David Foster Wallace

Why is David Foster Wallace so widely read? Why does his fiction and non-fiction continue to raise enthusiasm among an ever-growing variety of readers of all ages and backgrounds not only in the English-speaking countries but all over the world, while describing all the malcontents, dead ends and solipsistic tendencies of contemporary civilisation? Presences of the Other counteracts the vision of Wallace's postmodern oeuvre as selfishly self-absorbed, narcissistic or confining and attempts to answer the question of its appeal by addressing it as an open work, following Umberto Eco's definition of great texts. Epitomised in the missing questions of Brief Interviews; in the endnotes of Infinite Jest that entice readers into fertile wanderings; or in The Pale King demands for active editing and creative involvement, DFW's paradoxically difficult and impenetrable work opens up and allows for limitless interventions and participations. By becoming a playground for interpretation, hiswork reveals itself