David Foster Wallace and the mathematics of infinity

While Wallace’s nonfiction is voraciously eclectic—exploring film, pornography, luxury cruises—the only time that he devoted an entire book of his nonfiction to a single subject was when he completed his 2004 study of Cantorian mathematics. Everything and More ’s very uniqueness may make it seem an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLettera matematica PRISTEM. Vol. 3; no. 4; pp. 245 - 253
Main Author Natalini, Roberto
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Milan Springer Milan 01.12.2015
Subjects
Applications of Mathematics
History of Mathematical Sciences
History of Science
Mathematical and Computational Physics
Mathematical Methods in Physics
Mathematics
Mathematics and Statistics
Theoretical
Conic sections
Structure of a novel
Inversion
Infinity
David Foster Wallace
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN2281-6917
2281-6917
DOI10.1007/s40329-015-0111-3

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Summary:While Wallace’s nonfiction is voraciously eclectic—exploring film, pornography, luxury cruises—the only time that he devoted an entire book of his nonfiction to a single subject was when he completed his 2004 study of Cantorian mathematics. Everything and More ’s very uniqueness may make it seem an anomalous subset of Wallace’s output, yet—this essay argues—Wallace often drew upon math as a way address truths that were difficult to reach through language’s looping systems. Though mathematical ideas are present in the short story collections Girl with Curious Hair and Oblivion , and Infinite Jest provides the stage for Wallace’s most systematic use of mathematical concepts, and conformal transformations, in particular, can be located in that novel’s complicated approach to consciousness.
ISSN:2281-6917
2281-6917
DOI:10.1007/s40329-015-0111-3