The Broom of the System
E378541
The Broom of the System is David Foster Wallace’s debut novel, a postmodern, comic exploration of language, identity, and reality set in a surreal version of Cleveland.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Broom of the System canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3675716 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Broom of the System Context triple: [Infinite Jest, follows, The Broom of the System]
-
A.
The Cat's-Paw
The Cat's-Paw is a 1934 American comedy film starring Harold Lloyd as a naive missionary’s son unwittingly drawn into small-town political corruption.
-
B.
The Flying Housewife
The Flying Housewife was the nickname of Dutch sprinter and hurdler Fanny Blankers-Koen, a four-time gold medalist at the 1948 Olympics who became an icon for combining elite athletics with motherhood.
-
C.
The Scapegoat
The Scapegoat is a famous 1856 painting by Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt depicting a lone goat symbolically burdened with the sins of the people in a desolate landscape.
-
D.
The Debacle
The Debacle is the English title of Émile Zola’s historical novel depicting the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Second French Empire.
-
E.
The Limehouse Golem
The Limehouse Golem is a 2016 British gothic horror-mystery film, based on Peter Ackroyd’s novel "Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem," about a series of gruesome murders in Victorian London.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Broom of the System Target entity description: The Broom of the System is David Foster Wallace’s debut novel, a postmodern, comic exploration of language, identity, and reality set in a surreal version of Cleveland.
-
A.
The Cat's-Paw
The Cat's-Paw is a 1934 American comedy film starring Harold Lloyd as a naive missionary’s son unwittingly drawn into small-town political corruption.
-
B.
The Flying Housewife
The Flying Housewife was the nickname of Dutch sprinter and hurdler Fanny Blankers-Koen, a four-time gold medalist at the 1948 Olympics who became an icon for combining elite athletics with motherhood.
-
C.
The Scapegoat
The Scapegoat is a famous 1856 painting by Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt depicting a lone goat symbolically burdened with the sins of the people in a desolate landscape.
-
D.
The Debacle
The Debacle is the English title of Émile Zola’s historical novel depicting the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Second French Empire.
-
E.
The Limehouse Golem
The Limehouse Golem is a 2016 British gothic horror-mystery film, based on Peter Ackroyd’s novel "Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem," about a series of gruesome murders in Victorian London.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
novel
ⓘ
postmodern novel ⓘ |
| author | David Foster Wallace ⓘ |
| character |
Lenore Beadsman
ⓘ
Lenore Beadsman’s great-grandmother ⓘ Rick Vigorous ⓘ |
| containsElement |
corporate satire
ⓘ
legal depositions ⓘ stories within stories ⓘ telephone conversations ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| debutWorkOf | David Foster Wallace ⓘ |
| exploresTheme |
communication
ⓘ
identity ⓘ language ⓘ philosophy of language ⓘ reality ⓘ selfhood ⓘ |
| firstEditionFormat | hardcover ⓘ |
| genre |
comic novel
ⓘ
postmodern literature ⓘ |
| hasCoverArtist | Terry Koppel ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 0-670-81425-0 ⓘ |
| hasReprintFormat | paperback ⓘ |
| hasReprintPublisher |
Abacus
ⓘ
Penguin Books ⓘ |
| hasStyle |
comic
ⓘ
experimental ⓘ metafictional ⓘ |
| hasSubjectCategory |
1980s novels
ⓘ
American novels ⓘ debut novels ⓘ |
| influencedBy | Ludwig Wittgenstein ⓘ |
| isPartOfAuthorOeuvre | works of David Foster Wallace ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryMovement | postmodernism ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Lenore Beadsman ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | third-person ⓘ |
| notableFor |
being David Foster Wallace’s first published novel
ⓘ
its philosophical underpinnings ⓘ its playful use of language ⓘ |
| originalPublisherImprint |
Penguin Books
ⓘ
surface form:
Viking Penguin
|
| pageCount | 467 ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1987 ⓘ |
| publisher |
The Viking Press
ⓘ
surface form:
Viking Press
|
| settingLocation |
Cleveland
ⓘ
surface form:
Cleveland, Ohio
|
| settingType | surreal version of Cleveland ⓘ |
| timePeriodOfSetting | late 20th century ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Broom of the System Description of subject: The Broom of the System is David Foster Wallace’s debut novel, a postmodern, comic exploration of language, identity, and reality set in a surreal version of Cleveland.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.