Messed with by a Ghost

It took me about two seconds to realize I could never spoil this book for anyone by writing about it now.  Not even if I wanted to.

You cannot spoil this book because it has no resolution, but that is the point.  Life often goes unresolved.  I saw a quote the other day that expressed how unlikely it would be for real life to ever find a publisher.  It is over-long and often lacks resolution.  David Foster Wallace makes that point with his usual brilliant writing.  The book is thought-provoking, smart and hilarious.

DFW never finished The Pale King.  But, it wouldn't have a traditional "ending" even if he had finished it.  In fact, his notes indicate that, although plot lines were drawn out, nothing ever would ultimately resolve.

I have written before on this blog that DFW will mess with you.  He does that in this book as well.  He starts by introducing a concept, and in this book that concept is boredom.  He then discussed that concept and, before you know it, he illustrates it without telling you by creating the experience for you, the reader.  The reader does not realize it until the point becomes obvious.

In this case, he illustrates how to deal with boredom by using painstaking description of tedium.  You then realize that your own patience is being strained and tested.  But, and here is where his talent comes in, he makes you experience the tedium while captive and even engrossed.  How is that possible?  I'm not sure, and it makes me feel toyed with.  I find myself experiencing the sensation he seeks to prove and can only give a side-smile and think "touche, Mr. Wallace... touche."

One of the best examples of his manipulation of the reader is when a character says "rest assured that I am not Chris Fogle, and that I have no intention of inflicting on you a regurgitation of every last sentence and passing thought I happen to recall."

He then proceeds to regurgitate every possible detail and thought within the story.  So, how does DFW illustrate the mundane life in The Pale King?  Here are some:

- He takes you into a stuck elevator for an overly-long articulation of "what's wrong with Americans today" that seems so cliche and typical of every age and generation without having the characters make more than a passing reference of the hours that have gone by.   They pass the time with deep, even if well plumbed, discussion.  You feel the frustration of the character who is not interested while the others blather on.

- He takes you into a traffic jam and describes every single indication of discomfort for every passenger, the construction zone and every delay from traffic to speed bump.

- He takes you into the theoretical scenario of value-maximization that would happen in a progressive tax system where every customer would buy groceries in $5.00 increments to pay the least possible taxes and how that would absolutely happen because of the mythical "rational person" brought to us by theoretical economics.

- He takes you into the scattered mind of a man who cannot stop talking about himself.  You learn about everything from drugs he has used to the motivations to succeed and how impacting his father's death was on his life.  You also learn about the cartoon-ridiculous yet amusing way his father died.  Just try not to be ashamed of yourself for chuckling while this slapstick death is described in hushed tones.  It's... I mean, I chuckled and felt terrible for it.

- He engrosses you in a discussion between a computer-like man and an attractive woman about the concept of attractiveness and the reaction people have to being called interesting.  It is fantastic, but also another way to cut through a lull in the action at a gathering.

- One character sweats so profusely and his mind focuses on everything around him that could cause an outbreak of sweat.  He even tries to determine the level of attractiveness of a woman behind him to avoid allowing her appearance to inspire sweat.   He illustrates how many items one mind can focus on at a time.

- He illustrates the best way to hide information as the sharing of all information.  Specifically, he writes: "abstruse dullness is actually a much more effective shield than is secrecy.  For the great disadvantage of secrecy is that it's interesting.  People are drawn to secrets; they can't help it."  This concept crops up throughout the book.

- He takes you through the process of correcting an administrative snafu with himself as a fictional character (and although he tries to convince you it is autobiographical it is also fictional... and... just... my God... It's hard to say for sure).  DFW, whether real or fictional, jumps hoops to untangle himself from yet another David Wallace and their merged identities.

Other parts I loved included a detailed description of a story about "shit" that ends up explaining a nickname; a beautiful description of a nature scene that ends with speculation that bird chirps might actually be war cries; and a vivid description of flying in a plane.  One description of a cashier being caught picking his nose and the reaction of a customer includes one stream-of-conscious sentence that goes for pages and is just hilarious and disgusting at the same time.

My analysis is that these slices of the mundane-made-interesting illustrate an active, "unborable" mind.

And, that is why I do not feel capable of "spoiling" this book for anyone.  The experience is in the journey.  Knowing that he will discuss the mundane, and therefore knowing what mundane scenarios are featured, can ruin nothing.  The experience of this book is in taking the ride and imagining those mental places through his virtuosic wordsmithing.

This book is boring at times.  But, I can honestly say the boredom is the point.  The journey is not boring.  The book is not boring.  The topic is boredom and the human mind.  And DFW makes you bored so that you understand and even FEEL the frustration of the characters.  It's like an emotional scratch-and-sniff, if that were possible.  Scratch one sticker and feel the frustration of being dragged into a conversation for hours that you don't want while stuck with no way out.  Scratch this other sticker and you are suck in a car that never seems to get to where it is going.  Scratch yet another and feel just as trapped as if you were in a windowless room with a clock, as he describes below:

"Lock a fellow in a windowless room to perform rote tasks just tricky enough to make him have to think, but still rote, tasks involving numbers that connected to nothing he'd ever seen or care about, a stack of tasks that never went down, and nail a clock to the wall where he can see it, and just leave the man there to his mind's own devices."  

Depending on your personal tolerances, some scenes will be engrossing and others suffocating.

Also, DFW's writing is suffocating both in the good and frustrating sense.  There are times when you keep reading and reading with urgency not because there is a climax or cliffhanger, but because his language is so powerful, dense, fascinating and maddening at the same time.  It will make you tired from thought.

I made 179 notes and marks in this book. Here are a few more highlights at random.

- "She might actually have bared her teeth at me for an instant."

- "We think of ourselves now as eaters of the pie instead of makers of the pie.  So who makes the pie?"

"- I know I was nearly always the hero of any story or incident I ever told people about during this period - which, like the thing with the lone sideburn, is a memory that makes me wince now."

- "To give oneself to the care of others' money - this is effacement, perdurance, sacrifice, honor doughtiness, valor.  Hear this or not, as you will.  Learn it now, or later - the world has time.  Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui - these are the true hero's enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed.  For they are real."

- "As is well-known, parents can have vastly different ways of expressing love and concern. Of course, much of my interpretation is just speculative - there's obviously no way to know what he really meant."

I also highlighted words I had to look up in the dictionary.  I found 61 and list them below this post.

I cannot stop thinking about this book and even found myself talking to Jacob about how he handles boredom and how he should do so.  I loved it and am very happy to have read it.

WORDS I HAD TO LOOK UP

incised
obtruded
anfractuous
prolixly
anodized
Imbrication
confabulation
aphasia
Solipsismus
limn
florid
agglomeration
Banausic
peplum
logorrheic
circumambient
rictus
obverse
verdant
baize
baronial
unoccluded
orthogonal
blebular
marginalia
punctilious
priapstic
otios
hydrotically
obtundated
desiccated
neologisms
tchotchkes
dyspnea
ipsilateral spasticity
inanitive pica
dextrorotated
surfeit
ersatz
intubatory
semion
trilby
galvanic
etiology
monopsony
efficacious
jejune
anondize
proboscis
didactic
eclat
introrsus
agonists
hypertrophic
polyphony
eidetic
carbuncular
sardonic
eponymous
ontologically