{"product_id":"ordinary-unhappiness-the-therapeutic-fiction-of-david-foster-wallace-9781503609303","title":"Ordinary Unhappiness: The Therapeutic Fiction of David Foster Wallace","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn recent years, the American fiction writer David Foster Wallace has been treated as a symbol, as an icon, and even a film character. \u003ci\u003eOrdinary Unhappiness\u003c\/i\u003e returns us to the reason we all know about him in the first place: his fiction. By closely examining \u003ci\u003eInfinite Jest\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBrief Interviews with Hideous Men\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Pale King\u003c\/i\u003e, Jon Baskin points readers to the work at the center of Wallace's oeuvre and places that writing in conversation with a philosophical tradition that includes Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, and Cavell, among others. What emerges is a Wallace who not only speaks to our postmodern addictions in the age of mass entertainment and McDonald's but who seeks to address a quiet desperation at the heart of our modern lives. Freud said that the job of the therapeutic process was to turn \"hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness.\" This book makes a case for how Wallace achieved this in his fiction. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJon Baskin\u003c\/b\u003e is the Associate Director of the Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program at the New School for Social Research and a founding editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Point\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Stanford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50873445155090,"sku":"9781503609303","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_dca0ffb9-0651-48a6-ba1a-74c8ed6bb993.jpg?v=1737934848","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/ordinary-unhappiness-the-therapeutic-fiction-of-david-foster-wallace-9781503609303","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}