Been on a recent DFW binge lately, just started The Pale King. There are a few other hubskiers who are pretty into the book
would love to know what you think as you're going along. I think it's gonna be a minute before I tackle another thousand-pager, though. Gotta work my way through my goodreads list somehow.
Just finished on walk home today, no footnotes in this version though. My thoughts are slightly in line with earlier comment, though it was revealed later in that parts of the story are based on his own experiences when he was in the service of the IRS. It definitely doesn't stand as a whole book, and unfortunately the overarching story is even less revealed than infinite jest. He celebrates the champion of boredom though, with characters telling the stories of how they came to the IRS. This Is Water shared a lot of the same ideas, of acts of kindness from bureaucrats navigating the complexities of organizations to help a person. But in the same way that he made a twenty minute speech out of a joke about goldfish, there are many more complexities discussed, settings shown, and characters explored. I would recommend it, but not to people who haven't read infinite jest or other Wallace stories first (haven't read other books, just many stories/essays)
My plan is to start The Pale King during the fall semester. How does it compare?
I was completely blown away by The Pale King... it inspired a couple of those moments of complete clarity/insight/at-oneness-with-the-universe (is that a thing?).
I felt it was more accessible than Infinite Jest, as well, but it might just be that I was already used to DFW's style by the time I read it. Highly recommended.
Not too far into it, but the two points of reference I've noticed so far are to the language of Luckily the Account Representative Knew CPR and themes in the essay in Infinite Jest where Hal writes about the logical next step of the 'post'-modern hero:He is a bureaucrat, and his heroism is bureaucratic, with a genius for navigating cluttered fields.
I was wondering if he'd reference it. I read Broom of the System, and I liked noting the stylistic similarities between the two. Noticeably with the manmade creation of desolate wastelands in both of them.