Narcissism
An excessive preoccupation with the self — popularly used as shorthand for vanity or self-absorption, and clinically codified as Narcissistic Personality Disorder, characterised by grandiosity, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. The term shades into ordinary self-consciousness at one end and into manipulative or pathological behaviour at the other. A recurring concern in David Foster Wallace's work, where it is repeatedly diagnosed as the hidden flip side of self-loathing, depression, and the recursive trap of being unable to stop thinking about how you are perceived.
Episodes
- 30. Banned books: Vladimir Nabokov's infamous Lolita
- 29. Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle: Autofiction and autofellation
- 14. The Razor's Edge, part 3: Climbing off the wheel of suffering
- 10. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, part 2: If you can fake sincerity you've got it made
- 9. David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, part 1: Weaponised therapy-speak
Fleeting mentions
- 41. Truth of Fact, Truth of Fiction: Is Ted Chiang a Luddite?
- 31. The Moviegoer: In which we escape a deep existential malaise
- 22. Susanna Clarke's Piranesi: Gaslight gatekeep girlboss
- 17. Frankenstein, part 2: Nature vs nurture
- 11. Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, part 3: Was David Foster Wallace a hideous man?
- 7. Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, part 2: Portrait of the autist as an old man
- 6. Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, part 1: Skill issue