yea it was great especially the 100 pages of Chris Fogle monologue such a shame he couldn't finish it
>>25626773The parts with Leonard's backstory and where the real DFW gets confused with the protagonist made me bust out laughing. Would have been interesting to see where a finished version would have gone, but it already felt jumbled, even compared to IJ, so idk if it was less "finished" than it was "polished."
might be my favorite of his.i like how he can zoom in temporally. Like a scene can briskly move right along and then a bead of sweat slows to a crawl.Added "squeezing my/your shoes" to my vernacular as a result of this book
>>25626773I still chuckle thinking about that conversation about jerking off to tits
>>25626773>>25626850Despite being unpolished I'm more likely to reread this one than IJ
>>25626921yea definitely a comfortable read I find it more humorous too, i usually go back to his essays
>>25626921probably because it's shorter
>>25626921does he do endnotes in this one? people swear he's not masturbatory but had a hard time with some of the stuff in brief interviews esp the i sold sissy one
>>25626916that always felt derivative of clerks to me
at the Peoria, Illinois Regional Examination Center
>>25626773I regret not reading this when I worked at the IRS like when I read Post Office on the clock at the post office
>>25629784fucking KEK
Best chapter for me was the young couple by the lake. Never did quite figure out all the symbolism there, but enjoyed it a lot. It was published as a short story called Good People but the book version different and I enjoyed it more.Haven't read IJ but get the feeling that IJ explored the consequences of too much entertainment and PK explored the consequences of too little.
>>25629784I need to reread on that character
>>25626773I love the idea of discovering that someone has a psychic ability and using it to achieve the most inane bureaucratic end imaginable.I'm stealing this idea for the book I'm writing (soon, any day now).
>Book is boring>Which is a good thingBased
>>25627689he does regular notes that can get leghty, but only in the chapters from the author POV
>>25626773Was my first DFW, bought everything else soon after.
>>25626773Should I get this book if I enjoyed the eschaton section in infinite jest?
>>25631752no, this book is wildly overrated by retards here on /lit/, if you're interested in a weird depressive meandering tome with occasional funny bits in it, then read it, but its nothing like IJ and is mostly uninspiredthere is a reason he killed himself after writing it for a decade, the leftover notes explaining where the novel was going (spoiler alert: nowhere) dont make it sound like we missed out on muchrip dfw though still the king of american literature
>>25631752Yeah, it has some nice qualities to be recognized in it. Even in its unfinished state, what you get out of it is (in my opinion) more important than the work itself which why I supposed its liked even in its current unfinished version.
>>25629875>explored the consequences of too little.I think it would also be benefical to see The Pale King as a response to Infinite Jest that also offers solutions to the problems in IJ. The Pale King could be seen as a modernized version of The Myth of Sisyphus where you learn enjoy the boredom, tedium, and find meaning in and throghout modern life.
>>25632342True and I also think it was a more direct response to the kind of 90s slackerdom that thumbed its nose at "the man" and the corporate suit etc, the kind of people parodied by BEE etc. It was cool to read about a girl from a trailer park finding some kind of stability in her life in a boring IRS job, and how the narrator himself was a kind of slacker who made fun of the sincerity of the Christian girl etc only to find himself drawn into office life.
