I am not a David Foster Wallace groupie. Maybe I should say that I wasn't before I read this novel. All that I really knew about him I knew from my son (who has a passion for writers and writing) and from Mary Karr's memoir 'Lit', where she has a brief relationship with him after they meet each other in reahab. So I knew nothing about his extraordinary gift. He is arguably the best writer for writings sake that I have ever read. He doesn't necessarily have a good plot, or the substance and structure of a good story. What he does have is an enchanting way of writing. To the point where I found myself not caring that I didn't know where the novel was going because it was remarkable to be on the journey with him. I can't compare him to anyone. It is breath taking to read.
So do we miss anything from this being an unfinished novel? Not that I can tell, other than the fact that it doesn't really finish so much as it ends. But then again, maybe it would have been like this if he had lived to finish it. As unfinished works go, it is the Sagrada Familia of unfinished works. Magnificent, so much so that finishing it seems unnecessary.
I had to gush a little about the book before I breathed a word about it's content. It is about random people who work for the government. The IRS, no less. And it is positively steeped in beaurocratic jargon. The theme which weaves it all together is boredom. It is lovely, funny and sad, brilliant and dull, a pastiche of contrasts that somehow becomes the great American novel about boredome. One review I read compared what 'The Pale King' does for boredom to what 'Moby Dick' did for whales. An epic novel. It is too bad the Pullizer committee couldn't see it is worth it's weight in gold.
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