The pale king

The pale king (English original title: The Pale King ) is a novel by David Foster Wallace , which was published in April 2011 posthumously from his estate . After the author's death in 2008, only numerous fragments were available together with editorial notes, which the author had made available shortly before his suicide . In the form published by Little, Brown and Company , the novel was compiled by Foster's longtime editor Michael Pietsch. In 2012 the novel was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize .

Ulrich Blumenbach translated the book into German. It was published on November 7, 2013 under the title The pale king by Kiepenheuer & Witsch . In November 2011, the German Literature Fund and its board of trustees awarded Ulrich Blumenbach a scholarship for this work .

action

In its published form, the novel consists of 50 chapters that are loosely related. All chapters take place in a branch of the US American tax authority IRS ( Internal Revenue Service ) in Peoria , Illinois around 1985 or deal with the past life of a person who worked there. Among them is David Foster Wallace, 20, who suffers from severe acne . All the people he meets are grotesque caricatures whose social behavior is extremely opposite. Some of them are fascinated by death, always carry a firearm with them or suffer from the burden of traumatic experiences.

A recurring topic is the monotony and boredom of processing various tax return forms and the challenge of dealing with such work. The absurdities of official work processes and their even more absurd backgrounds through to inadequacies in information technology processing in various computer systems are also frequently dealt with.

Towards the end, in chapter 46, a kind of hero who copes with the monotony of work, Shane Drinion , meets the very attractive employee Meredith Rand . Rand repeatedly directs the topic of conversation to emotional topics, which Drinion always answers extremely factually, emotionless and (at least apparently) honestly. Rand reveals psychological problems in her past, and Drinion repeatedly has to admit the inadequacies of his dry, factual analyzes, even if by the end of the chapter he never deviated from his attitude of emotionless analysis.

Toni Ware has the largest share in the description of the previous life, but she only appears very sporadically in her role in the Preoria branch and without any recognizable relationship to other employees. Her childhood with an unstable and precarious mother is described above all. Childhood is a constant struggle for survival, characterized by fears, abuse, as well as Wares' subtle revenge. Most recently, the mother is murdered by her last lover after she stole his mobile home for no apparent reason and left him at a rest stop, but the lover can follow her again. Merchandise only escapes murder by pretending to be dead. In their adult life, Ware is lonely and closed, lives alone with two dogs and reacts extremely aggressively to well-intentioned attempts to contact neighbors. Likewise, Ware continues to take coldly planned and subtle revenge on people she feels mistreated by. The reason for this vengeance is not further described, but seems rather irrelevant.

The most extensive chapters

The work comprises 50 chapters of very different lengths (in individual cases less than one page, up to well over a hundred pages), here the chapters with several pages:

• §2: Claude Sylvanshine on the way to the new job (flight to Peoria).
• §5: Stecyk's childhood (the boy who is such a good person that everyone hates him)
• §6: Lane Dean is sitting with his girlfriend on the lake shore, she is pregnant.
• §7: Claude Sylvanshine on the way to the new job (waiting for the transporter)
• §8: Toni Ware's childhood in the trailer park
• §9: "Foreword by the author": David Foster Wallace, "the real author", addresses his readers, explains his plan to want to write an autobiography, how he came up with this idea and what hurdles he faced from the lawyers of his publishing house were put in the way. The main text is supplemented by footnotes.
• §12: Stecyk (as a young adult) introduces himself to his new neighbor.
• §13: The youth of Cusk (the one with the terrible, uncontrollable sweats).
• §14: The video documentation of the tax auditors
• §16: Lane Dean taking a break from work
• §19: In the stuck elevator: Conversation between three men (including Mr. DeWitt "the Wicht" Glendenning). In this chapter there is also a reference to the title: Glendenning, the head of administration, looks so pale in the elevator light that one might think he was dead.
• §22: “King of digressions Chris Fogle” tells over a hundred pages how he found his way to the tax authorities (drug excesses and strolling around universities, divorce of parents, death of father, accidental attendance of a seminar for accounting, “revival speech”, recruitment office in the winter of the century Etc.)
• §24: The author speaks up again. He tells - peppered with footnotes - how he starts in the tax office, is mistaken for a higher-ranking official of the same name and is therefore courted - up to the oral quickie by a personnel officer.
• §26: The phantoms of the tax authorities are presented.
• §27: Cusk (the one with the sweats) receives his briefing in Peoria.
• §29: Field staff on observation posts
• §30: Telephone conversation between Claude Sylvanshine and Reynolds. Syvlanshine is supposed to be spying on Mr. Glendenning, who is about to arrive in Peoria.
• §33: Lane Dean almost dies of boredom at work, a phantom visits him at his desk.
• §35: The grim child
• §36: The boy who wants to make sure of himself and therefore tries to touch every square centimeter of his body with his lips.
• §38: An administrative and computer-technical explanation why two employees of the same name can be confused.
• §39: Review of how today's Deputy HR Manager Stecyk once provided exemplary first aid and has since been respected by the tough guys.
• §40: Cusk, the one with the sweats, in the psychologist's office.
• §45: Toni Ware witnesses her mother being murdered.
• §46: Happy hour of the tax auditors on Friday afternoon. Meredith Rand tells Shane Drinion how she suffers from her beauty.
• §47: Toni Ware lives out her sadism on her fellow citizens.
• §48: Someone smuggles iced tea with mind-altering drugs at the tax inspectors' barbecue.
• §49: Chris Fogle is being prepared for a staff interview by Sylvanshine and Reynolds.

(This compilation refers to the German-language edition of the Kiepenheuer & Witsch publishing house and does not take into account the translator's foreword, editorial comments and appendices.)

review

Jonathan Segura found The Pale King in Publishers Weekly as a collection of sketches, minor developments, and prelude sequences for events that would never happen. It is a tribute to the late Wallace, but due to its fragmentary genesis it could hardly meet the high expectations of all critics.

expenditure

• The Pale King . Little, Brown and Company , New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-316-07423-0 .

Secondary literature

• Unfinished: Critical Approaches to David Foster Wallace's The Pale King . Special issue of the journal English Studies (95: 1), January 2014.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DT Max: The Unfinished. David Foster Wallace's struggle to surpass "Infinite Jest". In The New Yorker , March 9, 2009. Accessed December 2, 2011.
2. ↑ Richard Rayner: Book review: 'The Pale King' by David Foster Wallace. In: Los Angeles Times . April 15, 2011. Accessed December 2, 2011.
3. ↑ Martin Halter: Anyone who translates a novel of the century discovers the world. In: Basler Zeitung . August 11, 2009. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
4. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Jonathan Segura: The Pale King 'by David Foster Wallace: The' PW 'Review . In: Publishers Weekly . March 14, 2011. Retrieved December 2, 2011.