How odd I can have all this inside me, and to you it's just words.
— David Foster Wallace, The Pale King, pg. 758
The Pale King is the last novel to be published by David Foster Wallace. It was released in 2011, 3 years after Wallace committed suicide in his garage at home in Southern California. The novel was technically unfinished at the time of Wallace's death; it was compiled and edited by his long-time friend and editor at Little Brown Books, Michael Pietsch. Pietsch was encouraged to complete the novel by members of Wallace's family, including his wife, Karen Green.
Even though The Pale King can't really be considered a "competed" novel, it's still a blessing that it's been shared with the world. I think it's more fitting that Wallace's final work has become an accessible text for his fans to enjoy, as opposed to it being sent to a university or archived somewhere. Wallace was supposedly working on this novel for almost 10 years—I'm really glad all his efforts were not wasted.
David Foster Wallace's progressive, post-modern writing has been highly praised, by both academics and the literary community as a whole. His body of work is considered some of the best fiction of the last century, and his magnum opus, Infinite Jest , is touted as one of the greatest novels of all time. Wallace's work has inspired and enriched the lives of many people; I believe he had much more to share with the world. One listen to his 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech makes it clear that his words had the power to reveal the beauty and abundance of life around us, while also providing a sense of clarity and perspective.
Wallace suffered from depression for much of his adult life, and he likely battled with addiction and substance abuse at times. These are prevalent themes in many of his stories; it seems like Wallace wrote these traits into his characters as a way of dealing with his own feelings. In the process, he provided companionship and empathy for those affected by similar troubles.
Do u even DFW bro?
I read Infinite Jest in 2015, and it took me nearly a year to complete it. I read it due to its reputation mostly...I'm definitely not a contemporary fiction aficionado by any means. Reading Infinite Jest was a very personal experience; it took me awhile to understand the direction of the novel. Wallace's writing is as important to the novel as the story itself; it's almost like the plot is a subterranean layer, meant to be impressed upon rather than spelled out for the reader. Not that the plot mattered much anyways. Wallace wasn't one to ruin a good story by providing a tidy, satisfactory finale. That's why it's not too important that The Pale King wasn't completelyfinished, in my opinion. Reaching a coherent ending is not the primary goal of Wallace's stories.
I think part of why Wallace is so highly regarded amongst literary critics is because he respects the reader's intelligence. He doesn't spoon-feed us obvious plot points and character motivations that could be inferred instead. His unique syntactical flourishes are also provocative and memorable; he can take readers of all backgrounds out of their comfort zone. It definitely requires focus while reading, but the tradeoff is a more interesting, immersive reading experience.
On the other hand, this sort of rationalization may play into the reader's ego and make them feel more intelligent if they can decipher this unconventional writing style. This incentivizes the reader to praise and tout the novel's quality to others. Then the reader may relish in their superior literary taste, and the sense that they belong to an exclusive group of individuals that can actually understand and appreciate the book.
Or maybe that's just being cynical.
...I do totally feel all those things though.
The Pale King
I felt like The Pale King was more approachable than Infinite Jest. The prose wasn't as experimental and it was more coherent overall. But it was similar in structure and definitely very Wallace-esque still; like there wasn't a linear narrative to the story, it was revealed in bits and pieces.
Chapters are mostly isolated from each other and could be treated as short vignettes. This might be because the book wasn't finished so Pietsch had to work with the drafts and notes available to construct a complete story. But if this excerpt from Pietsch's forward is any indication, it sounds like the gaps are intentional:
Some notes among David's manuscript pages suggest that he did not intend for the novel to have a plot substantially beyond the chapters here. One note says the novel is "a series of setups for things to happen but nothing ever happens." Another points out that there are three "high-end players... but we never see them, only their aides and advance men." Still another suggests that throughout the novel "something big threatens to happen but doesn't actually happen." These lines could support a contention that the novel's apparent incompleteness is in fact intentional.
— Michael Pietsch, The Pale King pg. 8
What was the purpose of this story? What was Wallace trying to convey by writing The Pale King? Pietsch remarks on this in the forward as well:
Even unfinished, it is a brilliant work, an exploration of some of life's deepest challenges, and an enterprise of extraordinary artistic daring. David set out to write a novel about some of the hardest subjects in the world—sadness and boredom—and to make that exploration nothing less than dramatic, funny, and deeply moving.
— Pietsch, pg. 10
It's evident after reading The Pale King that the recurring themes throughout the novel are boredom, monotony, loneliness, and discipline—how these concepts relate to each other and the various forms they adopt in our lives.
That's not to say that the entire book is only about dullness and boredom; there's a wide range of topics, voices, and themes explored in the 30 chapters that make up The Pale King. Some of these chapters I consider amongst the best writing I've ever read.
Lane's Struggle
My favorite chapter was chapter six. The entire chapter was published in The New Yorker separately too, if you want to read it. Like a lot of chapters in The Pale King, it didn't really have any connection to the rest of the story except for one character reappearing later in the book.
It's an early morning at a park somewhere. A young man and woman sit on a picnic table beside a pond, not talking, but it's clear there's tension between them. Something important has either happened or is going to happen.
The chapter is told from the perspective of Lane Dean Jr., the young man. Lane's feeling anxious—he's clearly experiencing some deep internal conflict. He's so conflicted he can't even look at the young woman beside him, let alone say much. Wallace describes the scenery at the park at length, to evoke a distracted feeling in the reader, analogous to how Lane Dean is trying to distract himself from the conversation at hand.
The subject of this conversation is gradually revealed implicitly throughout the chapter. Wallace wrote it this way to make you feel the same aversion to the topic that the two characters are feeling. A sort of elephant-in-the-room dynamic. Although the word "abortion" is never used in the whole chapter, you begin to realize that's what they're talking about.
One thing Lane Dean did was reassure her again that he'd go with her and be there with her. It was one of the few safe or decent things he could really say. [...] Where he'd be was the waiting room, she said. That he'd be thinking about her and feeling bad for her, she knew, but he couldn't be in there with her.
— Wallace, pg. 64
This is the most direct the details get. The bulk of the chapter is focused on Lane Dean's thoughts and struggles.
What I loved about this chapter, and in general what makes Wallace such a great writer, is how he immerses you into a complex situation in a way that reveals the nuances and details in such vivid and emotional language. The way he describes Dean's internal conflict allows you to feel the emotional gravity of the decisions he's considering. It's very moving writing.
The crux of the issue is that both of them, Lane Deanand his girlfriend Sheri Fisher, are Christian. They are only high-school seniors also. We learn that they've both known about the pregnancy for some time, and they had previously agreed for Sheri to get an abortion; which is scheduled for later that day. Sheri showed up at Lane's home early that morning because she wanted to talk, and this is the scene presented to us.
Lane's struggle stems from the incongruity between his desires and his moral beliefs. The first conflict is with his faith. Wallace's paints Lane's relationship with his religion in a realistic way—his faith is a dynamic part of him, and it's clear that this moment will affect his faith in a very fundamental way. Lane finally understands why the act that caused the pregnancy is a sin (out of wedlock anyway):
He so fervently wished it never happened. He felt like he knew now why it was a true sin and not just a leftover rule from past society. He felt like he had been brought low by it and humbled and now did understand and believe that the rules were there for a reason. That the rules were concerned with him personally, as an individual. He'd promised God he had learned his lesson. But what if that, too, was a hollow promise, from a hypocrite who repented only after, who promised submission but really only wanted a reprieve? He might not even know his own heart or be able to read and know himself. He kept thinking also of 1 Timothy 6 and the hypocrite therein who disputeth over words. He felt a terrible inner resistance but could not feel what it was it so resisted. This was the truth.
— Wallace, pg. 67
Lane is remorseful, yet he can't reconcile his feelings and pull apart what he's actually guilty about.
The second conflict is his feeling towards Sheri. Lane has never told her he loves her, yet he's also never told her he doesn't love her. He knows that saying either will be the decision-maker for Sheri, and he does not want to be the "salesman of it". Anything he says will affect her, which is why he's so stricken and afraid to say anything at all. I really loved Wallace's writing here—he captured something very poignant about relationships that I hadn't considered before.
Chapter six didn't really fit into or reinforce any of the main themes of the book. It wasn't about boredom or loneliness; it was about battling internal conflict and making hard decisions. Although the decision Lane Dean Jr. made would lead him down a path of tedium and monotony that would eventually land him a career at the IRS to support his young family.
The Quiet Hero
The book is structured as a series of independent character arcs which serve to illuminate how these characters all come to begin work at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois on the same day in 1985. I think the point was to emphasize the different motivations that led these individuals to this type of career. A career marked by excruciatingly dull paperwork combined with constant boredom. Boredom so pervasive it becomes a existential threat, so intense that those that work at the IRS are prone to hallucinations and visions of ghosts. Wallace wanted to show that accepting tedium and boredom as a way of life is not as simple as a personality trait. How someone rationalizes and accepts this sort of life can vary greatly. Some may view it as nothing less than torture, while others may find comfort or take pride in the ability to carry out tedious, repetitive tasks every day.
At one point in The Pale King, we learn about a man who found his purpose during an accounting lecture he accidentally sits in on one day. The lecture resulted in an almost religious-type epiphany for him; the words and mannerisms of the professor were so impressive that this became a turning point in his life and he later joins the IRS. The lecturer descries the accounting profession as a sort of heroic self-sacrifice:
Gentlemen, here is a truth: Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is. Such endurance is, as it happens, the distillate of what is, today, in this world neither I nor you have made, heroism [...] actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.
— Wallace, pg. 337
I feel like this definition of heroism describes David Foster Wallace deciding to write a novel about tax professionals and boredom. Tackling a very intimate, personal topic that everyone experiences, but one that I don't think most people would choose to read a novel on.
In the end though, I was thoroughly engrossed while reading The Pale King, which is a true testament to Wallace's ability to extract something important from almost any topic. He observed the world in a much different way than most of us—we're lucky to get to experience this perspective through his writing.