Literature of the Americas Literature of the Americas 2541-7894 2542-243X IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2021-11-134-154 Articles Dostoevsky and David Foster Wallace: On Parallel Tracks? 2021 Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 The article discusses ways in which David Foster Wallace engages with Dostoevsky’s life and works. The article points out that Wallace’s commencement speech, “This Is Water,” makes no direct references to Dostoevsky, yet the moral and spiritual values that he enunciates share common ground with those of the Russian writer. The article then turns its attention to Wallace’s review of four of Dostoevsky scholar Joseph Frank’s five volumes devoted to Dostoevsky’s writings, life, and the historical, intellectual, and cultural contexts into which they fit. Wallace admires the way in which Dostoevsky’s novels address important issues, including isolation and nihilism, facing Russia in the 1860s. The American writer sees a similarity between that isolation of the 1860s and the isolation prevalent in the United States in the 1990s. The article then analyzes Wallace’s 1996 novel, Infinite Jest, and the ways in which he indirectly weaves into the text references to Dostoevsky’s fiction, primarily, but not exclusively, The Brothers Karamazov. Also discussed are a few parallels with Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and Demons. The article describes Wallace’s focus on the detrimental effects that isolation leads to in contemporary America. The article explains that Wallace declared that in Infinite Jest, he wanted to reflect the distracted, fractured way in which contemporary people think. The article states that given this goal, it makes sense that the references to Dostoevsky’s works in Infinite Jest are also fractured. They are in bits and pieces. 1. Burn 2012 — Burn, Stephen J. David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest”: A Reader’s Guide. 2nd ed. London: Continuum, 2012. 2. Dostoevsky 2011 — Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Edited by Susan McReynolds Oddo. Translated by Constance Garnett. Revised by Ralph E. Matlaw and Susan McReynolds Oddo. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011. 3. Dostoevsky 1989 — Dostoevsky, Fedor. Crime and Punishment. Edited by George Gibian. Translated by Jesse Coulson. New York: W.W. Norton, 1989. 4. Dostoevsky 2003 — Dostoevsky, Fyodor. “Notes from Underground” and “The Double”. Translated by Jessie Coulson. London: Penguin, 2003. 5. Dostoevsky 1972 –1990 — Dostoevsky, Fedor M. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: v 30 t. [Complete Works, in 30 vols.]. Leningrad: Nauka Publ., 1972 –1990. (In Russ.) 6. Jacobs 2007 — Jacobs, Timothy. “The Brothers Incandenza: Translating Ideology in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 49, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 265 –292. 7. Lipsky 2010 — Lipsky, David. Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace. New York: Broadway Books, 2010. 8. Max 2013 — Max, D. T. Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. New York: Penguin Books, 2013. 9. Morrison 2019 — Morrison, Toni. The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. 10. Pietsch, Moody 2012 — Pietsch, Michael, and Rick Moody. “On Editing David Foster Wallace: An Interview.” In The Legacy of David Foster Wallace, edited by Samuel Cohen and Lee Konstantinou, 208 –217. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2012. 11. 12. Thompson 2016 — Thompson, Lucas. Global Wallace: David Foster Wallace and World Literature. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. 13. Wallace 2018 — Wallace, David Foster. Beskonechnaia shutka [Infinite Jest]. Translated by Sergei Karpov and Aleksei Poliarinov. St. Peterburg: Astrel'-SPb Publ., 2018. (In Russ.) 14. Wallace 2007 — Wallace, David Foster. Consider the Lobster and Other Essays. New York: Back Bay Books / Little, Brown, 2007. 15. Wallace 1997 — Wallace, David Foster. “David Foster Wallace Interview on Charlie Rose (1997)”. Interview by Charlie Rose, March 27, 1997. Transcript and video, 32:35. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GopJ1x7vK2Q. 16. Wallace 2016 — Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest. New York: Back Bay Books / Little, Brown, 2016. 17. Wallace 2009 — Wallace, David Foster. This Is Water: Some Thoughts Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life. New York: Little, Brown, 2009.