Finished reading: The Pale King by David Foster Wallace 📚

Infinite Jest, also by David Foster Wallace, is one of my favorite books of all time. It holds a special place next to a few others (Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, White Noise by Don DeLillo) that both a) make me, Thom Behrens, feel particularly and wholly understood, while also b) blowing off the roof regarding what I thought a novel could be. Infinite Jest is one of the only books (beside’s bell hooks’ All About Love) that I’ve read more than once; and at over 1,000 pages, taking the time to read it again is a statement.

Probably because I hold IJ in such high regard, I was pretty disappointed when I read The Broom of the System a few years ago. It was a fine enough story; but I just never clicked with it. But given that DFW has only three novels… once I finished Broom, I knew the third one had to be conquered eventually.

So I’ve just finished The Pale King, and - I liked it a lot. I wasn’t convinced it was a good book the whole way through; certain parts of it are absolutely monotonous. However, monotony is demonstrated to be one of the topics the author is exploring. This is clear in the books subject matter (the onboarding of new IRS agents), as well as themes revisited throughout the book (literally, he discusses character’s ability to read boring material for long periods without losing focus). Since DFW died before he published this novel, some of his margin notes are also published in the back, and one of the themes of the book is listed: “Paying attention, boredom, ADD, Machines vs. people at performing mindless jobs.” The monotony of the book, then, is palatable insofar as your willing to be a subject in the theme the author is exploring. It’s an interesting structure, this way: it leaves you no way to read the book without engaging in it.

I also feel like it’s important to mention that this book isn’t really a novel. It’s fiction, and… it’s stories. But most of the stories are actually just vignettes, which never really cohere around a central narrative with any driving action. This, too, is explicitly laid out in DFW’s notes: “Plot a series of set-ups for stuff happening, but nothing actually happens.”

Stepping back: the book is a wonderful exploration of the dehumanization inherent in what we now call “knowledge work”. But at the same time, it articulates and elevates the strange emotional closeness people develop with their abstract, bureaucratic jobs… I described one chapter to Liz as “If The Seven Story Mountain was about becoming an accountant.”

One theme not listed in the back of the book was the exploration of masculinity. It’s not quite as severe or heavy-handed as Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, but still insightful. And takes the same dual-perspective approach that it takes with bureaucracy: it is all at once satirical and  impassioned. 

It’s also laugh-out-loud funny: the characters find themselves in absurd situations, the author makes sharp observations. And, as always, DFW is constantly doing barely noticeable experiments and gymnastics with his word choice, sentence composition, etc. 

This book won’t be for everyone! It was weird, and took a non-trivial amount of persistence to get through. But it was a ultimately satisfying experience. If you’ve already read Infinite Jest and Brief Interviews and liked them - you’ll like this. If you haven’t read those two… I think they’re more interesting reads 🙂. I’ve read reviews saying The Pale King is more accessible. That may be true in terms of format, but not necessarily in terms of engagement.