David Foster Wallace's 'The Pale King' is reviewed at Publishers Weekly

David Foster Wallace's "The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel" a story that involves a number of IRS staffers, is coming to bookstores, appropriately, on April 15.

When Wallace committed suicide in 2008, he left the pieces behind that would become the unfinished novel. It has been assembled by his longtime editor, Michael Pietsch.

Publishers Weekly, which often looks at books some time before they're available to the public, has an early review. "The Pale King," Jonathan Segura writes, is "a valiant tribute to the late Wallace, being, as it is, a transfixing and hyper-literate descent into relentless, inescapable despair and soul-negating boredom."

Stretches of this are nothing short of sublime -- the first two chapters are a real put-the-reader-on-notice charging bull blitz, and the David Foster Wallace sections (you'll not be surprised to hear that these are footnoted) are tiny masterpieces of that whole self-aware po-mo thing of his that's so heavily imitated. Then there are the one-offs -- a deadening 50-page excursion to a wiggler happy hour, a former stoner's lengthy and tedious recollection of his stony past -- but this is a novel of boredom we're talking about, and, so, yes, some of it is quite boring. And while it's hard not to wince at each of the many mentions of suicide, Wallace is often achingly funny. ...

One of those put-the-reader-on-notice passages -- the first sentence, anyway -- was published in the literary journal Triquarterly in 2002, as part of a piece then titled "Peoria (4)." Credit goes to the Millions for finding and connecting that 2002 publication to the upcoming book.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

 

Comments

[David Backer]

Given the recent statistics about sexism in the publishing industry--male writers are vastly favored in reviews and essays in the most respected venues for literary criticism--I wonder if anyone will relent in their analysis and/or praise of The Pale King. Or at least do so with some perspective. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Wallace fan, but I was wondering if it might be a good idea to boycott the book in the name of gender equity, or something of the kind, to raise the question again. I know Karen Russell's book has come out, along with Tea Obrecht's (which got a front-page review on the NYTB). But will these novels get the same analytical attention as Wallace's will? Should they? Isn't our canon still predominantly male (and white at that)? We had a version of this debate over Jonathan Franzen's novel, do we need to have it again with the arrival of The Pale King?

[Matthew Dodson]

Dear Mr. Backer:

Your comment on whether a boycott of The Pale King is absurd on so many different levels that to let it go unanswered would be assent to the notion that the world is flat. We presume that Mr. Wallace was of the male gender but what objective quality besides the obvious makes him the subject of your call to arms? The fact that his book is reviewed and discussed in literary circles? Perhaps Mr. Wallace's discomfort with with the human condition was well-placed.

[Keith Rondinelli]

This is the final work of what many consider to be the greatest writer of my generation. Whether or not you agree with that assertion, I don't think his gender has much to do with it – he was an incredibly talented person, and also very large-hearted and sincere. Given he left the neatly-arranged stack of at least part of the manuscript on his desk in plain view, many feel this was his going-away present to us.

For better or for worse, the media loves a good story, and the whole "superstar author-commits-suicide-and-leaves-behind-monumental-unfinished-work" idea is irresistible.

Jonathan Franzen, when asked about the fact that his book was receiving so much attention, and that he was a part of a long history of white, male writers who've always cast long shadows over their female counterparts, said (paraphrasing), "I agree! Buy people like my book, it's not my fault. My favorite living writer is a woman... and she's Canadian."

The idea of boycotting The Pale King is absurd.