The DeLillo *Mao II* "damaged infant" — a named influence for the writer-and-work relation
echoes
From: The Nature of the Fun
- Early text: "THE BEST METAPHOR I know of for being a fiction
writer is in Don DeLillo’s Mao II, where he describes a book-in-progress as
a kind of hideously damaged infant that follows the writer around" (drop-cap
caps are the edition's). [opening] [e-text]
- IJ echo: Wallace's on-record debt to DeLillo — here he takes DeLillo's own
figure to name the writer's relation to a book-in-progress; the essay is a
documentary node for the
delillo-influence proposal (DeLillo as an
acknowledged forebear of Wallace's encyclopedic, media-saturated fiction). The
connection is influence-lane, not a claim about IJ content.
- Weight: documentary (influence lane)