This chapter considers Wallace’s use of individual language and narrative as a means for self-creation, from the heavily be-nicknamed LaVache in Broom, who molds his vocabulary to evade communication with his family, to the impersonal marketing argots of commercial focus groups, by way of the community-forming ritual recitations of AA. The chapter highlights Wallace’s extraordinarily prolific (though not uniformly successful) mimesis of vernacular, noting some of the more interesting failures of his career in this respect, including “Solomon Silverfish” and sections of Infinite Jest. This chapter elucidates the operation of language, both monologic and dialogic, as key to Wallace’s aesthetic project and as a central weapon in his ethical strategy for overcoming solipsism, involving sincerity, cooperation and absolute faith in the other.

Wallace’s public image is of an insular and profoundly American figure, whose work is strongly aligned with US postmodernist heritages and persistently categorized in geographical and national – even regional – terms. Wallace himself invited and directed many such interpretations, referring constantly to his Americanness. However, as numerous scholars have noted over the years, this US-focused lens obscures the many global threads that run through his writing. This chapter explores the European traditions that influenced Wallace, focusing particularly on German and Russian writers and philosophers. Drawing lines between Wallace and Goethe, Dostoyevsky, Kafka and Hesse among others, the chapter explores some of the specific forms of aesthetic inspiration he took from European traditions. Paying close attention to formal techniques within Wallace’s prose allows us to see the particular literary devices he felt free to appropriate within his own context. The political implications of such appropriations are carefully examined, as are questions relating to what Wallace might justifiably have expected his readers to notice or else be unaware of. Building on the work of Jacobs, Boswell and Den Dulk, among others, this chapter argues for the centrality of European literature as a crucial context in which to interpret Wallace’s work and to come to terms with his formidable literary achievements.