The Howling Fantods

David Foster Wallace News and Resources Since March 97

  • Increase font size
  • Default font size
  • Decrease font size
Home

Eugenides Answers Wallace Character Question

Updated 8/10/11
 
Back in July there were some discussions about the reportedly 'Wallace-like' character in Jeffrey Eugenides' new novel, The Marriage Plot.
 
 

[WSJ] A number of early reviews noted similarities between Leonard and David Foster Wallace. Leonard wears a bandana and chews tobacco, and is a brilliant philosophical polymath who's depressive and stops taking his meds, all traits that match Wallace. Were you purposefully evoking him?

[JE] No. I started this in the '90s. It's the bandana that I think makes people think it was him. I was thinking like Axl Rose from Guns N' Roses, and other people I knew in college. It was popular to wear a bandana for people who would be in the co-op and play hacky sack. I think that was it.  
 
8/10/11
 
James Ley weighs in on all this over at The Medusa vs. The Odalisque. Lay has read, and reviewed, The Marriage Plot, and thinks Eugenides is being disingenuous:
 
So it's not just the bandana, which is not even the only reference to quirky Wallacean headgear in the novel. At one point in The Marriage Plot, Leonard is seen in a photograph that depicts him 'standing in a snowy field, wearing a comically tall stocking cap'. Now, where have I seen a photo like that before ... ? (Continue reading)
Share
Last Updated on Sunday, 09 October 2011 09:19