IJ study archive

Review of Karl Plank, The Fact of the Cage: Reading and Redemption in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest

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TL;DR

A short (two-page) Cambridge-repository review of Karl Plank's The Fact of the Cage: Reading and Redemption in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (Routledge 2021) — held here as a scouting document for the monograph itself, which the archive does not yet own. Through it we get the shape of Plank's argument: that IJ is "redemptive" not through a "lesson drawn" or a "moral idea" but through the "full experience of reading the thousand-page plus novel" — its demanding style, what it asks of the reader, is "redemptive of what it means to be a human being." Plank builds a theological reading (chapters on encagement, "Contending with the Cage", "The Redemption of Boneless Christs", "The Redemption of the Reader") drawing on Buber, Levinas, and Csikszentmihalyi's flow, foregrounding the importance of minor characters ("figurants") and the Christ-figure "applied primarily, though not exclusively, to Don Gately". The reviewer (Scott Annett) is broadly admiring but flags one weakness: Plank's claim that the "reader should assume Wallace has said precisely what he has intended to say" rests on an uncertain "seems", which "reveals a lack of theoretical sophistication at this moment that belies the strength of the work as a whole". Useful as a map of a theological IJ monograph worth acquiring.

Key claims (as the review reports Plank)

  • The redemption thesis. IJ is redemptive because of the "full experience of reading the thousand-page plus novel," not a moral idea — engagement with fiction is "also of reflecting upon a reading experience" shaped by form and style, and through it a reader "might change, or even 'get better.'" Ch. 1: "Reading to Become Better", an "ethics of fiction" dependent on empathy and affect.
  • Encagement. Ch. 2, "The Predicament of Encagement": characters' crises of "encagement" via addiction, depression, and distraction (through entertainment). Plank stresses the importance of minor characters ("figurants") — e.g. "the old nurse in the dementia ward who screams “Help”" a handful of times — and, on Kate Gompert: "Caged in a mode of being empty of anything but the mind’s own concepts, the anhedonic cannot be of help and is ultimately alone."
  • Contending / Abide. Ch. 3 turns to Csikszentmihalyi's flow, Buber, and Levinas's "revelation of faces", and to the capacity to "Abide" (Wallace's capital) — "the way the mind’s self-consciousness brings its own harm and seeks to discipline it through an intense concentration on the present moment."
  • The Christ-figure. Ch. 4, "The Redemption of Boneless Christs": the Christ-figure "applied primarily, though not exclusively, to Don Gately," the recovering addict enduring "unnarcotized post-trauma-infection-pain."
  • The reader's redemption. Ch. 5 returns to "can reading Infinite Jest make one in some way better?" — Plank unequivocal: "if it takes away entertainment, it provides the hope for encounter with a fuller, living reality…"
  • The reviewer's caveat. Plank argues that the "reader should assume Wallace has said precisely what he has intended to say and in the way he wants to say it", because, in Plank's view, "he seems to have earned the right to that assumption"; Annett: "The strain in Plank’s uncertain verb (“seems”) reveals a lack of theoretical sophistication at this moment that belies the strength of the work as a whole."

Theories & evidence

THEORY: Infinite Jest is redemptive as an experience of reading — its demanding form, not any stated moral, works on the reader; minor characters ("figurants") and the Gately Christ-figure carry the hope of becoming less lonely and encaged

  • Crux: figurant-design
  • Stance: mentions
  • Evidence:
    • [secondary] Plank foregrounds the importance of "minor characters (or “figurants”, as they are described in the novel, 45)" — e.g. "the old nurse in the dementia ward who screams “Help”". [p. 1, reporting Plank pp. 42, 45]
    • [secondary] The Christ-figure "applied primarily, though not exclusively, to Don Gately," enduring "unnarcotized post-trauma-infection-pain" (IJ 885, via Plank). [p. 2, Plank p. 144]
    • [secondary] Redemption located in the "full experience of reading" and the capacity to "Abide" — present-moment concentration. [pp. 1-2, Plank pp. 3, 10]
  • Notes: This is a REVIEW reporting a monograph, at review tier — hence mentions (the theory is Plank's, transmitted second-hand). Its archive job is the acquisition lead for The Fact of the Cage. Touches figurant-design (Plank's use of the figurant motif for the humane-design reading), the recovery/ Gately-Christ strand, and the reading-as-therapy thread. No cruxes adjudicated; the reviewer's one criticism (Plank's weak grounding of authorial intention) is recorded per the counterevidence clause.

Themes

Theology and literature (redemption, the Christ-figure); ethics of reading (fiction as self-transformation); encagement (addiction, depression, distraction); minor characters / figurants; Gately as recovering addict and Christ-figure; attention and "Abide".

Cross-references

Notable passages

Verbatim from the review (Annett's prose; his quotations of Plank as marked).

  • Plank's thesis (via Annett): IJ is not "redemptive" by virtue of a "lesson drawn" or a "moral idea", but because of the "full experience of reading the thousand-page plus novel" (Plank 10).
  • On the anhedonic (Plank on Kate Gompert): "Caged in a mode of being empty of anything but the mind’s own concepts, the anhedonic cannot be of help and is ultimately alone."
  • On Gately: the Christ-figure is "applied primarily, though not exclusively, to Don Gately".
  • The reviewer's caveat: Plank's "uncertain verb (“seems”) reveals a lack of theoretical sophistication at this moment that belies the strength of the work as a whole."

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