"Another Pioneer" is one of the shorter stories and the one which matches the content and the manner of writing best. The narrator is never identified, but speaks in a polished, academic, and ironic manner about an incident recounted to him by a friend. This incident was the conversation between two men on a plane which the friend overheard. The story that one of the men recounted to the other described a boy in an unspecified village in South America who single-handedly brought about modernizing changes in his village and acted as a prophet. The story itself is not as interesting as is the narrative voice retelling it which is persuasive and manages to engage the reader in the analysis of the second-hand story:
"Structurally, this scene apparently functions as both the climax of the protasis and the as it were engine of the narrative's rising action, because at just this point we are told that the original exemplum splits or diverges here into at least three main epitatic variants" (p. 126).
It is not the story being told that is inherently interesting, but the manner in which it is told. The narrator's voice is pompously analytical and cohesive. This story contrasts with "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" which has a much less structured theme, but whose narrator is psychologically not a model of health.
Though this collection is worth reading the style is lengthy, and verbose. The Onion has an amusing article about how a "girlfriend" stopped reading Wallace's breakup letter at page 20. Though his writing style takes some getting used to, it is arguably more rewarding to read than most books which are written in more a friendly manner.
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