“In Wallace’s prose, the device of using three modifiers where one might have “done” achieved something similar: it showed the progress, or at least the movement, of an extremely active and searching mind, its reluctance to nail down conclusions even as it sought resolution. It codified, or maybe I should just say represented, a species of self-consciousness that people of Wallace’s and my generation (Wallace was born two and a half years after myself) believed, for better or worse, to be unique to us.”
Newton’s take on why people um and hi! and sort of through their sentences is that they basically do it to be liked. (Essentially: If you cannot locate the exact specifics of my critique, perhaps you won’t be offended by it.) “Where the craving for admiration and approval predominates, intellectual rigor cannot thrive, if it survives at all,” she writes.
But I think just as valid is what Kenny talks about here: Wallace et al’s reluctance to “nail down” conclusions was as much about a suspicion about whether such a thing was possible as it was about charming the reader.
Notes
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