In “Authority and American Usage,” Wallace applauds Bryan A. Garner’s ingenous appeal to ethos his A Dictionary of Modern American Usage. Garner, according to Wallace, is able to transcend (and possibly solve) the descriptivist vs. prescriptivist issue by establishing himself as an authority figure – “a professional who realizes that he can give good advice but can’t make you take it” (123).
I think that this ability to cultivate authority is also one of Wallace’s unique writerly trademarks. I remember when I first read Wallace, one of the things that I was most taken with was his how he could get me to just trust him. We’ve discussed in class to some extent how he does this – sincerity, encyclopedic research, compassion, sheer intellect, sensitivity, and pyrotechnic skill all seem to contribute to this effect.
These aren’t so different from Garner’s imputed qualities:
“It turns out that ADMAU’s preface quietly and steadily invests Garner with every single qualification of medern technocratic authority: passionate devition, reason and accountability…experience…exhaustive and tech-savvy research…an even and judicious temperament…and the sort of humble integrity that not only renders Garner likable but transmits the kind of reverence for English that good jurists have for the law, both of which are bigger and more important that any one person” (123-124).
I can’t help but feel that the same things apply for Wallace. Even in this essay, Wallace abides by the same technocratic principles that make Garner so sucessful. Wallace’s willingness to take on the issue of authority and american usage, explain to the reader why it’s a relevant issue, provide copious research and background to support his arguments, convey sincerity and humility, communicate an issue that’s bigger than himself (the democratic spirit), all persuade me to submit to his, Wallace’s, authority.
This happens for me in every Wallace essay, without fail.
Similar feelings anyone?
6 responses so far ↓
kk // 20 April 2009 at 4.32 pm
I think your point about Wallace’s “authorial authority” is quite interesting, and one I haven’t really considered before. Wallace comes across as an “expert” in nearly all of his non-fiction pieces; as you said, I just seem to naturally trust him and his facts and observations. He could probably feed me some bogus line about how gravity doesn’t actually exist and, simply because of his commanding presence of authority, I’d believe him. I wonder how that changes our readings of his nonfiction, or even if other people tend to feel the same way? Why is it important that Wallace has such an authoritative presence in his works?
meg // 20 April 2009 at 6.37 pm
This is especially interesting to consider when you remember our discussions about Everything and More, and what it meant for authorial authority if there were so many errors. The fact that we still just trust Wallace in reading everything else (at least, as you two and I do) after realizing he does not necessarily know everything is rather peculiar, and I think certainly points to the idea that Wallace himself brilliant at what he claims Garner does. While we can’t know for sure whether or not all readers think of Wallace as an “expert,” I think the basic fact of Wallace’s popularity implies that a lot of people find his authority convincing on at least a basic level.
meg // 20 April 2009 at 6.39 pm
*Wallace himself is brilliant
(never have found where comments could be edited…)
tammy // 21 April 2009 at 6.53 pm
Yes, I agree with you completely. When I read this article, I definitely sensed that the article itself was an emulation of Garner’s ADMAU. In particular, consider the quote: “A distinctive feature of ADMAU is that its author is willing to acknowledge that a usage dictionary is not a bible or even a textbook but rather just the record of one bright person’s attempts to work out answers to certain very difficult questions” (72). It seems that throughout the article, Wallace works through difficult problems such as the social implications of the language one uses, PCE, and how to garner the reader’s trust, all without forcefully asserting himself, but rather musing and proposing.
One issue, however, is that Wallace praises Garner’s argumentative strategy as “totally brilliant and totally sneaky, and part of both qualities is that it usually doesn’t seem like there’s even a argument going on at all.” Wallace, on the other hand, explicitly states his thesis and corollaries. Are the ones that he states, however, necessarily the argument that he actually makes? Is Wallace’s argument ultimately implicit, totally brilliant and sneaky such that it “doesn’t seem like there’s even an argument going on at all”?
hopscotch // 22 April 2009 at 12.00 pm
I agree with this post, and that Wallace does make us trust him nearly always. In response to Meg’s comment: I was thinking about Everything and More also as I was reading this post and our discussion of it. This essay and this particular post on this essay finally allows me to articulate why the errors matter, and it is precisely because it is almost a violation of trust. On the other hand, though, it gives us a reminder that Wallace is indeed human.
erinlikescupcakes // 22 April 2009 at 12.52 pm
This whole element of trust between reader and author makes me wonder how often that trust can be abused. I don’t want to assume that Wallace has abused the reader-author relationship, but in many of the stories in Oblivion I felt like he got me to hang onto the end and then didn’t quite deliver the “meat” that I was waiting for. I’m not saying that the author’s duty is to deliver what we want, but with this earned trust in hand, Wallace has the ability to make claims that we will easily accept. I think there is a tendency for Wallace’s loyal readers to forgo a sense of critical reading because we feel like he is an old friend. I find it really important to remember that this relationship still exists, to acknowledge how much power we are placing into his words, and to think carefully about what we are accepting.