Rate this book

The Pale King (2011)

by David Foster Wallace(Favorite Author)

3.93 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0316074233 (ISBN13: 9780316074230)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Little, Brown & Company

review 1: An excellent book. Shows vast advances since Infinite Jest in terms of DFW's ability to examine complex thought processes and emotions. Dispenses with a lot of the sci-fi curlicues of IJ, though still depicting an extremely rich and detailed alternate reality. In addition to thinking about the significance of boredom and attention, he is preoccupied with the meaning of adulthood and responsibility, something I recall hearing DFW talk about in his interviews as well. There is also a chapter where the characters discuss the relationship between capitalism and individualism in a way that will be deeply familiar to anyone who's read Marcuse or people of that ilk. It is tempting to psychoanalyze the book, looking for clues to DFW's mental illness in it. At the very least someth... moreing definitely seems to have changed in his approach to writing. In Infinite Jest and the Broom of the System the majority of the characters seem like too-clever, too-hip, postmodern caricatures, and although there is a lot of detail and character development, there is nothing like naturalistic emotion. In PK, particularly in a couple of the chapters, the ponderousness, repetition, and ramifications of the mental processes feel like wading through molasses; which I imagine might be what it would be like to read a transcript of what was really going on in someone's head; but what that says about what was going on in DFW's head while working on something like that is hard to say. In any event it makes for thought-provoking reading, and it's a shame there will be no more DFW novels to come.
review 2: Michael Pietsch, DFW's longstanding editor, must be a pale king of the kind that the book itself contends with. With overwhelming, sprawling research & countless pages of writing/notes for The Pale King that Wallace left behind, assembling these would be a heroic task in the sense of 'heroic' that is invoked within the book.How would Wallace respond to Pietsch's edit/assemblage of his work? The reader can never know how possible incarnations of this book could have come to be had Wallace lived. I think page no 1 is one of the most truly beautiful things I will ever read, and there's something about reading it repeatedly that gives me a sense of peace, though head never quite touches tail. less

Download links for: The Pale King

Advertising