INFINITE WALLACE – PARIS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE École Normale Supérieure – Paris, September 13, 2014 DAVID FOSTER WALLACE: HOMME REVOLTÉ Not Another Word: Double Binds in “Good Old Neon” by Jacopo COZZI In a interview with Charlie Rose, Wallace stated that Postmodernism: “[…] was the first text that was highly self‐conscious, self‐conscious of itself as text, self‐conscious of the writer as persona, self‐ conscious about the effects that narrative had on readers and the fact that the readers probably knew that.” Contemporary authors have been called with different name: Post‐ postmodernism, Avant‐pop, Maximalist, Millenialist, New Realism, New Sincerity, Hysterical Realism and even Recherché Postmodernism. What they have in common is the dissatisfaction with the use and conception of literature. This reaction stands as a rebellion against the collapsing of the novel in itself and the idea of a definitive exhaustion of narration. Their originality consist in the effort to break with formal and moral nihilism, to overcome the celebration of auto‐referentiality and self‐consciousness in postmodern texts, to re‐negotiate the novel as something essentially human and engage with reality. They look for a meaning for art and writing. It’s a real existential quest. But these authors differ in their rebellion and the way they live this quest. Jonathan Franzen, for instance, wants to react to postmodernist estrangement from humanity and he tries to re‐connect the novel to society by a series of corrections to his previous postmodernist books. The main correction, so to say, it’s to finally accept and