Review of David Foster Wallace’s Oblivion. That sounds like me, unfortunately.
I like DFW and find some of his work, “Mister Squishy,” for example, to be almost excessively affecting. There remains something stylized and unnatural, perhaps even inhuman, about his stories, however.
I suspect that reflects his artistic intent, but it renders the literature less than completely artful to me. Another way of saying this: his literature is slightly too encumbered by ideas, and his characters and plots are subservient to what I consider to be socio-philosophical themes.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think such themes (and the mannered plotting they inspire) are destined to be more ephemeral than the novelistic or existential themes that mark really exceptional literature.