I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PALE KING-“An Airing” (2013).

Nope, I never heard of the musician Pale King until I searched for a song to put here.

This song begins as a piano instrumental (with some keyboards layered over).  It swells and lifts through some simple chord changes.  A martial beat comes in from time to time to give it some urgency.

This might actually work as a the opening credits to the never-to-be made movie of The Pale King, or perhaps a soundtrack to §1 (which is a short prose poem type of thing).

At about 1:45, some guitars burst through (adding some drama), and the drums grow louder.  It builds slowly until it starts to taper off and ends much like it began

I don’t know much or anything about the artist except that he’s from Toronto and he has a bandcamp site where you can hear this track.

[READ: July 14, 2014] Pale Summer Week 1 (§1-§9)

In other Summer Reading Group posts, I have tried to summarize chapters, make connections between characters that I may have missed in earlier readings of the book and, just tried to be more microscopic about my reading.  I don’t usually philosophize too much about the stories, but I do wax poetic from time to time.  Having said all that, The Pale King presents its own unique challenges because the book is unfinished.  So it’s not always clear if any connections can be made from chapters that are elliptical. DFW in particular likes to write scenes without naming characters, giving the reader something to discover later on, perhaps.  So you may have a scene that has no named people in it, but their speech patterns or details are referenced later, allowing you to piece things together.

There is definitely some of that piecing going on here, but as I said, when a book is unfinished, and this one was largely pieced together by editor Michael Pietsch, it’s not clear if you are missing something or if it simply isn’t there.  So there will be some speculation, and some omissions for sure, but we press on.

A further complication is the collection of Notes and Asides at the end of the book.  Some reveal information about characters that is not necessarily evident in the book, some talk about things that might have happened or even might have been removed if DFW had played around with the text more.  In general I am not going to read these now, so as to avoid spoilers.  But I may insert them later (with spoiler warnings) to make it easier to make sense of the book later.

The primary setting for the book is the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, IL set in 1985.  Editor Michael Pietsch (in his thoughtful and helpful Editor’s note which is mandatory reading if you are going to read the novel) says that DFW described the book as “torandic,” with elements coming in and going out over and over.

The other key question is just how unfinished is this?  We have no idea.  It feels like it could go on for a ton longer, and yet it no doubt would have been edited down to a more manageable size afterwards.  There are sections that seem like they could have more and others that seems like they would have been trimmed a lot.  And then of course, there could be other things that never even saw the light of day.  None of that should keep anyone from reading the book though.

§1

This is a kind of prose poem (it was originally publishes at Peoria 4). The only thing that I take away from it in context of the book (in addition to it being an orienting of Peoria) is that it relishes nature (see the lengthy list of plants in the field) whereas the only thing doing any business are insects.

§2

We first meet Claude Sylvanshine, who will appear throughout the book.  Sylvanshine is flying from Dulles to Peoria.  He is an IRS agent rank GS9 (the lowest rank) and is hoping to pass his CPA exam (this time) to be promoted to a rank of GS11).  He has been studying for 3 1/2 years.  He and his roommate Reynolds (who is already a GS11) are aides to Errol “Mel” Lehrl.  Nearly the entire section is in his head as Sylvanshine tries but fails to concentrate on his upcoming test.  Everything around him is distracting, not the least of which is that they are on a tiny plane that he feels is not of the best quality.

Throughout the chapter, we see what’s happening around him as well as what’s happening in his head.  It also serves as a basic introduction to tax law (the focus of the novel). And while I won’t be adding every salient note here, things like “the three major codification of US tax law being of course ’16, ’39, and ’54 with ’81 and ’82’s indexing and anti-abuse provisions also relevant” indicate the kinds of things that are flashing through his mind.  I found the way the chapter was structured to be very useful in removing the boredom that would set in with a history of taxation–having the hectic, maddening flight interrupting his thoughts allowed for digestible bits of information as well as some tension.

In addition to the test, Sylvanshine thinks back to the Rome, NY debacle in which two departments fell behind and acted very unprofessionally–not destroying records, but pretty close (“hid” is a word that comes up).  After much time and much consternation, Reynolds appeared and made the whole debacle go away.

The final aspect of this chapter is character driven–Sylvanshine looks up to Reynolds, but the more examples he gives of Reynolds, the more like a jerk Reynolds seems.  Reynolds considers Sylvanshine a dithering ninny; he says his weakness was “strategic organization and apportionment of time, as Reynolds pointed out at every opportunity).  Sylvanshine was diagnosed with a pinched nerve in his neck back in 1981.  He also no longer drove after an incident in Philly.  His father had a habit of intoning “woe to Sylvanshine.”  In sum, Reynolds was a rifle (focused and intense) to Sylvanshine’s shotgun (all over the place).

Some other names mentioned: McGee, Grecula, Ray Harris (Grecula & Harris disabled the Fornix mainframe in Rome–it certainly seems that Harris was hiding files in the air ducts), Eloise Prout, a.k.a Dr. Yes, who reportedly slept with Sherman Garnett on nothing but the promise of a walk around the town.  Her numbers were terribly low, but kindly Mr. Orkney kept her on.  Soane and Madrid, who commented that Sylvanshine was little more than a letter opener at this pint.  Mr. Vince Bussy who was a GS11 but who said some things and was gone in a flash, with his umbrella still hanging on the hook several months later.   And non IRS related names Mr and Mrs Satterthwaite, (Sylvanshine’s neighbors) and Donagan (former high school friend who was at mission control for two Apollo missions).

I really enjoyed the unconnected section about talking intently with someone and then asking them “what’s wrong” and seeing how it freaks them out–they’ll either be grateful to open up or they’ll be frightened about how much you can read people.

§3

Pietsch says that he wanted to juxtapose longer, more serious chapters will shorter, sillier ones.  Hence we get this short chapter of two people driving to HQ in Joliet in one of the fleet’s Gremlins, (which was seized as part of jeopardy assessment against an AMC dealership).  The discussion is about masturbation.  The first unnamed person asks what the second unnamed person thinks of.  The answer  is “tits.” And then the question is asked of “Mr. Envelope Guy.” Who may indeed be a third person. and may even be Sylvanshine if he is considered little more than  a letter opener.

§4

This is an article from the Peoria Journal Star in which a worker, Frederick Blumquist was found dead at his desk for four days before anyone noticed.  His supervisor, Scott Thomas said that he was first in and last out and very focused on his work

§5

Leonard Stecyk  is a supremely nice, caring and concerned boy. So much so that he drives everyone crazy.  He volunteers for Meals on Wheels, he helps younger kids through crosswalks (he even bought his whistle himself).  When his father offers to buy an ice cream, he suggest the money go to Easter Seals or UNICEF instead.  He volunteers as a hall monitor, but he is there to serve, not run people down.  He can make over 20 kind of hats our of newspaper

The principal of his school loathes the mere sight of the boy but does not quite know why.  In fact everyone hates the boy, but that often causes the haters to feel mean and guilty and to hate themselves for feeling this way about a genuinely nice person…which then tends to make them involuntarily hate the bot even more.  His homeroom teacher, a well-respected and accomplished woman, threatened to kill him with blunt scissors.

For his 11th birthday, (in 1964) he organized a supreme bash (one that actually sounded pretty awesome), he sent out 316 invitations and 9 people showed up.

This chapter was read aloud and was much longer as “Three Fragments from a Longer Thing.”

§6

Lane A. Dean Jr.and his girlfriend, Sheri,  are sitting on a bench in the park.  They met at the same Junior College and were both very religious.  They are talking about her having an abortion.

The action is all in Lane’s head as he wonders if he might be a religious hypocrite…eventually while sitting there he receives a moment of grace, that he is not a hypocrite, just a normal man.

By the end of the chapter she feels bad but tells him that since she knows he does not love her as fully as she needs (and that’s all right), she will be carrying the baby to term–no responsibility for him.  This (or something similar) was published in The New Yorker as “Good People.”

§7

Claude Sylvanshine appears again, still thinking about the exam as he is transported from the airport in a maximum capacity 24 bus (or possibly a van).  Someone asks him if he is New. His reaction is “as opposed to what?” “New to the Post,” is the clarification.  There are two men sitting next to him. Bondurant and Britton (the smaller, pinker, rounder face), both are GS9.  Sylvanshine did not catch their names and felt bad about it.

During the conversation Sylvanshine asks if anyone can hear something, and the answer is Mister Squishee–another case of jeopardy assessment–the IRS took over some ice cream vans.  Terrible for morale and a PR nightmare, ice cream trucks seized by the Service.

For a few paragraphs, we are in Bondurant’s head as he is thinks back to his old girlfriend Cheryl Ann Higgs (now a divorced mother of two)–the girl who wouldn’t sleep with him on prom night.  His greatest moment in life was hitting a game winning triple in little league.

Britton asks Sylvanhsine what he is thinking which Sylvanshine takes as a terrible break of etiquette.  Sylvanshine realizes he can’t read Britton at all. Although Bondurant is much easier.

§8

This is a sad history of Antoinette “Toni” Ware a poor girl who grew up moving from place to place in various trailers.  Where she lives now there are fires in the gypsum hills to the north and the smoke covers everything.  Everyone in the trailer park is holed in with windows closed, all watching the same show.

Toni grew up tough and was able to read others in way most children could not.  She lived off of shoplifted food for eight days.  She learned to cut brake lines. She was so tough that psychic Mother Tia refused to read her.

Toni’s grandmother believed that Jack Benny was trying to send messages to her so she had hubcaps attached to the side of her house to keep out the transmissions.  And she never let Toni’s mother out of the house.

§9

Author’s Foreward.  This is an interruption in the flow of chapters from Dave Wallace, author.  He gives his SSN as 975-04-2012, and explains that anyone who works for the IRS is given a new SSN that starts with 9.

Primarily this Foreword exists to tell the reader that even though the disclaimer at the beginning of the book says that this is a work of fiction, he is here to say that it is not.  That it is all based on his time in Peoria from 1985-1986.  True, some things have been changed but he feels it is much more like a memoir than fiction and that that disclaimer is there just to cover the respective asses of the publishers.

He says that almost everyone he approached agreed to sign the waiver to have their words included here.  Most people signed, but some did not, some are dead, two turned out “to be incarcerated, of which one of these was someone you never would have thought or suspected.”

He admits to having cheated for others in college–he wrote papers and received money for it.  He talks about how hard it to plagiarise correctly.  But when people from a certain frat all used one of his papers, it was he who got in trouble, not the frat persons, one of whom is now employed by that very school.  His stay at the school was suspended which is how he got the job at the IRS (not because he actually wanted it).  Working for the IRS also allows you to defer you college loans.

I loved this chapter–it was casual and very funny.  It exemplifies DFW’s writing to me, complete with footnotes that add so much to the story.

In Fn 19, he references Interview Item 951458221 in §14 by Mr Kenneth [“Type of Thing Ken”] Hindle, about which more when I get to §14.

He mentions Chris Acquitispace a GS11 leader and talks about how the information about the IRS revealed here is as important as priceless Buddhas–too huge or heavy to move, so it is easily ignored.  It was this idea (that it was worth it) which allowed Dave Wallace to read all of this horrifically boring information that he used to comprise this memoir.

He has learned something about dullness, information, irrelevant complexity and boredom.

§ § § § § § § § § § § §

I enjoyed TPK when I read it the first time, but I found myself really getting into it a lot more this time.  I love the way that DFW spends so much time inside the minds of his characters–noticing everything, absorbing everything, and I also love the way he has taught his readers so much about something as seemingly dull as tax code.  he has found a way to make it interesting (to me, at least).