Communication vs. solipsism — writing as the "I EXIST" signal out of the sealed head
echoes
From: The Empty Plenum: David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress
- Early text: the writing-urge "springs from the doubly-bound panic
felt by most persons who spend a lot of time up in their own personal heads";
"“I EXIST” is the signal that throbs under most voluntary writing—& all good
writing."; the late-Wittgenstein proof that language "depends on some sort of
communicative community". [the "most people who somehow must write must write"
passage + the PI exposition] [e-text]
- IJ echo: IJ's central opposition of self-enclosure to contact — the
addict's and depressive's solipsism vs. the AA fellowship that works only
through communication with others; the novel's anxiety that the self is sealed
and that language may or may not reach across. Wallace's "I EXIST" and his
invocation of the anti-private-language argument are the philosophical statement
of the problem IJ dramatizes.
- Weight: shared-preoccupation