The Fact of the Cage: Reading and Redemption in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest

205 Pages·2021·3.624 MB·English

by  Karl A. Plank

The Fact of the Cage
David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest raised expectations of what a novel
might do. As he understood fiction to aim at what it means to be human, so
he hoped his work might relieve the loneliness of human suffering. In that
light,TheFactoftheCage showshowWallace’smasterpiecedramatizesthe
condition of encagement and how it comes to be met by “Abiding” and
through inter-relational acts of speaking and hearing, touching, and facing.
Revealing Wallace’s theology of a “boneless Christ,” The Fact of the Cage
wagers that reading such a novel as Infinite Jest makes available to readers
the redemption glimpsed in its pages, that reading fiction has ethical and
religious significance—in short, that reading Infinite Jest makes one better.
As such, Plank’s work takes steps to defend the ethics of fiction, the vital
relation between religion and literature, and why one just might read at all.
KarlA.PlankistheJ.W.CannonProfessorofReligiousStudiesatDavidson
College, USA. The author of Paul and the Irony of Affliction and Mother
of the Wire Fence: Inside and Outside the Holocaust, he has published stu-
dies in journals such as Religion and Literature, Literature and Theology,
Anglican Theological Review, and Cistercian Studies.
Routledge Studies in Contemporary Literature
43. Poetry and the Question of Modernity
From Heidegger to the Present
Ian Cooper
44. Apocalyptic Territories
Setting and Revelation in Contemporary American Fiction
Anna Hellén
45. Displaced
Literature of Indigeneity, Migration, and Trauma
Edited by Kate Rose
46. Masculinities in Austrian Contemporary Literature
Strategic Evasion
Matthias Eck
47. Transcending the Postmodern
The Singular Response of Literature to the Transmodern Paradigm
Edited by Jean-Michel Ganteau and Susana Onega
48. The Politics of Literature in a Divided 21st Century
Katharina Donn
49. All Along Bob Dylan
America and the World
Tymon Adamczewski
50. The Fact of the Cage
Reading and Redemption in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest
Karl A. Plank
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-Contemporary-Literature/book-series/RSCL
The Fact of the Cage
Reading and Redemption in David Foster
’ fi
Wallace s In nite Jest
Karl A. Plank
Firstpublished2021
byRoutledge
52VanderbiltAvenue,NewYork,NY10017
andbyRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninforma
business
©2021Taylor&Francis
TherightofKarlA.Planktobeidentifiedasauthorofthisworkhasbeen
assertedbyhiminaccordancewithsections77and78oftheCopyright,
DesignsandPatentsAct1988.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproduced
orutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,
nowknownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,
orinanyinformationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissionin
writingfromthepublishers.
Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksor
registeredtrademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationand
explanationwithoutintenttoinfringe.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Plank,KarlA.(KarlAndrews),author.
Title:Thefactofthecage:readingandredemptioninDavidFoster
Wallace’sInfinitejest/KarlA.Plank.
Description:NewYork,NY:Routledge,2021.|Series:Routledgestudies
incontemporaryliterature|Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2020039809
Subjects:LCSH:Wallace,DavidFoster.Infinitejest.|Wallace,David
Foster–Religion.|Redemptioninliterature.|Booksandreading–Moral
andethicalaspects.
Classification:LCCPS3573.A425635I543752021|DDC813/.54–dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020039809
ISBN:978-0-367-61134-7(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-003-10429-2(ebk)
TypesetinSabon
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
For Kathleen

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Copyright Acknowledgements x
Introduction: In Praise of One Good Reading 1
1 Reading to Become Better: An Approach to Infinite Jest 7
2 The Predicament of Encagement 40
3 Contending with the Cage: Abiding and Breaking Through 82
4 The Redemption of Boneless Christs 124
5 The Redemption of the Reader 154
Bibliography 184
General Index 189
Index of Characters 192
Acknowledgements
David Foster Wallace emphasized to his students that writing was an act of
communication more than self-expression. We write best, he suggested,
while remembering that there are others at the far end of the line, persons
who are waiting, listening, and inviting forth the language that is ours to
give. Theirs is the real gift.
I am grateful and mindful of many, not least of all the students who have
beenontheline,joiningmeinthejoysofpursuingthegoodreadingofgood
texts day after day, class after class, for nearly the past forty years. Such
reading has been the drumbeat of my teaching at Davidson, and that we
have read together a source of lasting pleasure. This book is an homage to
these students and what we have shared.
Colleagues and friends have been generous in their encouragement, inter-
est, and taking time to consider portions of this writing as it was develop-
ing. Thank you to Carol Frazer, Brad Goldsmith, Mark Ledbetter, Rachel
Pang, Davis Perkins, Greg Snyder, and Rizwan Zamir; and to Trent Foley
and Andy Lustig, for all the generosities above, plus keen insights and the
right sort of camaraderie during the submission process.
Thankfully, that process led this work to the desk of Jennifer Abbott at
Routledge. Her support of the project from our first contact onward has
been key in bringing it to fulfillment. She and her fine editorial assistant,
Mitchell Manners, have made the path to publication smooth, efficient,
friendly andexpert in everyregard. I tip myhatto Jen, Mitchell, and allthe
staff at Routledge who have turned a hopeful manuscript into a finished
book.
Lastly, I appreciate beyond measure another group whose lavish attention
to this project—and to me—went well beyond the bounds of long-standing
friendship, collegial kindness, and, in certain cases, familial ties and spousal
promises. My deep gratitude goes to Gail Gibson, Randy Nelson, Steven
Plank,andKathleenBlackwell-Plank.Thesegoodpeoplenotonlyreadand
commented on the entire work in its draft, but kept the ground steady
under my feet, and bid those feet to keep moving forward from one chapter
toanother.Theirswasanearandfinecompanyfromstarttofinish,anample
supply of bounty. Thank you is not enough, but simply, thank you.
Acknowledgements ix
Of Kathleen Blackwell-Plank, one more word. Not long after we were
married, we had occasion to host one of my mentors for a small dinner at
ourhomeinNorthCarolina.Heknewmewell,butthiswashisfirsttimeto
meetKathleen.Afterwardhewrotemealetterinwhichhesaid,“Ithinkshe
isyourredemptrix.”Ithinkhewasright.Thisbookisdedicatedtoherwith
love and gratitude.
I finished writing the manuscript of this book in the early summer of
2019, but am seeing it into publication during the season of pandemic that
has come about us since the spring of 2020, a time that has required its own
kind of encagement. With Infinite Jest, Wallace was there before us por-
traying not only the human cage, but the freighted significance of touch,
unmasked faces, and speech in the direct presence of another—the modes of
interaction which once seemed natural to us and now, nearly lost. Yet,
Infinite Jest reminds us that these, too, no less than the bars that confine us,
are part of what it means to be a human being and will be ours again, ours
still. Abide, we might hear him to say. Abide, all.
KAP
May 2020