The Pale King

Like much of Wallace's work, the novel defies straightforward summary. Each chapter stands almost alone, with text ranging from straight dialogues between coworkers about civics or cartography to snippets of the 1985 Illinois tax code to poignant sensory or character sketches. Many of the chapters relate the experiences of a handful of employees of the Internal Revenue Service in Peoria, Illinois in 1985. One of the characters, one of two who narrate their chapters, is named David Wallace, but he is a largely fictional counterpart of the author and not the focal point of the novel. Pietsch called the organization of the manuscript "a challenge like none I've ever encountered".{{Citation | last = Pietsch | first = Michael | chapter = Editor's Note | pages = v–x | title = The Pale King | publisher = Little, Brown & Co | year = 2011}}.

The fictional "Author's Foreword" is chapter 9 and is the place in the novel where Wallace's trademark footnotes run most rampant. In this chapter, he introduces the "irksome paradox" that the only bona fide fiction in the book is the copyright page's disclaimer that states "The characters and events in this book are fictitious," while at the same time acknowledging that this foreword itself is defined by that disclaimer as fictional. He further states, in the context of the same self-referential paradox, that "The Pale King is a kind of vocational memoir" and that "the very last thing this book is is some kind of clever metafictional titty-pincher." Other primary characters include Lane Dean Jr., Claude Sylvanshine, David Cusk, and Leonard Stecyk, men drawn for vastly different reasons to a career in the IRS.

Wallace began research for The Pale King in 1997, after the publication of Infinite Jest. He started writing the book around 2000.{{cite news |title= The Unfinished | first =DT | last = Max |magazine= The New Yorker |date= March 9, 2009 | url = http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_max?currentPage=all | access-date = November 20, 2010}} The novel (or "long thing", Wallace's usual term for it) had numerous working titles throughout this period, including Glitterer, SJF (Sir John Feelgood), Net of Gems,{{cite book |url = http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/collections/digital/dfw/pale_king/chapter9/draft4/#top |title = The pale king | chapter = 9 – Author's Foreword | last1= Wallace |first1= David Foster |publisher= Harry Ransom Center | place = TX |access-date = August 5, 2011}} and What Is Peoria For?

In 2007, Wallace estimated that the novel was about one-third finished. One of his notebooks found by his widow, Karen Green (who designed the American edition's cover art), suggested a possible direction for the novel's plot: "...an evil group within the IRS is trying to steal the secrets of an agent who is particularly gifted at maintaining a heightened state of concentration." Wallace's ultimate intention for the plot is unknown.

In his final hours, Wallace "tidied up [his] manuscript so that his wife could find it. Below it, around it, inside his two computers, on old floppy disks in his drawers were hundreds of other pages—drafts, character sketches, notes to himself, fragments that had evaded his attempt to integrate them into the novel." On her blog, Kathleen Fitzpatrick wrote that the Pale King manuscript Michael Pietsch edited began with "more than 1000 pages... in 150 unique chapters".{{cite web |url=http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/the-legacy-of-david-foster-wallace/ |title= The Legacy of David Foster Wallace | first = Kathleen | last = Fitzpatrick |date= December 30, 2009 | work= Planned obsolescence | access-date = November 20, 2010}} The published version is 540 pages and 50 chapters. (The paperback edition includes four additional scenes totaling 23 pages.)

On September 14, 2010, Pietsch announced the novel's publication date and provided further information about its plot, saying the book "takes agonizing daily events like standing in lines, traffic jams, and horrific bus rides—things we all hate—and turns them into moments of laughter and understanding", a theme Wallace addressed in his 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech.{{cite news | first = David Foster | last = Wallace | title = In His Own Words | url = http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words | work = More Intelligent Life | date = September 19, 2008 | access-date = August 5, 2011 | archive-date = February 1, 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150201081122/http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words | url-status = dead }} Pietsch added, "although David did not finish the novel, it is a surprisingly whole and satisfying reading experience that showcases his extraordinary imaginative talents and his mixing of comedy and deep sadness in scenes from daily life."

Although Little, Brown and Company set The Pale King{{'}}s publication date for April 15, 2011 (Tax Day), Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble were allowed to sell copies on their websites as early as March 22, 2011. That elicited protest from many bookstore owners, who felt it put them at an unfair disadvantage. Little, Brown defended the split dates as common practice.{{cite news|last= Bosman|first= Julie|title= A Book for Sale on Tax Day, but Online Now|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/business/media/31wallace.html?ref=books|work=The New York Times|access-date=July 10, 2011|date=March 30, 2011}}

Richard Rayner wrote in the Los Angeles Times that The Pale King{{'}}s subjects are "loneliness, depression and the ennui that is human life's agonized bedrock, 'the deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all of our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from' [quoting Wallace]... The Pale King dares to plunge readers deep into this Dantean hell of 'crushing boredom,' suggesting that something good may lie beyond."{{cite news| last = Rayner | first = Richard| type = book review | title = 'The Pale King' by David Foster Wallace| url = http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la-et-book-20110415,0,6291575.story |work= Los Angeles Times| access-date= April 19, 2011| date= April 15, 2011}}

The story's central theme reflects that of Wallace's 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech,{{cite news |title=This is Water |author=Jenna Krajeski |magazine=The New Yorker |date=22 September 2008 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2008/09/this-is-water.html |access-date=20 November 2010}} in which he encouraged his audience to be "conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience".{{cite news |title=New Yorker to Publish Part of Unfinished Wallace Novel |author=Bob Thompson |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=2 March 2009 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/01/AR2009030101774.html |access-date=20 November 2010}}

According to Book Marks, the book received a "positive" consensus, based on 15 critics: five "rave", six "positive", and four "mixed".{{Cite web |title=The Pale King|url=https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/the-pale-king/|access-date=16 January 2024 |website=Book Marks}} Culture Critic assessed British and American critical response as an aggregated score of 77%.{{Cite web |title=David Foster Wallace - The Pale King|url=http://www.culturecritic.co.uk/books/david-foster-wallace-the-pale-king/|access-date=12 July 2024|website=Culture Critic|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130123191659/http://www.culturecritic.co.uk:80/books/david-foster-wallace-the-pale-king/|archive-date=23 Jan 2013}} The Bookseller reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Top form", "Flawed but worth a read", and "Disappointing": the Observer and Times reviews were under "Top form".{{cite news |title=A life not remembered: a luke-warm reception for Tina Fey|url=https://www.link.gale.com/apps/doc/A257129653/AONE?u=anon~a686b7c8&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=45e4638d|access-date=19 July 2024|work=The Bookseller |date=29 Apr 2011|page=42}} In the July/August 2011 issue of Bookmarks, the book was scored 3.5 out of 5. The magazine's critical summary reads: "As the critics continue to debate over Wallace's ultimate intentions—namely, are long sections of the novel deliberately dull?—readers can revel in his extraordinary and unforgettable vision once more".{{Cite web |title=The Pale King By David Foster Wallace|url=http://bookmarksmagazine.com/book-review/pale-king/david-foster-wallace|access-date=14 January 2023 |website=Bookmarks|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160827083951/http://bookmarksmagazine.com/book-review/pale-king/david-foster-wallace|archive-date=27 Aug 2016}}{{Cite web |title=The Pale King|url=http://www.theomnivore.co.uk/Book/Default.aspx|access-date=12 July 2024|website=The Omnivore|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110424014011/http://www.theomnivore.co.uk:80/Book/Default.aspx|archive-date=24 Apr 2011}}

Jonathan Segura wrote in Publishers Weekly that The Pale King "isn't the era-defining monumental work we've all been waiting for since Infinite Jest altered the landscape of American fiction", but that it is "one hell of a document and a valiant tribute to the late Wallace".{{cite news | last = Segura | first = Jonathan| title = 'The Pale King' by David Foster Wallace | type = review |url = http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/46462-the-pale-king-by-david-foster-wallace-the-pw-review.html | work =Publishers Weekly|access-date=March 18, 2011}}

In Esquire, Benjamin Alsup wrote that The Pale King is an "incomplete and weirdly fractured pseudo memoir" that is "frustratingly difficult in places" and "potholed throughout by narrative false starts and dead ends". But, he wrote, "you should read The Pale King". While conceding that the novel is not conventionally gripping in terms of narrative, Alsup wrote, "If it keeps you up at night, it won't be because you've got to know what happens next. If you're up, you'll be up because DFW writes sentences and sometimes whole pages that make you feel like you can't breathe."{{cite news | last= Alsup | first =Benjamin| title= Saint David Foster Wallace and The Pale King|url= http://www.esquire.com/fiction/book-review/the-pale-king-review-0411-5402611?click=news| work =Esquire|access-date=March 18, 2011}}

In Time, Lev Grossman wrote: "if The Pale King isn't a finished work, it is, at the very least, a remarkable document, by no means a stunt or an attempt to cash in on Wallace's posthumous fame. Despite its shattered state and its unpromising subject matter, or possibly because of them, The Pale King represents Wallace's finest work as a novelist."{{cite magazine |last=Grossman|first=Lev|title= Unfinished Business|url= http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2062341-1,00.html|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110404041130/http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2062341-1,00.html|url-status= dead|archive-date= April 4, 2011| magazine = Time | access-date=March 31, 2011}}

In The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote that The Pale King "feels less like an incomplete manuscript than a rough-edged digest of the themes, preoccupations and narrative techniques that have distinguished [Wallace's] work from the beginning". She called the novel "breathtakingly brilliant and stupefying dull—funny, maddening and elegiac", and predicted that it "will be minutely examined by longtime fans for the reflexive light it sheds on Wallace's oeuvre and his life" and "snag the attention of newcomers, giving them a window—albeit a flawed window—into this immensely gifted writer's vision of the human condition as lived out in the middle of the middle of America". Kakutani called the novel Wallace's "most emotionally immediate work".{{cite news| last= Kakutani| first= Michiko| title= Maximized Revenue, Minimized Existence|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/books/the-pale-king-by-david-foster-wallace-book-review.html?_r=3&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto# |work=The New York Times | access-date =August 31, 2011|date=March 31, 2011}}

John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote a long, admiring appreciation of the novel in GQ Magazine.{{Cite web|url=https://www.gq.com/story/david-foster-wallace-the-pale-king-john-jeremiah-sullivan|title=John Jeremiah Sullivan Reviews David Foster Wallace's Last Novel, 'The Pale King'|last=Sullivan|first=John Jeremiah|website=GQ|date=March 31, 2011 |language=en|access-date=2019-09-01}}

David Hering's book David Foster Wallace: Fiction and Form features a lengthy section on the novel's evolution from its genesis to Pietsch's final version. Part of this was excerpted in the Los Angeles Review of Books in September 2016.{{Cite web|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/much-little-history-david-foster-wallaces-pale-king/|title=Too Much and Too Little: A History of David Foster Wallace's "The Pale King"|last=Hering|first=David|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|date=September 14, 2016 |access-date=2019-09-01}}

The novel was one of the three finalists for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; no award was given that year.{{Citation | url = http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2012-Fiction | publisher = Pulitzer | title = Citation | year = 2012 | contribution = Fiction}}.

The novel received the 2011 Salon Book Award (Fiction).{{Citation | first = Laura | last = Miller | url = http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/12/07/the_best_fiction_of_2011/ | title = The best fiction | newspaper = Salon | date = Dec 8, 2011 | access-date = December 11, 2011 | archive-date = April 26, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120426223536/http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/12/07/the_best_fiction_of_2011/ | url-status = dead }}.

The first academic conference about the book, "Work in Process: Reading David Foster Wallace's The Pale King", took place at the University of Antwerp in Belgium from September 22 to 23, 2011. Organized by Toon Staes, the conference consisted of two days of papers and discussions about the novel by numerous scholars. Notable speakers included Wallace scholars Marshall Boswell, Adam Kelly, and Stephen J. Burn.{{Citation | url = http://www.ua.ac.be/main.aspx?c=.WORKINPROCESS&n=96315 | title = Work in process | publisher = UA | place = BE}}.

In 2012, the journal Studies in the Novel published a volume of scholarship on The Pale King.{{cite web|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/27040|title=Studies in the Novel-Volume 44, Numbers 4, Winter 2012|via=Project MUSE|jstor=23408625|url-access=subscription}} Edited by Wallace scholar Marshall Boswell, the issue contains seven articles by fellow Wallace scholars and a review of a collection of Wallace scholarship. The following articles were included:

• {{cite journal |last1=Boswell |first1=Marshall |title=Introduction: David Foster Wallace's The Pale King |journal=Studies in the Novel |date=2012 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=367–370 |id={{Project MUSE|498622}} |doi=10.1353/sdn.2012.0042 |jstor=23408625 |s2cid=170103592 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Burn |first1=Stephen J. |title="A Paradigm for the Life of Consciousness": Closing Time in the Pale King |journal=Studies in the Novel |date=2012 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=371–388 |id={{Project MUSE|498623}} |doi=10.1353/sdn.2012.0044 |jstor=23408626 |s2cid=162368500 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Warren |first1=Andrew |title=Narrative Modeling and Community Organizing in The Pale King and Infinite Jest |journal=Studies in the Novel |date=2012 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=389–408 |id={{Project MUSE|498624}} |doi=10.1353/sdn.2012.0046 |jstor=23408627 |s2cid=170231264 |url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12563784 |url-access=subscription }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Staes |first1=Toon |title=Rewriting the Author: A Narrative Approach to Empathy in Infinite Jest and The Pale King |journal=Studies in the Novel |date=2012 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=409–427 |id={{Project MUSE|498625}} |doi=10.1353/sdn.2012.0038 |jstor=23408628 |s2cid=170404419}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Clare |first1=Ralph |title=The Politics of Boredom and the Boredom of Politics in David Foster Wallace's The Pale King |journal=Studies in the Novel |date=2012 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=428–446 |id={{Project MUSE|498626}} |doi=10.1353/sdn.2012.0039 |jstor=23408629 |s2cid=170776607}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Wouters |first1=Conley |title='What Am I, a Machine?': Humans, Information, and Matters of Record in David Foster Wallace's The Pale King |journal=Studies in the Novel |date=2012 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=447–463 |id={{Project MUSE|498627}} |doi=10.1353/sdn.2012.0040 |jstor=23408630 |s2cid=161132074}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Boswell |first1=Marshall |title=Trickle-Down Citizenship: Taxes and Civic Responsibility in David Foster Wallace's The Pale King |journal=Studies in the Novel |date=2012 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=464–479 |id={{Project MUSE|498628}} |doi=10.1353/sdn.2012.0041 |jstor=23408631 |s2cid=153381543}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Hayes-Brady |first1=Clare |title=The Legacy of David Foster Wallace by Samuel Cohen and Lee Konstantinou (review) |journal=Studies in the Novel |date=2012 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=481–482 |id={{Project MUSE|498629}} |doi=10.1353/sdn.2012.0043 |jstor=23408632 |s2cid=161576791}}

Several excerpts from The Pale King appeared in magazines prior to the book's publication:

• "Peoria (4)", in the Fall 2002 issue of TriQuarterly
• "[http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/02/05/070205fi_fiction_wallace Good People]", in the February 5, 2007, issue of The New Yorker.
• "The Compliance Branch", in the February 2008 issue of Harper's.
• "[http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/03/09/090309fi_fiction_wallace Wiggle Room]", in the March 9, 2009, issue of The New Yorker.
• "A New Examiner", in the January 2010 issue of The Lifted Brow and the September 2010 issue of Harper's.
• "[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/03/07/backbone Backbone]", in the March 7, 2011 issue of The New Yorker.
• "The Pale King," an extract from chapter 22, in the April 9, 2011 issue of the Sunday Review section of The Guardian.

Before the novel's publication, there was some speculation that two of the short stories included in Oblivion—"Incarnations of Burned Children" and "The Soul is Not a Smithy"—might have been excerpts from The Pale King, but they did not appear in the final book; however, Wallace scholar Nick Maniatis has confirmed that "Incarnations of Burned Children" was part of "some of the earliest work on The Pale King".{{Cite book|title=The David Foster Wallace Reader|last=Wallace|first=David Foster|publisher=Little, Brown|year=2014|isbn=9780316329170|pages=455}} The short story "All That", published in the December 14, 2009, issue of The New Yorker, was also widely assumed to be an excerpt from The Pale King, but does not appear in the book.

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Category:2011 American novels

Category:Novels by David Foster Wallace

Category:Unfinished novels

Category:Novels set in Illinois

Category:Fiction set in 1985

Category:Novels published posthumously

Category:Culture of Peoria, Illinois

Category:Little, Brown and Company books

Category:Bureaucracy in fiction

Category:Postmodern novels