Post-postmodernism Sighting #19

Cribbed from an archived review of David Foster Wallace's "Oblivion". The review's from n+1, which is now required reading:

"To judge by “Octet” and “Good Old Neon,” two of the best Wallace stories of recent years, he seems increasingly eager to tear down the fourth wall—or, as the narrator of “Octet” calls it, to “palpate” the reader directly—by introducing an authorial presence into the midst of his fiction: David Foster Wallace is speaking to you, and here is why. Fourth-wall-breaking constitutes a central technique for the metafictionists with whom Wallace has so often been grouped. But while the means are similar, Wallace pursues them to different ends. He has no interest in highlighting the artificiality of his art, which is and should be self-evident, but rather in communicating thought and feeling as directly as possible without shirking their complexity. The metafictionist’s tools have become part of his standard arsenal, to be used to supplement his talent for self-effacing storytelling and otherwise set aside. Wallace’s goal, finally, is to grant us complete access to his characters’ inner lives, while reminding us that such access must always be incomplete. It’s a brave and paradoxical task worthy of his full attention, and ours" (bold text mine).