The determined pursuit of pleasure that Wallace anatomizes in the nonfiction is the same American preoccupation…
echoes
From: Infinite Jester (Tom Laskin, Isthmus, Feb 7 1997)
- Early text: n/a (interview) — Laskin: Infinite Jest spent "a good deal" of
its length "gazing with fascination at America's love affair with corporate
hype," and A Supposedly Fun Thing "bites down hard on various American
preoccupations, particularly the determined pursuit of pleasure"; Wallace's own
gloss on the fair is "God, what idiots we all are when we decide to have fun with
a capital F."
- IJ echo: the pleasure/entertainment critique the novel executes — the
"fun with a capital F" that curdles into compulsion is the affective core the
Entertainment literalizes.
- Weight: shared-preoccupation