The Pale King
by David Foster Wallace, Michael Pietsch · first published 2011
54% recommend43% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Unfinished novel set among IRS examiners that turns bureaucracy and boredom into funny, searching fiction about attention and modern office life; suits DFW fans and more approachable than Infinite Jest.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The character David Foster Wallace is introduced to the banal world of the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, and the host of strange people who work there, in a novel that was unfinished at the time of the author's death.
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There are several saliloquies in the 21st century unfinished novel "The Pale King" by David Foster Wallace that do the accounting profession and its requisite temperament plenty of Justice. E.g., from a character working for the IRS: “I learned that the world of men as it exists today…
on “The vanished grandeur of accounting (2014)” ↗David Foster Wallace wrote a great book entitled The Pale King that wrestles with the boredom and frustration of our modern office-work related lives. I’m not sure if I grabbed it from that book, but one of his quotes I enjoy is: "The underlying bureaucratic key…
on “Survey: The average worker experiences career burnout – by the age of 32” ↗…drink" reading time, but I've gotten some in during the winters at each end. I think best overall was one of the ones I read way early in the year, Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzsche. I had been saving The Pale King by David Foster Wallace for an "in case of emergency break glass" book because I couldn't bear to finish all his writing and I just had to break the glass recently. I've been enjoying that thoroughly…
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗…that these questions, these considerations, were pursued almost maniacally by David Foster Wallace, especially later in his life. You may find satisfaction especially in his last, unfinished novel, The Pale King, which purports especially to treat the immense spiritual gravity that he thought pertained to boredom itself, the awful tedium that so many of us have to suffer in the modern marketplace. Not, like,…
on “Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?” ↗To get an even better picture of the internals of the IRS, highly recommend reading The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. It's an unfinished book (he committed suicide before completing it) but details his real-life journey to becoming an IRS employee.
on “If the IRS had discovered the quadratic formula...” ↗I really enjoyed The Pale King, and felt that had it been finished it would have been one of my favorite books. The chapters with the David Wallace section in the IRS are _really_ funny.
on “The Unfinished: David Foster Wallace’s Struggle to Surpass Infinite Jest (2009)” ↗There's a great passage in David Foster Wallace's The Pale King that touches on this. A character finds that when he's home, he finds his parents' conservative views frustrating and backwards and constantly argues with them about it. But when he comes across those…
on “My Childhood in a Cult” ↗The Pale King by David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest. Both are highly recommended.
on “Ask HN: What are you currently reading?” ↗See also, David Foster Wallace's character David Cusk in 'The Pale King'. A wonderful portrayal of how attending to ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts) catalyzes this feedback loop.
on ““No convincing evidence” that depression is caused by low serotonin levels” ↗…it’s like stepping from back and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Constant bliss in every atom. I know David Foster Wallace isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but that quote from The Pale King stuck with me for over a decade.
on “Staring at a Wall: Embracing Deliberate Boredom” ↗Strong endorse! Something that really stuck with me from David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, and has been repeatedly borne out in my experience: “To be, in a word, unborable.... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.” Our…
on “Parents are teaming up to delay their children's first cell phone” ↗…That said it's a serious modern novel and while it contains a lot of very funny parts it's also at times difficult. If you like David Foster Wallace his other two novels "Broom of the system" and "The Pale King" are also great. The Pale King was left unfinished when he died and was completed (from various drafts and notes) as a labour of love and respect from his notes by his editor. It's genuinely extraordinary…
on “I got dysentery in a human challenge trial” ↗Though unfinished, I highly recommend the Pale King. It's not as consistently great as some of DFW's other works, but the highs are as high as anything else he wrote and IMO it's a little more accessible than Infinite Jest. (For a new reader, I would start…
on “David Foster Wallace’s final attempt to make art moral” ↗…first three sentences, and came back here to comment. Each is a fabulous joke, and I had 3 lol moments, and I wonder if anybody else laughed like I did? I am a big fan of DFW on the basis of reading "The Pale King" alone, and haven't read this before. 1. "... the nerve stem of Maine's lobster industry." I full expect him to exploit this imagery later :-) 2. "... runs from Owl’s Head" Oh, God, already. 3. "...…
on “Consider the Lobster (2004)” ↗…authors I like). It's a really cool book, very funny and not quite as huge a commitment as "Infinite Jest". So don't feel you have to start with Infinite Jest, you really don't. It's great though, as is "Pale King". Had he lived to complete "Pale King" I think it would easily have been his greatest novel, but in the state it was published in, it's still outstanding.
on “A Brand New Interview with David Foster Wallace” ↗