How David Foster Wallace Prompted a Scalia Book

Jess Bravin:

Among the legacies of David Foster Wallace, the pioneering postmodernist who produced influential essays, short stories and the novel “Infinite Jest” before his 2008 suicide, count this: Antonin Scalia, author. Or, at least, co-author of “Reading Law,” which the justice discusses today with The Wall Street Journal.

“He was a very personable fellow,” Justice Scalia says of Mr. Wallace in an interview. “As co-Snoots, we got along very well,” he adds, using a term Mr. Wallace popularized for those whose taste in diction runs to the persnickety. According to a 2001 Wallace essay, it could stand for “Syntax Nudniks of Our Time.”

★ Tuesday, 24 July 2012