/lit/ - Literature

>>18972431
It’s a book that flatters the reader. Wallace’s project, as he himself said, was to dress clichés up in intellectual garb, because he believed cliché was ultimately a form of truth. Because the syntax is difficult, the reader gets the false impression that the ideas are difficult as well. Understanding a platitude therefore feels like grasping a deep truth. But this is only an illusion, and it falls apart once you recognize the trick. The inability to do so is the mark of the pseud — he can’t distinguish between presentation and content.