis that the reporter of the narrative appears in the narrative serves no greater purpose to him other than to point at the style of the essay. Just how important this autobiographical aspect is for the reader will be discussed later. Boswell describes “Fun Thing” as an introduction for “[…] newcomers to Wallace’s art […]” (ibid: 181), which seems to diminish its literary value, but at the same time, he offers a complimentary judgment about the mixture of […] Wordsworthian wonder and neurotic self-doubt [which] allows [Wallace] to report on events with all the force of his formidable intellect while at the same securing an amiable, self-effacing relationship with his readers. (ibid: 180-181) 47 |  Cp. Fishkin (1988).

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To what extent the relationship between narrator and reader is amiable and self-effacing will be discussed below. That the narrator endeavors to establish this relationship is one of the major arguments of this chapter, and I will return to Boswell’s idea later. “Fun Thing” is a lengthy essay: Its 100 plus pages and 137 footnotes are an overwhelmingly detailed description of nautical facts, dinner menus, character studies, and Wallace’s almost pedantic navel-gazing. These combined aspects offer the reader a surprising insight into contemporary U.S. travel-culture. Whoever expects a purely mocking account instead finds sympathy (though not in all instances, I will discuss the aspect of the supposedly fun thing of mocking in detail later), and whoever expects a traditional travel journal will be disappointed (the narrator never leaves the ship when in port due to “[…] semi-agoraphobia – I’d have to sort of psych myself up to leave the cabin […]” (Wallace 1997c: 297)). Furthermore, the only culture described is the one of American tourists. The narrator, even though basically sympathetic, sternly offers his opinion about cruises early in the narrative by renaming the ship he travels with. The original name “Zenith” leads him to propagate: No wag could possibly resist mentally rechristening the ship the m.v. Nadir the instant he saw the Zenith’s silly name in the Celebrity brochure, so indulge me on this, but the rechristening’s nothing particular against the ship itself. (ibid: 259)

That he has nothing against the ship itself does not stop the narrator from adopting the name “Nadir” for the ship; the nadir he depicts, however, is indeed more than the ship, it is consumer culture’s perception of the perfect vacation. It will become clear that the criticism offered in “Fun Thing” is not particularly directed at the individual (although one travel mate gets picked out of the masses to be ridiculed and condemned)48 but at U.S. culture as a whole.49 In order to do justice to the different themes in “Fun Thing,” I pick out some of these themes and discuss them specifically before concluding the whole argument in a more general discussion. As the title already suggests, “Fun Thing” is a very subjective piece of journalism. Not only fun in itself is a subjective feeling; the “I’ll never do again” likewise hints at this subjective angle. The narrator offers an explicit description of the

48 |  Cp. my discussion of “Lumpenamerikaner” below. 49 |  As is true for most other essays by Wallace. When discussing “Consider the Lobster” later, I will come to this point again, because the later essays in Consider the Lobster are even stronger in their critique of society and their escort for the individual.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

circumstances for writing the essay and the expectations of Harper’s Magazine, which paid him to do so: I’ve got to say I feel like there’s been a kind of Peter Principle in effect on this assignment. A certain swanky East-Coast magazine approved of the results of sending me to a plain old simple State Fair last year to do a directionless essayish thing. So now I get offered this tropical plum assignment w/ the exact same paucity of direction or angle. But this time there’s this new feeling of pressure: total expenses for the State Fair were $27.00 excluding games of chance. This time Harper’s has shelled out over $3000 U.S. before seeing pithy sensuous description one. (ibid: 256) 50

The references to the “Peter Principle” and to the piece as “a directionless essayish thing” are coy understatements. Wallace, who had just published Infinite Jest, is not – as Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull suggest in their 1969 book The Peter Principle – given too much authority to continue working competently. Even though Harper’s has to spend more money than for the state fair essay, the success the author had by the time he wrote “Fun Thing” obviously made him a good investment for the magazine. That he describes “Fun Thing” as “a directionless essayish thing” is more complex. The sentence at first seems to hint at a deficiency of the essay; on closer consideration, however, this description can be understood as perfect. As stated above, although “Fun Thing” is borrowing the form and idea from the travel journal, the actual insights the reader gets are different from the traditional travel journal. Furthermore, the subjectivity of the essay and the alternating themes make it “directionless essayish.” In the following discussion, I will show that this is not a deficiency but rather one of the strengths of “Fun Thing.” Returning to the autobiographical aspect, the autodiegetic narrator is at the core of the narrative right from the beginning. Even when he describes technical details about the ship, he intersperses these descriptions with subject markers: “This was not what I myself observed. What I myself observed was […]” (Wallace 1997c: 266). The narrator wants the reader to be aware of the mediation that is going on at all times. That the reader learns about the assignment of the narrator to write about his trip for a magazine and that the act of writing is repeatedly explicitly invoked make the narrator’s experience the center of the essay. Whereas I could go on listing different appearances of the narrating and narrated I in the text in order to unveil the autobiographical status of “Fun Thing,” I choose to look at only one episode for this purpose. The narrator finds an essay by writer Frank Conroy in the ship’s official brochure and, in an act of autocriticism, looks at this essay and compares it to his own writing.

50 |  The state fair essay he refers to is Wallace (1997b).

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The Text Within

the

Text – C ritique

as

R eassurance

The narrator’s reading of the Conroy essay is only in part a text-based analysis. He introduces extratextual information for his critique, stating that “I know details like this because Conroy talked to me on the phone, and answered nosy questions, and was frank and forthcoming in general just totally decent-seeming about the whole thing.” (Wallace 1997c: 285) By giving lengthy quotes, the narrator suggests right from the beginning that “Conroy’s essay is graceful and lapidary and attractive and assuasive. I submit that it is also completely sinister and despair-producing and bad.” (ibid: 286) He compares and contrasts Conroy’s essay with his own. The reader who reads the critique of the essay within the essay has to ponder which parts of the critique are (1) true for the Conroy essay (2) and maybe also true for the Wallace essay. That “Fun Thing” is also “sinister and despair-producing” will become clear in the following discussion. What is of interest here is the formal trick that the narrator plays: He takes the reader by the hand and explains in a step-by-step reading what a bad essay is like (and Conroy’s essay is hardly the real foe – writers who sell their good name and talent for a commercial purpose are the narrator’s real target). The reader who accepts the narrator as a stand-in for the author (and thereby “Fun Thing” as a piece of autobiographical nonfiction) reads the narrator’s overt and detailed struggle with the Conroy essay as a literary dispute. The next interpretative steps taken by the narrator tighten this connection with the reader because: [The essay’s] badness does not consist so much in its constant and mesmeric reference to fantasy and alternate realities and the palliative powers of pro pampering 51 […] nor in the surfeit of happy adjectives, nor so much in the tone of breathless approval throughtout […]. (ibid)

All of the above characteristics of the Conroy essay could be understood as a statement that it is a bad essay, but the narrator of “Fun Thing” is not interested in a mere stylistic and literary critique. What he detests is “[…] the way it reveals once again the Megaline’s sale-to sail agenda of micromanaging not only one’s perception of a 7NC Luxury Cruise but even one’s own interpretation and articulation of those perceptions” (ibid: 287). The narrator uses this essay, which is in fact an advertisement, in order to convey his own message: that his own essay, “Fun Thing,” is anything but an advertisement. This is important for the narrator, and as I have explained above, if a narrator tries to positively and explicitly state his sincerity,

51 |  The idea of “pampering” is central to “Fun Thing” and will be discussed in detail later.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

he almost always fails.52 So instead of running the risk of undermining his sincere approach by indicating that his approach is sincere, the narrator points at the insincerity of the Conroy essay. What the reader gets to know is that […] Celebrity Cruise is presenting Conroy’s review of his 7NC Cruise as an essay and not a commercial. This is extremely bad. Here is the argument for why it’s bad. Whether it honors them well or not, an essay’s fundamental obligations are supposed to be to the reader. The reader, on however unconscious level, understands this, and thus tends to approach an essay with a relatively high level of openness and credulity. (ibid: 288)

Once more the narrator starts his rant by understating his own craft. That an essay’s “obligations are supposed to be to the reader” is the main thought in this paragraph. The rhetorical dictum “whether it honors them well or not” is directed at the reader, who should decide for herself whether “Fun Thing” actually honors this obligation. The paragraph states implicitly that “Fun Thing” is first and foremost meant for the reader and has no other purpose, in contrast to the Conroy essay, which is denoted a commercial undertaking: But a commercial is a very different animal. Advertisements have certain formal, legal obligations to truthfulness, but these are broad enough to allow for a great deal of rhetorical maneuvering in the fulfillment of an advertisement’s primary obligation, which is to serve the financial interests of its sponsor. Whatever attempts an advertisement makes to interest and appeal to its readers are not, finally, for the reader’s benefit. (ibid: 288 my emphasis)

While Conroy’s essay was sponsored by the company offering him the cruise, “Fun Thing” has to be considered a real essay with no commercial aspiration. I showed above that the narrator explicitly tells the reader that no default “directions” were given for his essay; what he writes about is his personal experience of the cruise. That the reader of the Conroy essay is tricked into reading what she believes is an essay instead of an advertisement – “Conroy’s ‘essay’ appears as an insert […] creating the impression that it has been excerpted from some larger and objective thing Conroy wrote” (ibid: 287) – is the con trick of the Celebrity brochure. The narrator continues his differentiation of essays and advertisements by claiming that: “[…] the reader of an ad knows all this, too – that an ad’s appeal is by its very nature calculated – and this is part of why our state of receptivity is different, more guarded, when we get ready to read an ad.” (ibid: 288-289 original emphasis) By reading the Conroy “essay” as an essay, the reader approaches it with the 52 |  Cp. Taylor’s assumptions about negative definitions of “sincerity” in footnote 34 on page 141.

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preconditions of reading an essay: “Celebrity Cruise is trying to position an ad in such a way that we come to it with the lowered guard and leading chin we properly reserve for coming to an essay, for something that is art (or that is at least trying to be art).” (ibid: 289) While this approach is dangerous when reading an actual advertisement, what is more important for the narrator to get across is that the reader of “Fun Thing” can be reassured to be open and credulous when reading “Fun Thing,” which is art, or is at least trying to be art. The whole critique of presenting an advertisement as an essay ends in a summarizing footnote: “This is the reason why even a really beautiful, ingenious, powerful ad (of which there are a lot) can never be any kind of real art: an ad has no status as a gift, i.e. it’s never really for the person it’s directed at.” (ibid: 289 original emphasis) Consequently, what the Conroy essay is not, the narrator believes “Fun Thing” to be: “a gift […] for the person it’s directed at.” It is interesting to note that the Conroy essay passage is not using actual tools an engaging narrator uses. It is neither addressing a “you” nor talking of its own veracity (cf. the engaging narrator in “Author’s Foreword” who permanently directly addresses the reader and points out that “all of this is true”);53 however, in my opinion, the tactics applied in “Fun Thing” are engaging nevertheless. By drastically showing how art might sell out, all aspects of “Fun Thing” that show the narrator’s own feelings and emotions, and which are meant as a gift for the reader, are highlighted. The narrator of “Fun Thing” could borrow the words from “Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way” and also state: “Close your eye. Absolutely no salesmen will call. Relax. I want nothing from you.” (Wallace 2003: 373) In a last thought before returning to his description of the cruise, the narrator points out that the problem with something like the Conroy “essay” is more significant than just being an annoying isolated case: An ad that pretends to be art is – at absolute best – like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what’s sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill’s real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair. (Wallace 1997c: 289)

This verdict is on the one hand a general assessment, and on the other meant as a connective statement to the reader: Here the narrator changes the personal pro-

53 |  Cp. Both my discussion of the engaging narrator on pages 78-82 and my discussion of the narrator of “Author’s Foreword” above.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

noun and includes the reader, “It makes us feel,” thereby establishing the bond all engaging narrators try to establish. This connective element does not by coincidence come along with the word “feel.” The whole essay revolves around how certain situations and conditions make the narrator feel. Oftentimes, the way his feelings are depicted point at the reader and are meant to make her thoughtful. After some brief remarks about the formal aspects of “Fun Thing,” I will focus on four different elements to further establish this claim.

The Wallace Style – F ootnotes , A sides , and M etafiction I have explained above what particular meaning footnotes have in Wallace’s work. In “Fun Thing,” they are meant to construct a comprehensible wholeness of the text, to give the reader details that highlight the journalistic aspect of the essay. Long descriptions of different cruise ships and explanations of nautical terms are meant to fabricate a background that lets the reader fully accept the nonfictional and truthful aspect of “Fun Thing.” But while most nonfictional texts use additional information as a proof to their veracity, the narrator in “Fun Thing” additionally tries to achieve something else. The footnotes are oftentimes his mode of direct communication with the reader. Rather late in the essay, he describes how one of the ship’s entertainers enters the stage. Whereas most descriptions of onboard show acts confine themselves to descriptions of what the narrator actually sees, this time the narrator gives a background story: “[he] comes rushing into the bathroom from the stateroom where he’d been practicing his Professional Smile in the bedside table’s enormous vanity mirror […]” (Wallace 1997c: 341-342). The narrator cannot know this information, so he obviously fictionalizes the events that lead to the show he is seeing. Being aware of using a literary element rather than a descriptive journalistic style, he footnotes the sentence: “[authorial postulate].” For the sake of a complete picture of what the narrator himself feels to be the truth about the man on stage, he invents a background story to give the reader an insight into his fantasizing events, but because he is very aware that the reader might be disappointed about the status of the essay as nonfiction (i.e. for the reader this means true), he ultimately tells the reader that what she just read is only an authorial postulate. He repeats in the next footnote, still dealing with the show: “[Again an authorial postulate, but it’s the only way to make sense of the [events]].” (ibid: 342) By not only saying that what he just narrated is an “authorial postulate” but also putting the information in square brackets – the only time he does that in “Fun Thing” – the narrator puts emphasis on the explanation. He does not want the reader to misunderstand his fictionalized input. He wants her to appreciate his truthfulness.

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The truthfulness he wants to establish is one that connects descriptive narration with fictitious elements. The narrator includes his own interpretation and his imagination of possible causes for certain events in order to draw a complete picture, not only of a cruise’s outward appearance but also about the inner, hidden mechanisms. Whereas asides like the long descriptions of different cruise ships cover the aspect of appearance (they seem to prove that the text is nonfiction, ergo, true), the footnotes that either directly address the reader (see above) or metafictionally explain fictional aspects of the text to the reader are directed at the causal core of events: the idea that luxury could lead to happiness.

Free C hoice

vs .

Pampered I nto D espair

The whole of “Fun Thing” revolves around these two aspects: that the cruise ship’s crew tries to wholly and perfectly satisfy all possible wishes of the guests, and that this pampering does not lead the narrator to be fulfilled by happiness and indulgence – as the brochure of the cruise promises – but instead causes his descent into despair. A lack of choice, even when apparently connected to a luxurious life of leisure, is one of the postironists’ greatest fears. My discussion of Kierkegaard above shows that critics of irony see the lack of choice in a society as a consequence of an ironic environment. The agenda of the cruise that the reader is presented with in “Fun Thing” is literally presented as an agenda without a choice. For the narrator, the idea of experiencing “great pleasure” (Wallace 1997c: 267) in a given and constructed environment that does not allow free choice seems absurd. He struggles with this problem in two ways: (1) he looks at it in a theoretical way, close reading the advertisement brochure in his cabin, and (2) he recalls personal encounters with Celebrity Cruise’s service team. His description of the brochure observes: The brochure’s real seduction is not an invitation to fantasize but rather a construction of the fantasy itself. This is advertising, but with a queerly authoritarian twist. In regular adult-market ads, attractive people are shown having a near-illegally good time in some scenario surrounding a product, and you are meant to fantasize that you can project yourself into the ad’s perfect world via purchase of that product. In regular advertising, where your adult agency and freedom of choice have to be f lattered, the purchase is prerequisite to the fantasy; it’s the fantasy that’s being sold, not any literal projection into the ad’s world. (ibid: 267)

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

This description of “regular adult-market ads” reminds the reader of Wallace’s statements in “E Unibus Pluram”54 and is connected to the narrator’s description of the Conroy essay. This form of advertisement wants to sell something – “projection […] via purchase” – and the narrator of “Fun Thing” believes, as he states when he discusses the Conroy essay, that most grown-ups will grasp this non-gift status of any advertisement. However, as the narrator asserts, regular advertisement at least tries to flatter freedom of choice. It proposes that, by buying a certain product, you will enter this fantasy world. The exaggeration in the proposed fantasy is part of the advertiser’s plan; the potential customer is aware that he watches a highly stylized version of his/her own world. The narrator describes this by judging “[…] conventional adult advertisements [as] fundamentally coy” (ibid). He remarks about the Celebrity Cruise’s brochure: Contrast this coyness with the force of the 7NC brochure’s ads: the near-imperative use of the second person, the specificity of detail that extends even to what you will say (you will say “I couldn’t agree more” and “Let’s do it all!”). In the cruise brochure’s ads, you are excused from doing the work of constructing the fantasy. The ads do it for you. The ads, therefore, don’t f latter your adult agency, or even ignore it – they supplant it. (ibid original emphasis)

That the narrator starts the description of “the near-imperative use of the second person” with a near-imperative use himself is part of this narrator’s character; subsequent descriptions of his opinions about other guests and the crew will further elaborate this. More importantly, his analysis takes into account that “Celebrity’s 7NC brochure uses the 2nd-person pronoun throughout. This is extremely appropriate. Because in the brochure’s scenarios the 7NC experience is not described but evoked” (ibid original emphasis). Interestingly enough, one could replace the brochure in this statement with the title “Fun Thing;” throughout the essay, the narrator tries to evoke rather than describe his experience.55 The crucial difference, however, is one of the narrator’s other ideas, the aforementioned gift vs. non-gift status of essay vs. advertisement. The evocation in “Fun Thing” is meant as a free gift to the reader. The narrator does not try to sell anything, whereas the onboard brochure is meant to sell the ideology of Celebrity Cruise (i.e. to buy into the “great pleasure” of a cruise and come back the next year).56 The particularity of Celeb-

54 |  Cp. pages 49-51. 55 |  In my opinion, this evocation is mainly responsible for “Fun Things” success with readers, for a reader it is easy to join the narrative audience and metaleptically enter the level of the narrative. 56 |  Cp. the narrator’s descriptions of most people he talks with onboard include how often they had been on a cruise before.

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rity Cruise’s advertising strategy is once more highlighted by the narrator, who declares: And this authoritarian – near-parental – type of advertising makes a very special sort of promise, a diabolically seductive promise […]. The promise is not that you can experience great pleasure, but that you will. That they’ll make certain of it. That they’ll micromanage every iota of every pleasure-option so that not even the dreadful corrosive action of your adult consciousness and agency and dread can fuck up your fun. (ibid original emphasis)

As a guest on one of these cruises, you are sentenced to “experience great pleasure.” Every aspect of the journey is meant to evoke this pleasure, and the idea is that only by allowing the micromanagers of the crew to take over your free will can you really be pleased. In a footnote referring to this idea, the narrator further states: “YOUR PLEASURE,” several Megalines’ slogans go, “IS OUR BUSINESS.” What in a regular ad would be a double entendre is here a triple entendre, and the tertiary connotation – viz. “MIND YOUR OWN BLOODY BUSINESS AND LET US PROFESSIONALS WORRY ABOUT YOUR PLEASURE; FOR CHRIST’S SAKE” – is far from incidental. (ibid original emphasis)

The narrator thus comments: “Your troublesome capacities for choice, error, regret, dissatisfaction, and despair will be removed from the equation.” (ibid) It is notable that the narrator opens this listing with the concept of “choice,” which is usually positively connoted, but in this case is understood and expressed negatively . The narrator sees this as Celebrity Cruise’s biggest flaw; they are unable to realize that choice is essential for pleasure. The idea of an abulic individual that can be 100 per cent happy as a result of 100 per cent pampering is cynically summarized by the narrator: “The ads promise that you will be able – finally, for once – truly to relax and have a good time, because you will have no choice but to have a good time.” (ibid) The narrator’s interpretative act to this point is very explanatory in tone, something Halfmann also notices about Wallace’s essays: Was inhaltlich demnach nicht geleistet werden kann, einen Ausweg aus der postmodernen Krise zu zeigen oder wenigstens anzudeuten, dies soll die Meta-Ebene der literarischen Produktion leisten: Zuerst das Erstellen der kommunikativen Situation, dann die geradezu oberlehrerhaft wirkende Auf klärung des Leser als mehr oder minder subtiler Lehr-Lern-Situation. (2012: 104) 57 57 |  “Thus, what cannot be achieved contentwise, namely to show or at least hint at an escape route out of the postmodern crisis, has to be done on

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

The communicative situation in this part of the essay certainly resembles a teacher - student relation. However, the particular postironic tone of the essay surfaces right after the abstract explanation of the ad. The narrator switches into an autobiographical mode, thereby changing from teacher figure to “[...] the clumsy rookie […] reporter” (Ribbat 2010). Because of this change, the reader does not feel detached and bored but instead can once again join the narrative audience. This is necessary because the narrator does certainly engage in the interpretation of the advertisement for the reader’s sake; he wants her to understand that contemporary, passive happiness is not desirable. The accumulation of “I”s in the following paragraph stands in clear contrast to the “you”s in the interpretative part. The narrator reestablishes himself as/in the center of the narrative, not as an abstract persona but as an autobiographical narrator: I am now 33 years old, and it feels like much time has passed and is passing faster and faster every day. Day to day I have to make all sorts of choices about what is good and important and fun, and then I have to live with the forfeiture of all the other options those choices foreclose. (Wallace 1997c: 267)

The fact that the choices he describes include “fun” is his avowal of being part of a society for which fun is essential. But that he does not pretend that choosing is a simple and merely satisfying act, but rather includes to “have to live with forfeiture of all other options,” also shows his critical standpoint. He goes on by assuming that “as time gains momentum my choices will narrow and their foreclosure multiply exponentially” (ibid). So while he wishes for the possibility to choose he is aware that even free choice might leave him desperate: “It’s dreadful. But since it’s my own choices that’ll lock me in, it seems unavoidable – if I want to be any kind of grownup, I have to make choices and regret foreclosures and try to live with them.” (ibid: 268 my emphasis) The mixture of abstract analysis and personal account has an interesting effect. This narrator’s operations are counterintuitive to Warhol’s ideas of an engaging narrator. Whereas the passages that include a strong “you” – and that take the reader seriously – are too abstract to appear engaging, the passages that involve a strong and dominant “I” have an engaging impact on the reader. This is, on the one hand, due to the role the reader accepts in an autobiographical narrative, while on the other, it is strengthened because of the particular picture the narrator draws of himself. Whereas the “you” of the abstract parts is not directed at the extratextual reader but at an audience on the intradiegetic plane, the “I” of the autobiographical parts allows the reader to identify with the a metalevel of literary production: At first the creation of a communicative situation, followed by a seeming overly didactive elucidation of the reader. All of this in a more or less subtle teach-and-learn situation.” (my translation)

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narrator. The autobiographical information given establishes the autobiographical pact – i.e. the reader equates the narrator with the author – and because the autobiographical information follows an abstract discussion of advertisements etc., the reader is involved in the metaleptic move of the narrator. Suddenly, the reader is aware that she is reading the actual experience of a human being – stylized in parts but always truthful – and the despair and anxiety of that human being lead to an engaging effect. In the last part of his analysis of the brochure, the narrator, combines his critique of the advertisement with his personal experience. The importance of freechoice is repealed onboard a cruise ship: On a 7NC Luxury Cruise, I pay for the privilege of handing over to trained professionals responsibility not just for my experience but for my interpretation of that experience – i.e. my pleasure. My pleasure is for 7 nights and 6.5 days wisely and efficiently managed … just as promised in the cruise line’s advertising – nay, just as somehow already accomplished in the ads, with their 2nd-person imperatives, which make them not promises but predictions. Aboard the Nadir, just as ringingly foretold in the brochure’s climactic p.23, I get to do (in gold): “… something you haven’t done in a long, long time: Absolutely Nothing.” (Wallace 1997c: 268 original emphasis)

The idea of doing absolutely nothing is fulfilled when an individual does not even have to choose or interpret anything. This is leisure time at its extreme, only comparable to one other state in a human life: How long has it been since you did Absolutely Nothing? I know exactly how long it’s been for me. I know how long it’s been since I had every need met choicelessly from someplace outside me, without my having to ask or even acknowledge that I needed. And that time I was f loating, too, and the f luid was salty, and warm but not too-, and if I was conscious at all I’m sure I felt dreamless, and was having a really good time, and would have sent postcards to everyone wishing they were here. (ibid)

The comparison to the womb might sound exaggerated, but the effort the Cruise crew puts into fulfilling their “predictions” of absolute pleasure comes close. The aspect of “consciousness,” however, makes the difference for the narrator. The absolute pleasure of being an unborn child is only pleasurable because one is without a consciousness. For a “somehow grown-up,” in contrast, doing nothing (i.e. no choosing, no interpreting, no wishing) is not an admirable state – at least, not for the narrator of “Fun Thing.” Consequently, the Cruise’s effort of 100 per cent pampering does not lead to pleasure, but rather despair.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

D esperation C ruise A second Celebrity crowd-control lady has a megaphone and repeats over and over not to worry about our luggage, that it will follow us later, which I am apparently alone in finding chilling in its unwitting echo of the Auschwitz-embarkation scene in Schindler’s List. (Wallace 1997c: 270)

The narrator chooses an example to illustrate the “[…] sybaritic and nearly insanity-producing pampering [...]” (ibid: 290) that is not connected to his theoretical examinations. He describes how he wants to get his luggage to his cabin by himself, something that puts the “Lebanese porter […] in a terrible kind of sedulous-service double bind, a paradox of pampering: viz. the The-Passenger’s-Always-Rightversus-Never-Let-A-Passenger-Carry-His-Own-Bag paradox” (ibid: 291). Later, a higher-ranked officer comes to apologize for the porter’s “misbehavior,” making the narrator realize that “[...] the little Lebanese Deck 10 porter had his head just about chewed off by the […] Head Porter […].” (ibid: 291-292) This is one of the first encounters the narrator has with the rigid rules onboard. It makes him feel uncomfortable, and this feeling stays with him for the entire trip. The implication is, in one sense, that in order to pamper a minority, a majority has to suffer. The narrator does not address this problem at length in the essay, but it seems to be important to him. Footnote 45, which deals with the personal waiter of the narrator’s table, states: “Table 64’s waiter is Tibor, a Hungarian and a truly exceptional person, about whom if there’s any editorial justice you will learn a lot more someplace below.” (ibid: 293) However, since Tibor appears only one more time, editorial justice is not given to him. That the narrator nevertheless feels the urge to include the footnote (and that the editor might have cut out longer descriptions of Tibor, but instead left the footnote intact) shows that the narrator is (1) aware of the problem of exploitation and (2) wants the reader to know that he is aware. On the other hand, however, the more important aspect for the narrative is the narrator’s feelings about himself when realizing the trouble he has started for the porter: “[T]he whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-fraught and filled almost a whole Mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psychoskeletal outline.” (ibid: 292) The incident makes him feel very self-conscious; he clearly is not self-absorbed enough to accept his role as an object for the crew’s pampering. Interestingly, he is not the only one who has a problem with justifying to himself that he will not do anything productive for a whole week: “Everybody characterizes the upcoming week as either a long-put-off reward or as a last-ditch effort to salvage sanity and self from inconceivable crockpot of pressure, or both.” (ibid: 276) His self-conscious character gives the explanation for this excuse: “What is in

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play here, I think, is the subtle universal shame that accompanies self-indulgence, the need to explain to just about anybody why the self-indulgence isn’t in fact really self-indulgence.” (ibid) By expanding the idea of self-consciousness to “universal shame,” the narrator wants to include the reader. The reader who cannot feel the actual “shame” because she is not onboard of the ship is presented with two other examples, which the narrator takes out of everyday life and presents in another footnote: “I never go get a massage just to get a massage, I go because this old sports-related back injury’s killing me and more or less forcing me to get a massage; or like: I never just ‘want’ a cigarette, I always ‘need’ a cigarette.” (ibid original emphasis) Most readers will be familiar with this kind of self-excuse. The inclusion of these daily examples serves another aim for the narrator: to transport the critique of the micro-society onboard to the society outside the ship. The narrator sees the “pampering” happening onboard as the tip of the iceberg that represents the excess of Western societies. I conclude this examination of “Fun Thing” by looking at the transfer of feelings the narrator had while being on a cruise to the feelings a reader who enters the level of narrative audience will extract. I will refer to two more examples; there are countless ways the narrator wants his readers to make that transfer, but as he himself states: I now confront the […] problem of not being sure how many examples I need to list in order to communicate the atmosphere of sybaritic and nearly insanity-producing pampering on board the m.v. Nadir. (ibid: 290)

Above I referred to the narrator’s statement that the whole cruise was “despair-producing.” That he also talks of an “insanity-producing” experience strengthens his idea that the trip did, at least for him, not deliver its own promise of “absolute indulgence.” Despair and insanity are leitmotivs in the essay; for the narrator they exist in Western societies per se but emerge on board of a luxury cruise in a exemplary way. Thus, the narrator states: There is something about a mass-market Luxury Cruise that’s unbearably sad. Like most unbearably sad things, it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its causes and simple in its effect: on board the Nadir – especially at night, when all the ship’s structured fun and reassurances and gaiety-noise ceased – I felt despair. (ibid: 261)

The desperation that the narrator feels is directly connected to the “fun and reassurances and gaiety noise” that the ship’s crew and his travelmates produce during the day; at night, all alone, the promise of the brochure ceases. But is it actually the lack of these reassurances that produces despair? Then one could conclude that it

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

is the feeling of boredom rather than true despair that overcomes the narrator. His own assessment of what he feels reads differently: The word’s overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture – a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It’s maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I’m small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. (ibid)

This passage introduces a different tone to the essay. The playful descriptive tone becomes a serious and sincere affirmative tone. While the reader might have laughed about other judgments and remarks, the narrator now turns onto the real topic of his essay. The whole description of his experience is meant to show his readers how consumerist culture fails in producing satisfaction for the individual. Dark thoughts and anxiety will always accompany a human’s experience. Here the narrator becomes postironic: The fear of seeming banal because of his sincere confession that he “[wants] to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I’m […] going without any doubt at all to die” pales in comparison to the real fear of death. To clarify: the fear of death is in no way idiosyncratically postironic, most cultures, at any time, fought this fear by introducing myths, religion, or other promises of salvation. The postironic aspect in “Fun Thing” is the juxtaposition of an ironic ideology that promises to extinct this despair by permanently entertaining the individual. The narrator of “Fun Thing” reveals that this infinite jest cannot lead to salvation, that passive entertainment, lacking the chance for free choice for the individual, is just as despair producing as the lack of entertainment. This leads him to the assumption that “[a] vacation is a respite from unpleasantness, and since consciousness of death and decay are unpleasant […] we are skillfully enabled in the construction of various fantasies of triumph over just this death and decay.” (ibid: 263-264) However skillfully death and decay are veiled – and the examples in “Fun Thing” show that the crew of a cruise ship might be the most skillful cluster of death and decay-concealing experts – the narrator cannot let go of the despair that his own mortality produces. Consequently, if even trained experts cannot hinder the mind from sliding into despair, how should an individual in its everyday life overcome these feelings? This is the reason for the narrator to address the reader, this makes “Fun Thing” particularly postironic. This narrative tries to grasp a something beyond entertainment and indulgence, “[…] something there’s no way a real news story could cover” (ibid: 261). This something can be found on the plot level, when the narrator talks about Tibor (the waiter) and shows how a person can find pride and satisfaction in serving others (ibid: 348), but in the end, the narrator’s discontent about his culture denies real satisfaction. He ob-

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serves that “[…] the promise to sate the part of me that always and only WANTS […]” (ibid: 316 original emphasis) is the cruise brochure’s biggest lie. The narrator is aware that the society that brought him up produced an “[…] Insatiable Infant part of me [which] will simply adjust its desires upward until it once again levels out at its homeostasis of terrible dissatisfaction” (ibid: 317).

Concluding “Fun Thing” […] the reentry into the adult demands of landlocked real-world life wasn’t as bad as a week of Absolute Nothing had led me to fear. (Wallace 1997c: 353)

“Fun Thing” analyzes despair and cultural discontent, but the narrator cannot come up with a conclusive way out. The absurdity of the idea of a luxury cruise as an exit becomes clear right at the beginning of the essay. The narrator introduces his concept of despair before he even starts to give a description of the actual travel experience. I stated that the critique he offers is not restricted to the micro-cosmos of the cruise but rather aims at contemporary society as a whole. Connected to this broad critique is the question of whether the narrator’s discontent is an individual idiosyncrasy (felt by him and maybe a small group of similarly well-educated young Americans) or a greater cultural disease. To answer this question is to look at a postironic way out of superficial consumerist times. The narrator comes closest to answering this question when describing a shore leave of his travel mates: Looking down from a great height at your countrymen waddling in expensive sandals into poverty-stricken ports is not one of the funner moments of a 7NC Luxury Cruise, however. There is something inescapably bovine about an American tourist in motion as part of a group. A certain greedy placidity about them. Us, rather. In port we automatically become Peregrinator americanus, Die Lumpenamerikaner. The Ugly Ones. (Wallace 1997c: 310 original emphasis)

The condescending tone about the “waddling […] Lumpenamerikaner” is slightly altered by the change in the personal pronoun from “them” to “us.” This “us” is both including the narrator in the group – even though he stays onboard in this particular case – and the reader in the intradiegetic realm. The reader of “Fun Thing” is most probably not a member of the “poverty-stricken” local population but part of a Western society. The discomfort the narrator feels when he faces the poverty of non-first-world people is a discomfort that many first-world tourists feel when they are in such a surrounding. The narrator wonders in a footnote whether he might be special because of this discomfort, but observes that “[…] the other

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

Americans on board quite possibly feel the same vague discomfort about their bovine-American role in port that I do […].” (ibid) That they deal differently with this discomfort and leave the ship nevertheless is due, in the narrator’s opinion, to their feelings of having earned this reward: They’ve paid good money to have fun and be pampered and record some foreign experiences, and they’ll be goddamned if they’re going to let some self-indulgent twinge of neurotic projection about how their Americanness appears to malnourished locals detract from the 7NC Luxury Cruise they’ve worked and saved for and decided they deserve. (ibid)

It is not ignorance but egocentrism that allows people to overlook their “neurotic projection” and enjoy their vacancy. This is important for the postironic classification of “Fun Thing.” If the narrator would pretend to be better, more intelligent, and more sympathetic than other people depicted in the essay, he would either alienate his readers (he could easily seem arrogant, and readers do not accept an arrogant narrator as engaging),58 or the whole essay could be read as a parody, which would do injustice to the sincere discussions of despair and anxiety I examined above. This thought is connected to “Fun Thing” as a whole; the reader is forced to re-evaluate his opinions during the process of reading. The narrator starts out his report in a rather mocking style. The reader might join the narrative audience by accepting this mocking tone at first and feel connected to the narrator in this superior point of view. But such an essay would not have any engaging moment. It would simply be a descriptive essay about something most readers of the essay believe anyway: that a cruise is a boring and ridiculous form of holiday for middle-aged and elderly couples.59 Instead, the turn to a sincerer voice and the inclusion of more detailed descriptions and character studies allows the narrator to leave behind such a superficial approach and communicate something else to/with the reader. Contemporary times offer luxury to a degree not previously experienced, but all of this luxury cannot spare the human being from being mortal and from knowing about being mortal. Mocking everything, taking the ironic standpoint, is the most-used method to deny this despair. Nevertheless, as the different examples in “Fun Thing” show, the despair will always be part of human existence and not even the sheer luxury of a cruise can cure this. The only remedy is a conscious handling of all these anxieties and desperation. A cure is impossible, but 58 |  Cp. my discussion that the reader expects to be taken serious by the narrator in order to feel engagement on pages 78-82. 59 |  Assuming that most readers of an essay about a cruise which is culturally embedded in Harper’s Magazine and connected to other works of the same author is mostly read by young readers.

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a life that is based on free choice makes the permanent decision-making-process (which always includes forfeiting something else) bearable. In order to choose, the ironic standpoint that never determines a choice as serious must be overcome, and while in 1996, the narrator of “Fun Thing” struggles to give any better outlook than to highlight free choice, in 2005, the narrator of “Consider the Lobster”60 goes further.

Consider

the

L obster

In contrast to “Fun Thing,” “Lobster” is a short and concise essay. The narrative does not address and reflect upon as many different aspects as “Fun Thing” does, but rather deals with only one major question: “Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” (Wallace 2005a: 243). I include the discussion here in order to further highlight aspects I discuss in my examination of “Fun Thing.” While “Lobster” does not address all the aspects “Fun Thing” does, the ethical aspect of the essay becomes obvious when considering the above-cited question. The narrator who asks this question is assigned by Gourmet magazine to cover the “56th Annual MLF,61 30 July - 3 August 2003, whose official theme this year was ‘Lighthouses, Laughter, and Lobster’” (ibid: 236). The article presents to the reader descriptions of the different festivities, excerpts from the festivals history, PETA’s protest against the festival, and some asides on the (indecent) behavior of Americans in public. However, the narrator is mostly interested in the ethical question of eating animals. But whoever expects a pro-vegetarian pamphlet like Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals (2009) will be disappointed. “Lobster” neither propagates nor condemns the consumption of animal products. The essay instead presents a dispute about conscious choice: everyone should act for him/ herself, whether or not s/he believes the suffering of an animal is justified for her/ his “gustatory pleasure.” In “Octet,” the narrator asks his reader whether she “feels it too” (Wallace 1999: 124). While this “it” remains undefined in most postironic narratives – the feeling is the important aspect – “Lobster” asks a similar question, but in a more concrete way. The lobster is a sentient creature, and we inflict pain on it when boiling it alive. The narrator begins his discussion of this question by repeating a statement by one of the organizers of the festival: “There’s a part of the brain in people and animals that lets us feel pain, and lobsters’ brains don’t have this part.” (Wallace 2005a: 245) The narrator responds to this assumption by stating: “[L]et’s acknowledge that the questions of whether and how different kinds of animals feel pain, and of whether 60 |  From now on abbreviated “Lobster.” 61 |  Maine Lobster Festival

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

and why it might be justifiable to inflict pain on them in order to eat them, turn out to be extremely complex and difficult.” (ibid: 246) Consequently, a human should actively dispute this fact, which (in the narrator’s opinion) the visitors of the MLF do not. But again, like the narrator in “Fun Thing,” the narrator in “Lobster” includes himself in the ignorant masses: “As far as I can tell, my own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing.” (ibid) This only changes when he has to describe the festival because “[...] the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker [...]” (ibid: 252) and the sheer amount of lobsters eaten there force him to think these thoughts. While all explicit arguments in the essay are connected to the lobster’s suffering, I think the narrator’s argument actually goes beyond the question of animal rights.62 When negating the festival’s official claim that lobsters cannot feel pain, he declares: “[P]ain is a totally subjective mental experience, we do not have direct access to anyone or anything’s pain but our own [...].” (ibid: 246) So if we cannot even judge the pain a simple animal like a crustacean might feel, we should pay especially close attention to the pain we might inflict on other humans. The lobster in the essay is the “stand-in-other” for human relationships and behaviors. The narrator in “Fun Thing” tries to project himself into the thoughts of other travelers and attempts to guess how they feel about certain experiences. He assumes that they might feel like him (the narrator in “Octet” even actively asks his readers whether they feel it too), but he can never really tell. The message “Lobster” tries to convey is that empathy with the other requires an active consideration of this other’s circumstances: “The lobster [...] behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water [...].” (ibid: 248) If we can make this connection and feel empathy for a lobster – which we should do even if we continue eating them, because this is the conscious dispute in which everyone should engage – we should also transfer this faculty to our inter-personal skills. The narrator addresses the reader directly and wonders: “I’m curious about whether the reader can identify with any of these reactions and acknowledgements and discomforts.” (ibid: 253) This single sentence establishes an engaging narrator. He actively and explicitly requests that the reader reflect on the essay, and a normal reaction of any reader is to understand the narrator’s puzzlement as an invitation to (re)consider what she is making of the essay she is reading. In order to further strengthen this meditation, the narrator continues: “I’m also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is more like confused.” (ibid) The narrator’s twofold intention of this sentence is to establish himself as anti-didactic and to reassure the reader of his confusion in consideration of “[...] the principles by which we can infer that other human beings experience pain [...] 62 |  This does in no way mean that the narrator is indifferent to the “lobster question.” He surely wants to make his point about a conscious handling of our eating habits.

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involve hard-core philosophy – metaphysics, epistomology, value theory, ethics” (ibid: 246). The anti-didactic stance is important, because to be overly didactic alienates most readers. They want to come to their own conclusions and not be presented with ready-made explanatory models. To admit his own confusion helps the reader to continue reflecting on the issue even though it is difficult and confusing. That the narrator of “Lobster” is an engaging narrator in Warhol’s sense is only one aspect in the examination of a postironic narrator. The other question concerns how a narrative deals with postmodern irony and metafiction. “Lobster” is more conventional than most other essays by Wallace, but I believe that it is nevertheless typically postironic. The whole essay is interspersed with asides that point at the decadence of something like the MLF. The lobster menu is only “[...] slightly more expensive than supper at McDonald’s [...]” (ibid: 238) and the actual eating experience is described as “[...] friend and stranger alike sit cheek by jowl, cracking and chewing and dribbling” (ibid: 239). But decadence is only one part of the postmodernism of the festival. As so often is the case with Wallace’s texts, the footnotes need some extra consideration. Footnote 6 on page 240 is a typical example for postironic metafiction. Introduced by “your assigned correspondent,” the footnote informs the reader about the touristy flavor of the festival: I confess that I have never understood why so many people’s idea of a fun vacation is to don f lip-f lops and sunglasses and crawl through maddening traffic to loud, hot, crowded tourist venues in order to sample a “local f lavor” that is by definition ruined by the presence of tourists. This may [...] all be a matter of personality and hardwired taste: the fact that I don’t like tourist venues means that I’ll never understand their appeal and so am probably not the one to talk about it (the supposed appeal). But, since this FN will almost surely not survive magazine-editing anyway, here goes: [T]o be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have. [...] It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing. (Wallace 2005a: 240)

Again the narrator presents a twofold message. His critique of modern mass tourism is similar to the one the narrator of “Fun Thing” gives but offers two more insights: His dislike of tourist venues might be his own fault. That is, the prejudice already present in his thoughts might lead to the actual judgment. Where this prejudice comes from is not explained in the essay, so the reader has to come to his own explanations (which makes the reader consider her own thoughts about mass tourism). This acknowledgment of subjectivity – the tourist venues might be nice if one could encounter them without prejudices – is once more due to the narrator’s dislike of presenting readymade explanations to the reader. The hint that the

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

editor will delete the footnote preceding the actual criticism of tourism is another indication in this direction. The reader shall take up the narrator’s topics and think about them herself. However, the footnote is not deleted, and the reader is presented with an opinion on mass tourism. The conclusion that “as a tourist you become economically significant but existentially loathsome” can also be read as an assessment of capitalist societies in general. Only the consuming individual is a significant individual. Economy overshadows existence. Tied to this critique is the narrator’s insinuation of the thoughtlessness of the people attending the festival (and, more importantly, of the reader of the essay.) The descriptive part of “Lobster” ends two paragraphs prior to the conclusion of the essay. Here the narrator directly addresses the reader and asks her a couple of questions: Do you ever think, even idly, about the possible reasons for your reluctance to think about it [the animal’s pain]? I am not trying to bait anyone here – I’m genuinely curious. After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? (ibid: 254)

The direct address highlights the narrator’s genuine curiosity. Obviously he will not receive an answer but – at best – the reader will answer the questions to herself. In a final paragraph, the reader is informed that [t]he last few queries, though, while sincere, obviously involve much larger and more abstract questions about the connections (if any) between aesthetics and morality [...] and these questions lead straightaway into such deep and treacherous waters that it’s probably best to stop the public discussion right here. There are limits to what even interested persons can ask of each other. (ibid)

The explicit use of the term sincere strengthens again the narrator’s engaging effort. The admission that he should stop because of the treacherous waters he is about to enter is, one the one hand, a concession to the original readers (the article was published in Gourmet magazine), whom the narrator believes to be more interested in actual gourmet topics than questions of morality. Nevertheless, his “it’s probably best to stop” comes a little late, as he has already asked all the disturbing questions outside of the “limits to what even interested persons can ask of each other.” Similar to the narrator of AHWOSG, who designates some of his readers as “mean and jaded,” the narrator of “Lobster” is aware that the “ideal reader” he addresses is a person not sympathetic to a critique of a gourmet festival. Consequently, the narrator’s curiosity about the reader’s opinions is meant to be a seed sowed in order to disturb the reader’s peaceful mindset regarding not only animal

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consumption, but also the question of any other human being and the pain we might inflict on her/him.

The Audience

of the

L obster

The distinctiveness of the audience in “Lobster” was addressed in the last paragraph. It is not an ideal narrative audience in the sense of Rabinowitz because it does not accept the narrator’s judgments as true. In this sense it differs from the ideal narrative audience of “Fun Thing,” which is very close to the narrator’s opinions. But before I further examine this aspect, the more general facts about the audiences and the narratee in “Lobster” have to be considered. The narrator of “Lobster” is once more an example of a literary journalist as narrator. The whole essay is narrated in a highly subjective tone: “Your assigned correspondent saw it all, accompanied by one girlfriend and both his own parents [...].” (Wallace 2005a: 236) He never claims to be objective, admits that he is biased, and centers the whole description around his personal experience. Thus, the “I” the audience experiences is understood as a stand-in for the author.63 The nonfictional frame of the narrative is set by its journalistic self-determination, and the engaging narrator uses this nonfictional framing in order to address his audience sincerely64 and to close the gap between narrative and authorial audience. Interestingly, one has to distinguish two narratees for “Lobster.” First, there is the reader of the original article in Gourmet, and secondly, there is the reader of the essay in the essay collection. The ideal narrative audience of the narrator, however, is the one depicted above: sceptical about the narrator’s opinions. Consequently, my analysis will involve this reader. I already elaborately discussed why postironic narrators sometimes choose to deviate from the standard of an understanding ideal narratee.65 To summarize briefly, the efforts at persuasion are a means to change the actual audience’s mindset; the very assumption of an ideal narrative audience that has to be persuaded strengthens this aspect. Assuming that the reader of Gourmet magazine is in a state of mind that expects entertainment about good food and interesting venues, the narrator tears down this comfortable mood and initiates thoughts about “what it is to be a fucking human being” (McCaffery 1993: 131). Pain, responsible choices, and second thoughts about consumption and mass tourism are the themes presented to the reader. The formal manners of direct address 63 |  To clarify, “Lobster” is not autocriticism, the narrator never discusses the act of autobiographical writing in this essay. But he neither tries to hide the presence of a subjective mind. 64 |  He even proclaims his sincerity explicitly, “[t]he last few queries, though, while sincere [...]” (Wallace 2005a: 254). 65 |  Cp. my discussion of the ideal audience in AHWOSG on pages 117-120.

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

and the explicitly stated curiosity of the narrator towards the reader’s thoughts and feelings make the reader’s situation even more uncomfortable. Because of the nonfictional status of “Lobster,” which indicates that the “I” of the text represents the real author, the question the reader is confronted with is the question of an actual human being. The reader is metaleptically invited to feel directly addressed through the “you” of the text; narrative and authorial audience are congruent, and neither the “you” nor the questions posed can be understood as merely intradiegetic. The narrator wants his reader to feel the inner conflict of (1) whether an animal should suffer for the reader’s pleasure and (2) whether it is not more important to live consciously (in one’s empathy towards the other) than to unconsciously enjoy capitalism’s hollow attractions. To slightly modify the narrator’s words: you can either become economically significant but existentially loathsome, or choose to live consciously. As another text by Wallace proposes: “[Y]ou get to decide how you’re going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship...” (Wallace 2005b: 6)

Concluding Wallace None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness – awareness of what is so real and essential. [...] It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out. (Wallace 2005b: 8 original emphasis)

The three texts examined in this chapter are different in many ways. But their distinctions aside, they have one thing in common: They try to communicate with their reader. The topics they depict are also diverse, but I showed that what combines the narratives is the respective narrator’s craving to communicate one major message: be conscious. The respective narrator constantly refer to our ironic environment as confining, to the pleasures we seek in consumerism as hollow, and to the opposition between the solipsism that emerges out of our ironic worldview and eudaimonia. They do so by becoming engaging narrators in a postironic sense. Lethem even suggests that David Foster Wallace deserves to be remembered as a great writer not because he was capable of doing PhD-level philosophical speculation [...] but because he mastered a certain area of human sensation totally: intricate self-conscious

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Postirony remorse at the fact of self-consciousness. Wallace’s way of loading up this indistinct area with scrupulous depiction made a lot of people feel less lonely [...]. (Lethem 2011b: xvii my emphasis)

To make someone feel less lonely is the postironic notion of ending solipsism’s reign. Lethem’s statement highlights two particular aspects of the postironic narratives, including philosophical speculation, but these exist only for the sake of connecting with other humans (i.e. the reader). To conclude the examinations of Wallace’s essays, I return to Warhol’s different premises for engaging narrators and apply them to the narrators discussed in this chapter. An engaging narrator explicitly addresses her/his readers. Warhol notes that such a narrator “[...] will usually either avoid naming the narratee or use names that refer to large classes of potential actual readers, [s/he] addresses the narratee simply as ‘Reader’ or ‘you,’ designations that can signify an actual reader […]” (Warhol 1986: 813). The postironic narrators in this chapter all address a “you” in their narrative. The “you” sometimes confines the address to a particular group of readers (such as a young and anti-bourgeois audience in “Fun Thing” or a biased and jaded one in “Lobster), but even the confined audiences are “large classes.” At irregular intervals, these narrators also use the “we” address, a method of binding the narratee closer to the narrative and easing the metaleptical path for the actual audience to become part of the narrative audience. Warhol describes a high number of addresses as engaging. I did not count the amount of addresses in the three texts, but a look at the quotes I have given in my discussions hints at the permanent address of the reader in all three texts. Now I come to the important point of “[...] the degree of irony present in reference to the narratee” (ibid). The whole question of “is it irony or not” is even trickier in Wallace than it is in Eggers. But my close readings show that the depiction of irony in Wallace is never directed at the narratee but instead functions as a moment of struggle that the narrator wants to overcome (and in so doing enable the reader to overcome it, too). Especially the explicit reflections on the nonfictional pact in my reading of The Pale King show a narrator who is sincere in his address of the reader.66 Warhol’s next idea is concerned with “[…] the narrator’s stance toward the characters” (ibid: 814). This is connected to the point above. Whenever the narrators in “Lobster” and in “Fun Thing” direct their mockery at their characters and unveil their ironic misbehaviors, they do not recoil from including themselves and their own weaknesses in the description. Warhol explains that the engaging narrator depicts the “realness” of the characters; in her opinion, this connects the actual reader with the narrative (cp. ibid). The narrators in Wallace explicitly state 66 |  Cp. my discussion of “Author’s Foreword.”

David Foster Wallace – Hope and Despair; The Postironic Condition

the circumstances for writing their narratives (i.e. the real world assignment and hence the real world existence of the characters). The narrator of “Fun Thing” even includes footnotes that allude to his sincere sympathy for characters/people he describes.67 And finally, Warhol’s last concern to be discussed here is: “[…] the narrator’s implicit or explicit attitude toward the act of narration” (ibid: 815). I showed that Wallace’s narrators are serious about their act of narration in all texts that I discussed. As Smith assumes: “[Wallace’s narratives] are terrified of the possibility of no emotional connection.” (2009: 275) We see this if we refer back to the narrator of “Octet,” who remarks about the reader: “She’ll know if you’re just trying to save your own belletristic ass by manipulating her – trust me on this […].” (Wallace 1999: 132) It almost seems like the narrators of “Author’s Foreword,” “Fun Thing,” and “Lobster” took this statement to heart; their sincerity – even though embedded in humorous asides68 – is almost palpable most of the time. It is redundant to explore again the fact that the nonfictional and autobiographical frames of the narrative further strengthen the sincerity and engaging effect. The immense importance of this aspect is highlighted multiple times in the close readings and therefore needs no further explanation. This leads to the second part of this conclusion: the postirony of the respective essays. As both the “Introduction” and the chapter “Postirony – Conceptualizing an Idea” show, Wallace is a writer who in various essays explicitly stated ideas about irony and its negativity. The critique in the texts discussed in this chapter is an implicit one. The narrators do not overtly discuss irony, they rather depict behaviors of the contemporary individual living in ironic times. In doing so, the narrators combine intradiegetic depictions and transfer them to the reader (most explicitly in “Lobster,” where the narrator explicitly directs his questions to an extradiegetic audience). The narrators thereby fulfill two postironic principles: They actively struggle with their chosen foe (i.e. irony, consumerism, solipsism) and – even more importantly – hold out the prospect of actual sincerity, the chance of a conscious life. It is further noteworthy that the narrator of “Author’s Foreword” explicitly states the difference of fictional and nonfictional pacts.69 I elaborately discuss the idea that a positive definition of the reader’s engagement for nonfiction is difficult, but that the negative reaction to frauds in nonfiction nevertheless show the difference in reader’s reactions. The narrator of “Author’s Foreword” does the same when concluding that “[t]he feeling of betrayal or infidelity that the reader suffers 67 |  Cp. my discussion about the porter and the waiter on board of the cruise ship on pages 159-160. 68 |  Cp. Eggers’ statement “[...] simply because humor is found in a context of pain, does not make that humor ironic […]” discussed on pages 119-120. 69 |  Cp. my analysis of the nonfictional contract on pages 131-133.

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if it turns out that a piece of ostensible nonfiction has made-up stuff in it [...] is because the terms of the nonfiction contract have been violated.” (Wallace 2011: 73) All narrators examined in this chapter are subjective in their judgments but at the same time truthful in all conscience. The metafictionality found in all texts is due to the postironic endeavor; especially the footnotes oftentimes describe the ironic worldview and comment on the act of writing about (or rather against) it. That the complex narrative structures of the essays are at first sight “coolly cerebral” (Smith 2009: 275) is the main reason why some critics and readers label Wallace an ironist. My close readings show that the complexity of the essays is necessary for their postironic aim, which is to engage the reader in order to make her reflect on her environment and to prevent her from merely entertaining herself while reading, [...] because the big R’s [Realism] form has now been absorbed and suborned by commercial entertainment. The classical Realist form is soothing, familiar and anesthetic; it drops us right into spectation. It doesn’t set up the sort of expectations serious 1990s fiction ought to be setting up in readers. (McCaffery 1993: 138)

Instead of offering a sedate narrative, postironic works are “[...] apt to make you uncomfortable, or to force you to work hard to access its pleasure, the same way that in real life true pleasure is usually a by-product of hard work and discomfort” (ibid: 128). Here the circle of postirony closes, and the engagement the narrator wants to achieve is modelled after real life’s experience (pleasure comes out of hard work). By leading the reader to re-experience this formula while reading, postironic works hope to re-vitalize the ability in the reader to consciously accomplish the ethics of pleasure-through-work.

A Second Generation Emerges

The label “generation” is somehow misleading in the context of postironists, because some of the authors examined in this chapter are actually older than Wallace and Eggers, whom I label the first generation of postironists. In my introduction I point at Wallace’s ideas about what makes a generation: “[We] are in my opinion A Generation, conjoined less by chronology […] than by the new and singular environment in and about which we try to write fiction.” (Wallace 2012: 41) I borrow this definition and will show by analyzing Lethem’s and Flynn’s work that these writers emerge from the example (or at least incorporate many aspects) of Wallace’s and Eggers’ publications. Their take on the “singular environment” differs, but the environment they deal with forces them to find similar ways of handling the individual in these times. Other authors I briefly referred to in this book can also be described as members of a second generation of postironists, namely Benjamin Kunkel (born 1972), Joshua Ferris (born 1974), Ben Lerner (born 1979), and Tao Lin (born 1983). Their respective novels Indecision (2005), Then We Came to the End (2007), 10:04 (2014), and Taipei (2013) are idiosyncratically postironic; however, because none of these authors has published nonfiction until recently, they are not further examined in this book. Returning to nonfiction, I now turn to Flynn’s cycle of memoirs.

N ick Flynn – R eenacting M emoir Flynn is the oldest writer discussed here. He was born in 1960, but his first memoir was only published in 2004. I therefore consider him a descendant of the first generation. His memoirs are comparable to Eggers’ AHWOSG in different ways. First of all and most obviously, Flynn also reports traumatic events connected to his parents. All of Flynn’s memoirs circle around (1) the suicide of his mother and (2) his father’s decline into homelessness and psychotic illness. I introduced Elise Miller’s claims about the traumatic re-enactment happening in AHWOSG,1 and 1 |  Cp. my discussion of Miller’s thesis on page 92-95.

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similar arguments could be made concerning Flynn’s memoirs. However, I conclude above that trauma is not definable for postironic literature; consequently, I will not elaborate this examination here but turn upon Flynn’s postironic traits. Flynn’s first book, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,2 is mainly concerned with Flynn’s father’s decline into homelessness (and is the inspiration for the movie Being Flynn). His mother’s suicide is only hinted at in vague asides. However, that this suicide is an incisive traumatic event for the narrator is apparent. Similar to Dave in AHWOSG, the narrator of Suck City is unable to narrate the actual death of his mother. The repression of this event hints at it as traumatic for the narrator. Suck City begins with an allegory that addresses a “you:” If you had been raised in a village two hundred years ago, somewhere in Eastern Europe, say, or even on the coast of Massachusetts, and your father was a drunk, or a little off, or both, then everyone in the village, those you grew up with and those who knew you only from a distance, they would all know that the town drunk or the village idiot was your father. [T]hey couldn’t help but wonder what part of his madness had passed on to you, which part you had escaped [...]. (Flynn 2004: 26-27)

The situation of the father who is a drunk refers to the narrating I. It is the story he tells, however, and the address of the “you,” which are meant to make the reader think about the consequences of such a father for herself. The title page gives the description “a memoir” for the narrative; consequently, the nonfiction status is asserted from the beginning. This means the addresser of the “you” is a narrating I that functions as a mouthpiece for the real author and any reader who accepts this autobiographical condition of the narrative joins both narrative and authorial audience. Thereby adressing the “you” metaleptically involves the reader in the narrative. Although a “you” is addressed, the passage primarily characterizes the narrating I. It gives voice to his fear that the reader might “[...] wonder what parts of his madness had passed on to you,” i.e. what parts of Flynn’s father’s madness had passed on to Flynn. The narrator will describe in detail both his father’s decline as well as his own slide into addiction. He nevertheless tries to draw a line between himself and his father. The reader will actually wonder if the narrator’s fate will differ from his father’s; interestingly, even though the narrated I is an addict and drunk throughout most parts of the narrative, the existence of the book Suck City is the best proof for the difference of the two.3 Flynn’s father pretended to be a writer. The narrator quotes from a letter he receives when his father is in prison: “This will be my prison novel. My Dostoevsky, My 2 |  From now on abreviated Suck City. 3 |  The father character in Flynn’s memoirs is always described as a writer who never actually published anything.

A Second Generation Emerges

Solchenitsyn. Solchenitsyn will be green with envy when he reads this shit.” (ibid: 43 original emphasis) This prison novel, like many others the father refers to during the narrative, does not exist. In contrast, Suck City does exist: As I reread his letters, as I try to write out his life, I worry that his obsession has passed into me, via the blood, via the letters, via the vision of him rising naked from a tin tub. For the only book being written about my father (the greatest writer America has yet produced), the only book ever written about or by him, as far as I can tell, is the book in your hands. The book that somehow fell to me, the son, to write. (ibid: 322 my emphasis)

The narrating I worries that he as well might have fallen into the trap of self-deception. He does not consider himself “the greatest writer America has yet produced.” This vanity belongs to his father, but his ambition to be a writer at all makes him wonder how much of his father is in him. The narrating I again includes an explicit addressee in this passage – the reader holding the book in her hands – and it falls to this reader to decide whether the narrator is captivated by vain perceptions or different to his father. That his whole approach of finding a form of salvation through narration4 is depicted as possibly futile by the narrator himself: I now find myself writing a book about an absent father who writes letters to a son about the novel he is writing. A novel the son doesn’t believe exists. [...] What do I hope to find? [...] You might as well hold fog in your hands. (ibid: 319 original emphasis)

It is difficult to grasp what the narrator wants to find. Suck City is unable to show an exit out of the narrator’s despair, and consequently, a second memoir, The Ticking is the Bomb,5 resumes this investigation. Whereas Suck City almost exclusively uses the father figure as a foil for all reflections and ideas, Bomb uses more general assumptions to describe the individual’s situation in contemporary society: Here’s a secret: Everyone, if they live long enough, will lose their way at some point. You will lose your way, you will wake up one morning and find yourself lost. This is a hard, simple truth. If it hasn’t happened to you yet consider yourself lucky. When it does, when one day you look around and nothing is 4 |  One original idea of autobiography. Oftentimes St. Augustine’s Confessions (398) is referred to as the first autobiography, its aim is to gain salvation through confession, as the title promises. This confessional form of autobiography can be found throughout the whole history of the genre. 5 |  From now on abreviated Bomb.

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Once more the narrator invokes a “you” whom he addresses. But in contrast to Suck City, this you is not chiefly characterizing the narrating and narrated I, but actually targeted at the reader. While Suck City oftentimes excuses the narrator’s deeds by referring to “an errant lover, a missing father, a bad childhood,” Bomb focuses on the agency of the individual. “Blame yourself” if you made wrong decisions, do not look for the easy way out – the narrator’s inability in Suck City to find a way out illustrates this maxim. As long as the narrator blames others, he cannot proceed. Responsibility is embedded in the individual, and only through an individual’s acceptance of this responsibility and acting accordingly can a fulfilling life be possible.6 But remarkably, it is not the narrating I addressing itself and thereby showing that he made that progress; rather, it is the reader who is called upon to reflect on the way many people shun responsibility. The narrator expects his reader to be “honest” to herself – honesty being the opposite of the postmodern ironic smirk, which usually frees the individual from exaggerated self-accusation. The narrator continues his demand for self-knowledge by proposing: Life can, of course, blindside you, yet often as not we choose to be blind – agency, some call it. If you’re lucky you’ll remember a story you heard as a child, the trick of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, the idea being that after whatever it is that is going to happen in those woods has happened, you can then retrace your steps, find your way back out. But no one said you wouldn’t be changed, by the hours, the years, spent wandering those woods. (ibid: 5 original emphasis)

In his figurative language, the narrator makes the point that agency surely is connected to your past, “the story you heard as a child,” but that whatever life presents to you must be actively disputed. Even if your childhood was not one that included good advice for your later life, as is the case for the narrator, you (and it is you, the reader out there, who is addressed) cannot escape into passivity. The postironic idea that only active struggle with your fears and faults is a way to overcome them is depicted in Bomb mostly on a plot level. Nevertheless, the

6 |  Cp. my discussion of “Fun Thing” on pages 156-160. This is a very similar idea about the way an individual should adopt its environment’s challenges.

A Second Generation Emerges

narrator also includes metafictional reflections. He merges plot elements with his ideas about writing a memoir: Sometimes, if asked, [...] I’ll say I’m writing a memoir of bewilderment, and just leave it at that, but what I mean is the bewilderment of waking up [...] as the fine points of waterboarding are debated on public radio. But maybe talking about torture is easier than talking about my impending fatherhood, the idea of which, some days, sends me into a tailspin. (ibid: 17)

This short paragraph combines all major themes of Bomb: (1) writing a memoir, (2) being confronted with torture pictures out of Abu Grhaib, (3) and becoming a father. The narrator reflects upon these themes in order to understand his own position within his environment. Comparable to Dave in AHWOSG, who accepts the commitment of nurturing his little brother and thereby changes from an ironic into a postironic character, the narrator of Bomb begins to see the surrounding world differently when he learns that he will become a father. The news of tortured humans suddenly means something else: his daughter will grow up in a US society that is capable of denying human rights and torturing its enemies. Though the narrator is sure about his rejection of any form of torture, he is unsure about the way he can include this topic in his memoir: Maybe I should tell anyone who asks that I’m writing about Proteus, the mythological creature who changes shape as you hold on to him, who changes into the shape of that which most terrifies you, as you ask him your question, as you refuse to let go. The question is, often, simply a variation of, How do I get home? (ibid: 17-18 original emphasis)

From the beginning of Bomb, the feeling of being lost is the moving force for the narrative. The narrator’s personal Proteus changes into the haunting memory of his mother’s suicide, the question of whether or not he should further support his father, and the war in Iraq. Hence the question “how do I get home?” is the narrator’s mantra; he wants to overcome the guilt he feels because of his parents and he wants to understand how to deal with the outer force of US war crimes. What amplifies the feeling of being lost is the society surrounding him: One day you will learn that what was once Babylon is now Iraq. Years later, after your country invades, its king, its president, will be found, some months later, hiding in what will be called “a spider hole” – his beard gone wild, his nails grown long. And some days after this, after he is sentenced to death, he will be hung by the neck by jeering hooded men. You will watch his execution on the same day you see a photograph of a lost pop star showing her pussy to the world. (ibid: 38 my emphasis)

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Again the “you” is to be considered. It is not merely the narrator experiencing this imbalance in apperception. The reader who is confronted with the same news day by day is directly addressed in order to trigger her feelings. The engaging element of the narrator gets verbalized when he lectures his girlfriend about E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel (1971) one night: [...] I tell Anna that I feel like Daniel in Doctorow’s book. I tell her about the cigarette lighter, how he tries to make her feel the pain he feels. I tell her this as a warning. I wasn’t offering or asking to burn her, it’s just I was having trouble committing – to her, to anything – and I was having a hard time articulating why. (ibid: 59)

The narrative as a whole is his attempt to commit. The self-analysis, the attempt to accept responsibilities, and the question of how to get home are the narrator’s steps towards being a grown-up. Even while he attempts to take these steps, he still struggles with other postmodernist symptoms: hyperreality and the problem of mediation. Again, similar to Eggers, the struggle with these concepts appears both on the level of narrating as well as narrated I. The narrating I’s reflections can be seen in the metafictional passages on writing, while the narrated I’s inner conflict is explicitly depicted in one scene. The narrator uses 9/11 to highlight the narrated I’s situation: What insight would [Plato] have had if he saw me standing in a Best Buy on Broadway before a whole bank of televisions, watching the first tower fall, when I could have simply looked south and seen the real thing? Would he say I was caught up in a world as it appeared, unable to enter its essence? Would he say my eyes were having trouble adjusting to the light? (ibid: 65)

The question marks are meant for the reader. Both questions are connected to Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, and for the narrated I, both suggestions are appropriate. As discussed above, the narrator’s change in perception only happened when his girlfriend became pregnant (which on the plot-level happens at the beginning of Bomb, while the book is written after the birth of his child, and therefore the narrating I’s point of view is already differing from the narrated I’s in the beginning of the memoir). Consequently, the narrated I was “caught up in a world as it appeared,” but because he is a child of the 1960s, and grew up with television as a permanent companion,7 he also had “trouble adjusting to the light.” The postironic turn, however, happens in the words that follow this description:

7 |  Cp. Halfmann’s idea of a “fourth perspective” in the chapter “Die Vierte Perspektive” in Halfmann (2012). I further discuss this below.

A Second Generation Emerges The Allegory of the Cave is often read as an allegory of perception, how we come to believe the shadows on the wall, which terrify or entertain us, are real. But how did we end up in a cave, how did we end up, hour after hour, day after day, staring at shadows on the wall. And why don’t we simply look away? (ibid)

The effort to look away is still too much for the narrator, but to ask the question is a first step in the right direction. How did we end up in that cave? In The Reenactments, the narrator tries to answer this question.8 The setting of The Reenactments is tailor-made for an analysis of contemporary art’s mediation strategies. Whereas AHWOSG dealt hypothetically with the idea that contemporary individuals demand to be in a movie in order to feel real, the narrator of The Reenactments describes how it actually feels to be the protagonist of a movie. Furthermore, the narrative the movie is based on is not merely his life, but the book he wrote about his life. The mediation is threefold. Flynn’s life was first depicted in Suck City, a mediation subsequently adapted by the movie Being Flynn, and his life as represented in that film is described a third time in The Reenactments. Before addressing the actual movie making, I touch upon some other interesting aspects of the book. In one scene, the narrator describes how the movie’s director, Paul Weitz, Robert De Niro (who will play Nick’s father), and the narrator himself visit his father in a hospice. The official reason to see Jonathan Flynn is to give De Niro an idea of the character he must embody, but the narrator is also aware that [p]art of this visit, I know, is to make sure I didn’t just make it all up, that my father actually lived on the streets, that he didn’t just have one drink too many one night (like James Frey). Or like that white girl (Margaret Seltzer) who wrote the book about being raised by the Crips, and even hired a black woman to sit in her living room when the New York Times came to visit, to play the part of Big Mom, her (fake) foster mother. Here, in the vodka-sodden f lesh, is my father. (Flynn 2013: 74)

Interestingly, the preceding memoirs did not explicitly address the truth claim of nonfiction. They both established the autobiographical pact through their subtitles (“memoir”) and the congruency of author, narrator, and protagonist (established by the same name).9 When discussing the seeming exclusiveness of metafiction

8 |  I do not distinguish between different narrators for the three memoirs. Within the memoirs the narrating I oftentimes refers to the other books as written by himself, therefore I consider them one and the same. 9 |  For both aspects see my discussion of Lejeune on pages 133-135.

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and autobiographical confession in “Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic,”10 I noted that postmodern (more accurately postironic) autobiographies use the means of anti-authentication to explicitly authenticate their status. This maneuver is also executed in The Reenactments. Flynn refers to memoir frauds and introduces a fact-checking situation that gives proof to his authenticity: his father is really a homeless alcoholic who lived on the streets and not some James-Frey-doppelganger. More directly addressing the writing-of-the-memoir aspect is another scene, in which a friend asks the narrator “[...] if it had been cathartic, to write the memoir. [...] No, I answered – how was it for you to read it? Aristotle, in his Poetics, never promised catharsis for the makers of art, only for the audience” (Flynn 2013: 96). It is notable that the question “how was it for you to read it” is directed at the intradiegetic friend. However, I argue that the statement about Aristotle is directed at the extradiegetic audience and thereby the preceding question also seems – for the reader – to be directed at her. Indirectly, the narrator suggests his narrative as cathartic for the reader in two ways: namely, how to deal with familial tragedy, but also – and this is an instant of postironic engagement – how to accept (postmodern) life’s mediated quality. The narrator asks at one point: “After all, who doesn’t feel, at times, like you are watching a movie being made of your life (if only you had just one more take things might have worked out better)?” (ibid: 19) This recalls Dave in AHWOSG, who constantly fantasizes about how real life occurrences might have looked, or changed, if they had only been part of a movie. In Nach der Ironie, Halfmann dedicates a whole chapter to the thesis that contemporary individuals differ in their self-awareness from all preceding humans. The traditional idea, Halfmann states, constructed self-awareness out of three perspectives: Zuerst die innere Selbstschau, das Denken und sich sehen im und mit dem Ich; die zweite betrifft den Blick des anderen im Sinne Sartres, der Blick, durch den ich mich erkenne und definiere. Die dritte Perspektive ist die abstrakte Form – und gemahnt vielleicht am besten an Freuds Über-Ich-Idee [...]. 11 (2012: 149)

10 |  In particular my discussion of Nicol’s, Hamilton’s, and Konstantinou’s ideas on pages 95-100. 11 |  “At first, the inner self exhibition, thinking and seeing oneself within and connected to the I. Secondly, the look of the other in Sartre’s sense, the look through which I recognize and define myself. The third perspective is the abstract form, which possibly best reminds of Freud’s super-ego-idea.” (my translation)

A Second Generation Emerges

In Halfmann’s argument, these three perspectives are (in the second half of the 20th century) extended by one other, the fourth perspective that is equatable with the camera point-of-view. Und nun gerät der Mensch mitsamt dieser drei Perspektiven in eine neue Situation, [...] das Auftauchen der Kameras, die eine vierte Perspektive zeitgleich zu den drei bereits bestehenden und sich evolutionär entwickelt habenden Perspektiven entrollt und maßgebliche Auswirkungen hat. [...] Aufgewachsen unter vollkommen neuen Umständen, nämlich unter permanentem Einbezug einer vierten Perspektive [...] die kurz vorher und also geradezu in der Generation davor noch nicht denkbar war. [Es ist] nicht schwer zu begreifen, dass eine solche penetrant distanzierte sowie distanzierende und zudem dermaßen häufig vorkommende Perspektive auch die Selbstansicht und damit die Deutung der Welt maßgeblich beeinf lusst, ja beeinf lussen muss. 12 (ibid: 151-152)

Exactly this happened to Dave in AHWOSG and Nick in his memoirs. They grew up, as did their whole generation as Wallace describes in “E Unibus Pluram,” by being permanently exposed to the camera. On the one hand, they experienced passive consumption through television, on the other, they were actively included in familial photography and home recording. While most texts deal with this fourth perspective in a hypothetical way, the narrator of The Reenactments is directly confronted with the camera. He not only applies the fourth perspective from within but literally applies the camera-view to his life. “This imitation of life, this simulacrum, this déjà vu [...] will these actors, these strangers, replace my family? Will they move in, somehow, push their way inside me, so that soon I won’t have to tell them a thing?” (Flynn 2013: 136) It is a very drastic form of hyperreality that the narrator fears. The simulacrum, which the movie about his past establishes, might replace his personal memories; in his mind, the reenactment of the past might supersede the past. Obviously, a movie about one’s life remains a fantasy for most people. Thus, the narrator’s anxiety that televised pictures will replace real memories and ex12 |  “Now the human being enters a new situation along with these three perspectives. [...] the emergence of the camera simultaneously unfirls a fourth perspective to the three existing ones, which has essential impact. The three existing ones developed in an evolutionary way. Growing-up in entirely new conditions, namely with permanent inclusion of a fourth perspective [...] which shortly before (i.e. only one generation earlier) was not imaginable. It is easily comprehensible that such an obtrusively distanced as well as distancing and furthermore common perspective also inf luences the view of the self. Thereby the interpretation of the world must be essentially affected.” (my translation)

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periences is a more reasonable idea.13 The narrator does not call on Baudrillard to strengthen his statement but refers once more to Plato: “Imitation, according to Plato, distracted people from reality, from the truth. Mimesis, to use Plato’s word, creates an alternate reality – through a play, say – which will draw us away, distract us, from the truth of this life.” (ibid) This idea leads Plato to banish poets and playwrights from his Republic (in theory only). Postmodernism’s anxiety of mediation seems to be connected to this fear. Flynn, however, could not be named a postironist if he remained a critic of mimesis or mediation without seeing a positive aspect as well.14 Consequently, the narrator alleviates his own fear of the simulacrum by reasserting himself: “Yet mimesis, it would seem, can only come from close attention to the world, and this close attention [...] is a type of prayer, another (possible) way to escape the cage of ego. To dissolve into something larger.” (ibid: 136-137) Even if he cannot diminish the notion that the actors embodying his life will partly conquer his mind and replace his original memories, he suddenly accepts this as a positive aspect. The hope that he can “escape the cage of ego” and “dissolve into something larger” is comparable to Wallace’s claims in “Fun Thing” and “Lobster.” If it takes mediated experience to leave a solipsist life behind, then the narrator of The Reenactments is willing to accept a mimetic mediation as positive. Later in the memoir he describes the reenactment (the book) of the reenactment (the movie) of the enactment (the first book) as “[...] an altar. Not one to pray before, but one that asks, What are you feeling right now?” (ibid: 241 my emphasis) The feeling-theme is a recurring and centrally postironic one. Wallace’s “Octet” stated the urge to share a certain, undefined feeling most prominently, but all other texts discussed so far also revolve around feelings in any form (sympathy, empathy, sentiment, etc.). The Reenactments, besides the concentration on mediation and mimesis, amplifies the feeling level too. I stated above that the narrator omits details about the actual death of his mother. In The Reenactments he avoids it to such an extent that he actually defers to her suicide note: […] the last thing my mother’s hand would touch was a pen, the last words she would write were, I feel too much. She wrote these words, this phrase, three times – I feel too much I feel too much I feel too much – each letter getting larger as she wrote, until by the last page there was only room for those four words. (ibid: 21 original emphasis)

In connection to the postironic idea that to feel is desirable, this suicidal overdose of feeling is problematic. How can one desire such a state of mind? The narrator 13 |  Cp. the quote by Baudrillard in footnote 51 in “Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic.” 14 |  Cp. my discussion of Plönges’ idea that postironists combine seeming paradoxes on page 39.

A Second Generation Emerges

also addresses this paradox; later in the memoir he refers again to his mother “feeling too much” and concludes: “There will always be days like this, when you have to exist in uncertainty for longer than seems bearable.” (ibid: 297) His own feelings, his own explanations for his reactions to his mother’s suicide and his father’s downfall remain unexpressed: “You want to know how I felt? Here, here is how I felt. CUT.” (ibid: 261 original emphasis) For a postironic author like Flynn, it is less important to unveil his own feelings to his audience, (“My friend asked me if it had been cathartic, to write the memoir. [...] No, I answered – how was it for you to read it?” (ibid: 97)) than it is important that the narrator can engage a feeling in the audience: “This thing I feel, I can’t name it straight out but it seems important, do you feel it too?” (Wallace 1999: 131) What this feeling actually is remains secondary.

J onathan L ethem – Postironic E cstasy Lethem was born in 1964 and grew up in Brooklyn. His novels are mostly set in New York City. For example, his best known one, Fortress of Solitude (2003), is a highly autobiographical novel about a white childhood in a black neighborhood. The essays I discuss in this chapter come from his collection The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc., which, interestingly, is titled in its German translation Bekenntnisse eines Tiefstaplers: Memoiren in Fragmenten. The German subtitle is in my opinion appropriate for the collection, because in addition to some actual autobiographical essays, the subjective narrating voice in all the essays actually constructs a memoir in fragments. However, I mainly concentrate on two particular texts of the collection, namely the “Preface” and the title essay, “Ecstasy of Influence.” Additionally, I will include some insightful passages of some other essays of the collection. The “Preface” is very explicit in its address of the reader. The narrator begins his account by referring to another book’s preface: Somewhere – I can’t find it now – there’s a book with a preface in which a writer of fiction admitted he couldn’t write the preface to the book ‚you now hold in your hands’ until he’d conceived of the preface as a story about a writer of fiction writing a preface; only then could he begin. (Lethem 2011b: xv)

Whoever expects the narrator of the collection The Ecstasy of Influence to follow a similar path is misled, because he continues: Saying this, the reader of said preface was presumably drawn into an awareness that the voices in so-called “nonfictions” were themselves artful impostures, arrangements of sentences (and of the implications residing behind the sen-

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Notably, the narrator points at the reader of “said preface” and her possible belief that the narrative voice in “said preface” is an “artful imposture” only mimicking sincerity. The narrator of the “Preface” to The Ecstasy of Influence aims at something else. He involves the possible reader’s thoughts: “Sure, you say, tell me something I don’t know” and responds to this assumed objection with the words: “[W]e all possess the capacity and therefore also the responsibility to testify out of some unmediatedly true self.” (ibid original emphasis) The true self presents itself in all the following essays (at least, the narrator’s attempt is not undermined by any ironic notion towards its audience). The term unmediated, however, can be named the golden thread of the collection. As the title suggests, influence is an important idea for the narrator, and the influences he chooses make it hard not to conceive of him as mediated (in a particular form). More about this aspect will be examined when I scrutinize “The Ecstasy of Influence” below. In the “Preface” the reader is at the center of focus. The narrator extends his thoughts about “said preface” by announcing: “The reader of the preface is a fiction, too. No, no, wait, I don’t for crissakes mean you, dear fleshly friend, semi-loyal eyeball.” (ibid: xv-xvi original emphasis) Whereas a preface that fictionalizes its purpose makes the you a fiction as well, Lethem’s account addresses a “fleshly friend.” In other words, the nonfiction status and the re-assertion of this status (by invoking the counter-example of a fictional preface) ensures that the reader joins the narrative and the authorial audience, which metaleptically means she might transport the intradiegetic thoughts into her own world. The narrator further emphasizes his approach by addressing the reader even more explicitly: I’m not looking to try to persuade you that you’re a cyborg, mosaic, site, interface, or any other post-human thing. My point is that you’re prehuman, actually: I’m addressing you before you’ve been quite willing to appear, pretending you’ve arrived in order to have someone to gab with until you get here, painting your portrait to find out what you look like – only sometimes, often, you won’t sit still. (ibid: xvi original emphasis)

The problem that no narrator can ever really know whom s/he addresses outside of the intradiegetic realm is a fact of all literary attempts.15 But why include this in the “Preface”? The address foremostly draws attention to the narrator’s seri15 |  This knowledge can only exist if something is privately published for a specific audience which is known to the author respectively the narrator.

A Second Generation Emerges

ous attempt to address an extradiegetic reader. Comparable to Eggers’ narrator in “Mistakes,”16 the narrator in “Preface” includes the metafictional discussion about whom and about how to address in order to show his struggle for sincerity. Only if the addressee feels taken seriously can she accept the address as serious as well; Warhol’s whole concept of the “engaging narrator” is based on this assumption. The blurring effect – “you won’t sit still” – is thereby a preemptive apology for all following addresses: the reader might not always recognize herself in the portrayed “you;” however, the narrator tried in all conscience to sincerely address his flesh and blood reader. Continuing with a critique of realist mimesis, the narrator combines his description of how to find and address his reader with a more general description of his narratives: “All writing, no matter how avowedly naturalistic or pellucid, consists of artifice, of conjuration, of the manipulation of symbols rather than the ‘opening of a window onto life.’” (ibid: xx-xxi) This appears familiar when thinking of my descriptions of Wallace and Eggers above: The metafictionally expressed doubt about narratives that seem to be unmediated is a reoccurring theme in all postironic narratives. While these narratives try to show something real to their readers, they always remind these readers of their artifice. But instead of abandoning hope for a sincere connection to the reader, they emphasize that only by honestly communicating their inability to be reality can they communicate something about reality: None of this disqualifies my sense of passionate urgency at the task of making the giant octopus in my mind’s eye visible to yours. It doesn’t make the attempt any less fundamentally human, delicate, or crucial. It makes it more so. That’s because another name for the giant octopus I have in mind is negotiating selfhood in a world of other selves – the permanent trouble of being alive. Our language has no choice but to be self-conscious if it is to be conscious in the first place. (ibid: xxi)

To describe the language of the essays in The Ecstasy of Influence as self-conscious but nevertheless concerned with making something visible to the reader is to state a postironic agenda. All other texts discussed in the preceding chapters put forth this idea at one point or another. The narrator of the “Preface” and the following essays is very self-conscious indeed, but he never fails to bring his audience into focus. Furthermore, the narrator dissolves a paradox – generic for postirony – by first highlighting the artifice of any literary endeavor and subsequently underlining that his narrative is fundamentally human. The narrative is concerned with “the permanent trouble of being alive [...] in a world of other selves.” The narrator 16 |  Cp. my discussion of Eggers’ address of the reader in “Mistakes We Knew We Were Making” on pages 120-122.

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waives an ironic attitude to diffuse this trouble; he delivers himself up to the struggle to sincerely and engagingly address the “world of other selves.” This battle is fought most prominently in the essay “The Ecstasy of Influence.”17 Before entering this discussion, some preliminary words are necessary. The essay deals with questions of art, satire, copyright, and theft. Huge parts of the essay are plagiarized – or at least borrowed from other texts. In the afterword to the essay, the narrator points out from where he has taken certain ideas, metaphors, and arguments. His thesis is that “[c]opyright, trademark, and patent law is presently corrupted. The case for perpetual copyright is a denial of the essential gift-aspect of the creative act.” (Lethem 2011a: 111) Following this argument – and noticeably the whole gift-aspect is taken out of Wallace’s “E Unibus Pluram” – the narrator makes a plea for the artist’s freedom to invoke all sources in his/her own work. If, the narrator argues, copyright laws prohibit the artist from doing so, they force artists to devalue their own works. This means, in the narrator’s eyes, that any artist who tries to use these laws in order to stop the incorporation of his/her art into other art works betrays the inner sanctity of art itself: “If we devalue and obscure the gift-economy function of our art practices, we turn our works into nothing more than advertisements for themselves.” (ibid: 112) I discussed the difference of any advertisement to any piece of art above.18 The argument of “Ecstasy” is almost congruent to the argument in “Fun Thing” and does not require a repetition of what is stated above.19 The narrator of “Ecstasy,” insisting on his narrative’s status as art and not advertisement, consequently calls his audience to “blunder [his] visions” (ibid). He states: “You, reader, are welcome to my stories. They were never mine in the first place, but I gave them to you. If you have the inclination to pick them up, take them with my blessing” (ibid). This is the verbalized version of the postironic claim to connect, to make the reader feel what the postironic narrator is unable to define but is sure to exist. The “[y]ou, reader” is encouraged to take what is offered by the narrator, not as something to investigate in order to understand what it might mean to the narrator, but what it might mean for “you.” As so often is the case, the “you” can only become an engaging factor if accompanied by a sincere and believable “I.” Consequently, the narrator of “Ecstasy” begins his account by making himself comprehensible: 17 |  From now on abreviated as “Ecstasy.” 18 |  Cp. pages 151-155. 19 |  Another statement by the narrator highlights the likeness of the two ideas: “Even if we’ve paid a fee at the door of the museum or concert hall, when we are touched by a work of art something comes to us that has nothing to do with the price. The daily commerce of our lives proceeds at its own constant level, but a gift conveys an uncommodifiable surplus of inspiration.” (Lethem 2011a: 107)

A Second Generation Emerges I was born in 1964; I grew up watching Captain Kangaroo, moon landings, zillions of TV ads, the Banana Splits, M*A*S*H, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I was born with words in my mouth – “Band-Aid,” “Q-tip,” “Xerox” – object-names as fixed and eternal in my logosphere as “taxicab” and “toothbrush.” The world is a home littered with pop-culture products and their emblems. I also came of age swamped by parodies that stood for originals yet mysterious to me – I knew Monkees before Beatles, Belmondo before Bogart, and “remember” the movie Summer of ’42 from a Mad magazine satire, though I’ve still never seen the film itself. I’m not alone in having been born backward into an incoherent realm of texts, products, and images, the commercial and cultural environment with which we’ve both supplemented and blotted out our natural world. I can no more claim it as “mine” than the sidewalks and forests of the world, yet I do dwell in it, and for me to stand a chance as either artist or citizen, I’d probably better be permitted to name it. (ibid: 99-100)

This passage alone is a succession of postironic themes par excellence. The repeatedly discussed influence of television on authors born in the 1960s is explicitly stated by the narrator. The power of advertisements is verbalized: band-aid, q-tip and xerox are brand names that became genericized terms for “medical strip,” “cotton swab,” and “copying” for a whole generation. The knowledge of the original is blurred because of parodies, satires, and homages that are omnipresent, and the only way to deal with this phenomenon is an active struggle with the zeitgeist. The narrator, similar to other postironic narrators, believes that he can only prevent desperation about this condition by embracing it, by attempting to productively struggle with it. This active struggle leads to the idiosyncrasies of “Ecstasy.” The essay itself is a satire, parody and/or homage to the texts it captures. Directly following the essay, the “[...] key to the preceding essay names the sources of every line I stole, warped, and cobbled together as I ‘wrote’ [...]” (ibid: 112). The sources range from “David Foster Wallace’s essay ‘E Unibus Pluram’” (ibid: 115) to “Mary Shelley[’s] introduction to Frankenstein” (ibid: 114) and from “Harry S. Truman, at the opening of the Everglades National Park” to “[...] the Beach Boys song ‘Til I Die,’ written by Brian Wilson” (ibid: 118-119). This narrator not only passively dwells in postmodern mediated reality but also incorporates this mediation into his own account. The narrator’s description of television’s impact on his upbringing and the conclusion that he never knew what the original might have been because parody etc. came to him as originals resembles Dave’s meditation concerning his friend’s suicide attempt.20 However, whereas Dave tries to embrace mediation in order to narrate a truthful version despite the repetitive nature of “suicide-tales,” the narrator of “Ecstacy” straightforwardly incorporates the sources of his thoughts. When he 20 |  Cp. my description on pages 101-104.

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encourages his readers to “pick them [his stories] up, take them with my blessing” (ibid: 112), he merely passes on what he already did with the stories of others. “Ecstasy” is postironic in its approach to address the reader. The narrator positions himself as a textual version of the real author – never undermining the nonfictional status of the narrative, addressing a “you” which is, because of the nonfictional contract,21 appealing for the real reader to identify with. The invitation, “I gave [my stories] to you. If you have the inclination to pick them up, take them with my blessing” (ibid) is only logical if meant for an entity outside of the text; a function of the text – whether it is a narratee or an audience function – cannot actually “pick up” a story and do something with it. This alone, however, is not enough to make a narrative postironic. But the narrator’s urge to declare his narrative a “gift” in the sense of a serious piece of art, and his repetitive attack on superficial and trivial aspects of so-called art (in his words, “advertisements for themselves”), transports his own sincere agenda in a reliable way to his readers.

21 |  Cp. my discussion of the nonfictional contract on pages 133-135.

Conclusion

In the different texts I analyzed in this book, various approaches concerned with contemporary US/Western culture came to light. I argued that despite their idiosyncrasies all of the narratives investigated share a connective element: postirony. What I termed postirony – a term borrowed from Lee Konstantinou – is a discomfort with contemporary society and culture, particularly with the ironic zeitgeist. However, the manner of executing critique varies in the approaches each author chooses; still, main aspects like metafictionality and a directly addressed reader persona manifest themselves in most postironic texts (and certainly in all the texts I investigated). The individual analyses of the respective narratives displayed these similarities. What, then, are the conclusions about postironic nonfiction that can be drawn from the findings of the close reading chapters? I have chosen an approach to narratologically investigate the respective narrators and their attempt to communicate with the reader. This approach literally forced itself on me, because all postironic narratives I looked at are centered around a prominent and noticeable narrator. All narratives are narrated in a homodiegetic (mostly autodiegetic) form; a form that features an “I” that is part of the intradiegetic realm and tells its own tale. Moreover, all of these “I”s directly address a “you,” which I defined as (1) a narratee (on the intradiegetic level) and (2) the role embodied by a narrative and authorial audience (that is, “roles” the actual reader might inhabit while reading). The audience roles distinguish themselves from the narratee because they are less a text function and more a communicative act that forces the reader to actively take on the role of the addressee.1 I derived from Rabinowitz’s and Phelan’s rhetoric narratology that the reader of postironic narratives metaleptically enters the intradiegetic plane of the narrative and also metaleptically transfers intradiegetic messages to her own world. I explained that Robyn Warhol’s theory of the engaging narrator offers a research method that enables us to weigh the applied sincerity of the address by the narrator. Of particular importance for the study of the engaging relation between narrator and reader is Rabinowitz’s assumption that in nonfiction, narrative and authorial audience 1 |  Cp. my discussion of Rabinowitz on pages 73-76.

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are congruent. If the authorial audience actually enters the plane of the narrative audience, comprehension and empathy with and for the narrated characters and events are enhanced.2 In the “Postirony Chapter,” I worked out how the group of postironic writers conceives both their environment as well as their literary heritage and their literary contemporaries. The common “foe” that Wallace, Shakar, and Purdy explicitly describe in their novels and essays is skeptical postmodern irony. Irony, in their opinion, prevents people in Western societies from allowing themselves to experience “real” feelings. The tongue-in-cheek smirk became the persistent response to life’s highs and lows, allegedly preventing the individual from “true” and close experience of what Hedinger describes as longing for “beauty” or what Halfmann calls “authenticity.” I discussed that this critique, which describes irony as eventually shallow and negative, is not a new stance. In Romanticism, a peak period for ironists, Hegel and Kierkegaard had already formulated a first major critique of an ironic Weltgeist. I will not repeat their argument here, as it is sufficient to outline their conclusion: “[Ironie ist] die Negativität, die noch keine Positivität hervorgebracht hat” (Kierkegaard 2004: 203).3 Postironic writers are not as absolute in their judgment as Hegel and Kierkegaard were. I showed in my discussion of Wallace’s essay “E Unibus Pluram” that Wallace in particular attributes positive and constructive powers to irony. However, he restricts these positive elements of irony to a specific appearance in time. When a society as a whole is determined by hypocrisy, as Wallace depicts post-WW2-US-society, then irony can break the hypocritical chains and have a liberating effect. But all too soon irony tends to become a ruling principle (due to its absolute negativity as depicted by Hegel and Kierkegaard), which all authors under investigation in this book ascribe to Western societies in the late 20th and early 21st century. The problem these postironic writers identify is related to Kierkegaard’s critique: as soon as irony becomes a permanent mode in a society, it loses its liberating effect and restricts humans in their ability for deep and humane feelings. Distinctive is the postironic inquiry, whether the reader feels it too, most prominently asked in Wallace’s “Octet” but also present in all other narratives I examined. The postironic urge to postulate questions about human feelings and whether or not 2 |  Fiction is also able to combine the two audiences, however, most readers are always aware of the fictional- or nonfictional framing of the narrative. In particular contemporary readers, who are socialized by television’s hyperreal imagery, are more ready to connect empathically to a narrative that claims to be nonfiction (i.e. concerned with the reader’s own, real world). Cp. my discussion in the chapter “Genre Matters” on pages 11-18. 3 |  “[Irony is] the negativity that did not yield any positivity as yet.” (my translation)

Conclusion

they are still available in late capitalist culture spring from two sources: (1) a general sense of contemporary society’s ironic negativity, and (2) a discontent with – in the postironist’s idea – superficial televisual entertainment and its literary equivalent, image fiction à la Bret Easton Ellis.

I dentifying

the

E nemy – I rony ’s R eign

Wallace’s essays “The Conspiciously Young” and “E Unibus Pluram” are the foundational texts for a generation of postironic writers. Both essays analyze contemporary literature as being outdated if it employs a construction principle 4 that is already taken over by mainstream media: namely, self-ironic metafiction. This idea becomes programmatic for a new, postironic literature. Wallace, at this point in time, cannot state what a new, post-ironic literature should look like. In this first postironic step, he only emphasizes what it should not be. A commentary on materialistic societies like Ellis’ American Psycho could only touch upon a reader’s inner feelings if it was not already apparent to this reader that contemporary society is foremost a materialistic one. Wallace (and later also Lethem, Eggers, and Flynn) are convinced that most readers are familiar with standard postmodern themes like the loss of grand narratives and the redemptive role consumerism reached in Western cultures.5 Wallace envisions in the essay “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky” a literature that both takes its place in time and literary tradition into account (a return to pre-postmodern techniques seems impossible, as he elaborately explains); that is, he imagines a literature that actively and explicitly includes metafiction and the struggle with irony. And secondly, he imagines a literature that – beside its metafictional navel-gazing – centers on an act of communication with the reader, a literature that offers its readers an exit from ironic indecision and in a way re-establishes a particular grand narrative: A humanistic idea that human life means more than passive consumerism and that a sincere connection between two human beings via a piece of art (in this case, literature) is more redemptive than any possible consumerist luxury.6 This postironic literature communicates or tries to communicate with the reader, not primarily to entertain but rather to wake the reader from her consum4 |  Cp. pages 48-49. 5 |  They might not all consciously dispute with these themes, but within the environment they inhabit they presumably experience the “postmodern condition” at least unconsciously. 6 |  Jonathan Franzen, asked by an interviewer about his correspondence with Wallace, states: “The point of agreement that he [Wallace] and I eventually reached was the notion of loneliness: that fiction is a particularly effective way for strangers to connect across time and distance.” (Franzen 2010: 9)

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er-culture-anesthesia. This is, in a sense, a renewal of a feeling for art as stated by Theodor Adorno in 1958. In his influential “Ästhetik Vorlesungen” – not directly concerned with literature but with music – Adorno sketches a perception of the artwork that communicates with its recipient. This communication, if taken seriously by the recipient, leads her to a condition of (almost pure) happiness.7 The claimed seriousness in receiving an aesthetic experience is outlined by Adorno as follows: So würde ich sagen, daß die ästhetische Erfahrung eben wesentlich darin besteht, daß man an diesem Vollzug teilhat, daß man das Kunstwerk mitvollzieht, indem man in dem Kunstwerk darin ist, daß man – wie man es ganz schlicht nennen mag – darin lebt. (Adorno 2009 [1958]: 188 my emphasis) 8

Wallace’s aesthetic, as proposed in “E Unibus Pluram” and applied in his other essays (and also applied by Eggers, Lethem, and Flynn), pushes the reader in the direction of “concurring the artwork [das Kunstwerk mitvollziehen]” by constantly interrupting the aesthetic experience with asides, footnotes, and metafictional commentary. This metafiction, however, differs strongly from the metafiction of earlier literatures. It is less concerned with itself (or is so only in a superficial way) but it is always directed at the reader. The metafiction of postironic nonfiction is a means to convince the reader of the sincerity of the narrative.9 The choice to seriously immerse oneself in the artwork, however, is always the individual reader’s; the narrative can merely propose doing so through its expression of a desire for serious communication.

7 |  Cp. “Diese Augenblicke sind die höchsten wohl und die entscheidenden [...], weil diese Augenblicke ja wirklich eine Art von Beglückung mit sich führen, die wohl, was es sonst an Glück gibt – ich will nicht sagen: in den Schatten stellen, aber jedenfalls dem obersten, was es sonst an Glücksaugenblicken gibt, durchaus gewachsen sind, die dieselbe Gewalt haben, wie die höchsten realen Augenblicke, die wir kennen.” (Adorno 2009 [1958]: 196-197) “These moments are supposedly the highest and the crucial ones […], because these moments really include some kind of felicity, which compared to other felicities – I don’t mean to say to dwarf, but stand up to the highest existing moments of felicity. They possess the same force as the highest factual instants we know.” (my translation) 8 |  “Hence I would propose that the aesthetic experience substantially exists for one to concur with the artwork,by being inside the artwork, by – to simply call it – living inside it.” (my translation) 9 |  Cp. my discussion of Wallace’s “Octet” on pages 83-88.

Conclusion

The N onfictional Frame Postironic authors strongly tend to write nonfiction in addition to their fictional undertakings. I demonstrated that the nonfictional form lends itself very well to the postironic programmatic. Postirony, as a countermovement to second and third generation postmodernism (in the sense of continuing what postmodernists from the 1950s to the 1980s already did), tries to reestablish a feeling for authenticity in its readers. In a time when authenticity is subverted by constant televisual exposure, many people feel an urge to be presented with sincere accounts.10 French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, among others, described a shift of perceived reality to a form of hyperreality.11 The pictures in our heads are reflections of pictures we have seen on television and the internet, and a clear distinction between what is real and what is fiction becomes increasingly hard to figure out. While literary fiction is mostly mimetic and therefore concerned with reality, it nevertheless presents its readers with a pseudo-reality. In the postironists’ ideas, contemporary readers are so used to fictional representations that they lack a willingness to immerse themselves emotionally in these representations. Postironists believe that in order to achieve a sincere communication with the reader, the authentic form of nonfiction offers a precondition important for an empathetic reaction on the reader’s side: namely, that the reader strongly believes in the sincerity of a literary voice insofar as this voice aligns itself with the reader’s own reality (which is what nonfiction does).12 I demonstrated, for example, that the success of memoirs and autobiographies on the contemporary literary market supports this claim.13 I also discussed the form of the engaging narrator as Robyn Warhol established it. While this narrator appears in fictional narratives as well, it is the dominant form in postironic nonfiction. The nonfictional frame permits the engaging narrator with a form that is supportive of his/her undertaking. His/her sincerity and authenticity are in a first step discernible by the reader when she compares the nonfiction references to her own reality; when they are perceived as congruent,14 she concludes that the narrator is on her terms, i.e. speaks about her own world. 10 |  Cp. my discussion of the memoir boom on pages 18-20. 11 |  Cp. my discussion of Baudrillard in footnote 51 in “Dave Eggers – Living the Postironic.” 12 |  This claim is not literally stated in all the narratives I have looked at. In The Pale King, however, Wallace discusses this claim at length. Cp. pages 131-148. 13 |  Cp. my “Introduction.” 14 |  They have to be congruent if the narrative is actually nonfiction. When they are incongruent, the narrative is not nonfictional. Cp. my discussion of James Frey and Binjamin Wilkomirsky on pages 15-17.

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Warhol defines the engaging narrator as an agent who offers an empathetic communication, which the reader (in the best case) transfers from the literary characters to her own environment. I showed for postironic claims that this transfer is more easily handled (in postmodern, hyperreal times) when the reader is presented with nonfiction.

A utobiography – Postironic I diosyncrasies The preferred nonfictional form for postironic authors is easily identified: autobiographical writing. On the one hand, Eggers and Flynn present formal autobiographies: narratives that deal with long stretches of their (the respective authors’) lives and include moments of conversion typical for autobiography. On the other, Wallace and Lethem write highly subjective essays, which chiefly approach external incidents but actually negotiate the self’s analysis of its postmodern environment. I classified these essays as “autocriticism” in the definition of Smith and Watson.15 The autobiographical connects nonfiction’s inherent claim for authenticity with the subjective horizon of values carried by the postironic voice. While the reader feels familiar with the indicated world (its nonfiction status lets her accept it as part of her own world), the engaging narrator forces her to take a stance on the depicted values. The postironic narrators strengthen the reader’s immersion by constantly addressing her: the “you-address” appears constantly and not merely in order to charm the reader (cf. Wallace’s “Octet”), but mostly to allow an involvement of her judgment of the narrative’s ethical dimension. Eggers does this most prominently. In AHWOSG the narrator confronts his readers with the reproach that they were “mean and jaded” if they read his narrative as an ironic one. The explicit contention with the reader via involving possible criticisms by the reader is a postironic cornerstone. On the one hand, these writers surely preach to the converted; their success and sales figures show their obliged fan base. On the other hand, the narrators never assume their readers to be passive consumers of the texts (the narrative’s stylistic complexity does not allow passive consumption) but rather indicate their perception of them as reflective human beings who bring their own judgments and prejudices into their reading experience. Consequently, postironic nonfiction can be characterized by four major features: (1) Its inherent claim for authenticity and sincerity, (2) its quarrel with postmodernist stylistics and ideologies (metafiction and irony), (3) its attempt for a sincere communication with the reader, and (4) its perception of the reader as sincere and serious in her engagement with the text. The first feature is inherent in autobiography per se, but in connection with the second characteristic, it is idiosyncratic for postironic autobiography. Features 15 |  Cp. pages 18-20.

Conclusion

three and four can also be found in postironic fiction. They are not, however, nonfiction specific, as I have shown, but are strengthened when linked with features one and two. Whether a reader actually reads and understands the postironic narrative in the form proposed here cannot be guaranteed. I stated above that it is the individual reader’s personal act of reading that either leads to a postironic engagement (both on the narrative level as well as in the reader’s own world) or does not achieve an engaging effect. As Adorno assumed, only a reader who allows herself to live in the artwork (“[...] indem man in dem Kunstwerk darin ist [...]”) experiences the possibility of feeling full aesthetic satisfaction. For the postironic narrative, this means that the reader actually is forced to take the criticism of contemporary irony and the materialistic environment out of the text and applies it to her own world and environment. In times of constant doubt about what is real and what is fake, the autobiographer’s claim to write explicitly about his/her own self comes close to what readers expect of a truthful narrative. In all other nonfictional texts, the reader is aware that the object described is always seen subjectively and therefore lacks contemporary society’s claim to authenticity (which is due to science’s demand for telling the objective truth). In autobiography, however, the reader also expects truthfulness, but because the object and subject within autobiography are the same, a subjective view is accepted as necessary qua genre.

R eading Postironic D ifferences I introduced Alex Shakar and Jedediah Purdy, who both are, in my opinion, postironists. My discussion, however, showed that they differ from the postironic line Wallace, Eggers, Flynn, and Lethem constitute. Shakar, who has not yet published any nonfiction, is more pessimistic than the Wallace line; in his science fiction novels, the postironic establishes itself only to be instantly incorporated by consumerism. Purdy, in contrast, is very optimistic. He believes that a return to traditional values and a commitment to public service could replace the ironic zeitgeist and lead society back to a state of pre-postmodernism. His optimism seems naïve, but even in the skepticism of Wallace and Eggers, in an era of the ironic smirk, naïveté is regarded as a positive and valuable virtue and ranks above resignation. As the most influential founding texts for a postironic movement, I identified Wallace’s essays “E Unibus Pluram,” “The Conspiciously Young,” and “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky.” These texts are, in contrast to Shakar’s and Purdy’s, neither overtly optimistic nor point-blank pessimistic. Wallace analyzes contemporary society and fiction and chiefly points out what irony does to both society and contemporary art/culture. That the ironist is the prisoner who came to love his cage is one of his main conclusions. At the same time, Dostoevsky’s explicit struggle and

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literal recording of 19th century problems in Russian society serves as a model for a committed author in the present. Wallace establishes the theory that a contemporary writer who wants to go beyond mere entertainment and offer his/her readers a literature of hope needs to explicitly incorporate metafiction and irony in his/ her own narratives. Only the direct struggle with numbing metafictional irony can possibly tear the reader out of her passivity, her ironic indifference.

Postirony

in

Autobiography

Dave Eggers and Jonathan Flynn both wrote autobiographies that are above all postironic. They use their present self (the narrating I) to expose their bygone self (the narrated I) as an ironic and thereby faulty character. Tellingly, they do so in a postmodernist style that embraces the metafictional and ironic, but only in order to put emphasis on the bygone self’s hypocrisy. Their explicit address of the reader, whom they invite to judge their bygone ironic self, is in Warhol’s sense a sincere address that makes the narrators “engaging narrators” par excellence. Another notable aspect is autobiography’s typical “point of conversion” – in Eggers and Flynn, this is not restricted to one instant in the narrative but is present nevertheless. The coming-of-age aspect of these autobiographies can convince the reader of a possible growth of character. However, both Flynn and Eggers do not deny their ironic selves; they rather describe how they overcame ironic indecisiveness and established themselves as characters who are able to believe again, believe in humanistic values and the need for responsibility and freedom of choice.

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in

Autocritical E ssays

In contrast to the autobiographies by Flynn and Eggers, Wallace’s and Lethem’s autocritical essays do not negotiate the development of character from being ironic to becoming postironic. In these texts, the narrating I is a postironic voice as well, but instead of their own past, these narrators bring into focus the ironic present surrounding them. I showed that the autocritical form varies from very distinctive topics. Their significance lies in their subjective struggle of the narrating I with the depicted topic. In particular, Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” puts the experiencing narrator in an environment he harshly criticizes as superficial and hypocritical. The point of reference for these judgments is always the subjective opinion and worldview of the narrator, a fact none of Wallace’s or Lethem’s narrators tries to conceal. For a reader, a standard move to judge a nonfiction text is to look for its objectivity, a distinctive feature of nonfiction. The postironic essays, however, are not standard nonfiction but should be seen in the tradition of “literary journalism.” This form of journalistic writing not only al-

Conclusion

lows but is in need of subjectivity.16 Thus, the autocritical aspect of Lethem’s and Wallace’s narratives is bound to a tradition, but their unequivocal critique of contemporary society and their explicit usage of metafiction in a postironic sense distinguish their writing from former works of literary journalism. Moreover, their repetitive address of the reader – again like Eggers and Flynn – ­ makes the discussed autocritical essays here a typical form of postironic literature.

Concluding Thoughts Besides the technicalities of narrators, autocriticism, autobiography, metafiction, etc., I want to use the last pages of this book for a review of what I believe is the societal meaning of postirony and what role these texts play for the development of contemporary US literature. I am well aware that literature is not central to our contemporary times. It has lost its brisance in Western societies. Postironists themselves address the marginality of literature in comparison to television and the internet within their texts. But just like their refusal to accept irony’s reign, they refuse to give up on the literary oeuvre. They undertake the struggle of trying to revive serious literature’s societal condition as “value inspiring,” and while the success of Wallace, Eggers, Lethem, and Flynn never comes close to the spread of more mainstream literature, their sales figures show that they nevertheless have a devoted readership. These postironist authors differ from conservative authors – Tom Wolfe comes to mind – who also condemn many aspects of contemporary society. Postironists are understood differently by critics and readers. It seems that Wallace’s claim made in the “Dostoevsky” essay has an actual impact on the reception of postironic literature. By including the ironic and metafiction and by actively struggling with them on a diagetic battlefield instead of ignoring them, critics17 tend to understand postironists as progressive and liberal. These authors do not wish for a return to the past or a reestablishment of bygone worldviews, like Wolfe and other conservative writers do. Postironists merely attempt to oppose some contemporary developments they understand as negative for human coexistence. Nevertheless, in one aspect, a conservative claim is actually made by postironic literature. The idea that appreciation of art can only be achieved through hard work that is put into the act of perception reminds one of the protestant work ethos that has determined US society since puritan times.18 The seeming paradox that 16 |  Cp. pages 139-142. 17 |  Because I have access to critics’ opinions by reading their articles and books I can make a statement about their reception in general that I cannot make about readers. 18 |  Cp. Noll (2002).

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a narrative interested in communication with the reader complicates itself willingly through metafiction, footnotes, asides, and complex language is abolished if readers accept the narrative as a piece of art that only unfolds its inner meaning to a reader who is willing to “live in the artwork” (cp. my discussion of Adorno’s claims above). Postironic literature constantly attacks a mindset that seeks cover behind an ironic shield. Postironic literature therefore rejects convenience in general; it proposes that a fulfilled life cannot be found in consumerism or passivity. The contemporary human needs to confront his/her role in society permanently and make decisions even when they are inconvenient. The postironic narrative wants to force its readers to think through this worldview on a literary level, and the particular mode of address facilitates a thought process that goes beyond the literary realm. In this vein, my investigation of postironic nonfiction offers an insight into a particular strain of contemporary US literature. While the postironic group is only one among various others, its impact on the literary development in Western literatures will be, in my opinion, unabated in the near future. Especially Wallace, Eggers, and Lethem are oftentimes depicted as leading figures in contemporary US literature. Both their success with the reading public as well as their reputation with critics and other writers makes me believe that the postironic movement has only begun, and that a coming generation of writers will continue with the postironic project in fiction but surely also in the particular autobiographical nonfiction form I introduced in this book.

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Works Cited

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