Clinamen

All good questions:

1) I think your use of "metanarratives" as opposed to "narratives" is useful. Manovich is drawing on narrative theory when he opposes "narrative" to "information" (he cites Mieke Bal and some others). So, he has a very specific thing in mind when he says narrative - a step-by-step guiding of a viewer/user/reader through some space (virtual, textal, otherwise).

2) It seems to me that Wallace was pushing against the novel genre in general (probably not a huge insight). I'm not entirely sure if IJ is descriptive or prescriptive, but it does (at the very least) offer a new way of presenting narrative. It's more than choose-your-own-adventure or hypertext. For me, it is (and I've used this word a couple of times) immersion.

So, I'm not sure if the novel is reacting against the power of narrative or even against the limiting aspects of a step-by-step narrative. But I love this phrase that you used: coaching of an attitude. (Is that Burke? Maybe a Burke mashup of "dancing of an attitude" and poetry as "equipment for living"?) Yes, I think this is going on. The novel was an invention for a previous time, a previous attention structure, and a previous technological age. What else can be done with new technologies, with a sped up infrastructure? This is what I think IJ offers...it is definitely an indication of where the novel can go. Wallace has faith that the novel (or something like it) will stay with us. But it will have to change.