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| Review: The Pale King |
| Culture |
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The Pale King has been one of the most anticipated books of 2011. It is the unfinished novel of David Foster Wallace, an American writer who hanged himself in 2008. Wallace was known first and foremost for his incredible intellect (his books read like the smartest guy in the room is telling you, personally, truths that no one has ever heard before) and then for the devoted nature of his fans. By the time you are reading this, the internet will have become saturated with gushing and glowing articles from these fans (some in the guise of literary critics).This reached an apotheosis of sorts when the New Yorker recently posted a Jonathan Franzen essay about Wallace, solitude and boredom exclusively on Facebook - a somewhat cruel joke.
However, all of this makes it very difficult to take The Pale King on its own terms. As a novel, it is painfully obvious that it is unfinished, and as a literary event it is completely overblown. It recounts a summer spent by one David Wallace working in the Inland Revenue Service’s examination centre in Illinois and is told through a selection of overlapping fragments. These fragments eventually work together to create a complex and vibrant palimpsest of life at the examination centre, and take various forms including prose-poems, quasi-philosophical and stand-alone episodes from the lives of the characters. Plot is not one of the novel’s central concerns. Indeed, in a note included as an addendum to the book Wallace informs us that “something big threatens to happen but doesn’t actually happen”. But what else could you expect from a novel whose central theme is boredom? There are always concerns with posthumously published books, that they are ruthlessly rushed out in the pursuit of profit and released as a final assault on the credibility of the deceased. The Pale King is no such book. There are passages within it that are among Wallace’s best, particularly the episodes dealing with Lean Dane, Jr. But there are also sections which fall flat and are a chore to read, making you question the wisdom of its publication. Ultimately, however, the decision was correct: The Pale King is a fine novel, and a worthy contribution to Wallace’s oeuvre. In fact, the main problem it faces is that the strongest reaction it provokes is the painful reminder of the talent that contemporary literature has lost. Newer news items:
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