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virtual_iya 's review for:
The Pale King
by David Foster Wallace
I have put off reading DFW for a lot of my life, mainly because he has been recommended to me by a lot of men using that Specific tone which I have learnt means, “Don’t listen to a single thing I say.”
Oh boy was I wrong! David, I did not recognise your game (despite the fact that literally every respectable literary publication does. Spite is winged Cupid painted blind or whatever.), you are so babygirl.
I appreciate my opinion of Pale King will only change once I read Infinite Jest (soon), but my current interpretation is as follows:
We, ie: corporate America, are a godfearing people living in a godless land. So we have replaced god with something else: capitalism. From Mary to Mammon, so to speak. This idea isn’t new. But what DFW does is to reinvent christianity, call it accountancy, and highlights the ridiculous Popery and ritual and calling that is religion.
In Stecyk we have our modern Christ: would Jesus be adored universally at his young age, with his wonders performed, or would he be bullied mercilessly? (He even does Woodworking, I mean come on!) We have the apparitions and phantasms, we have holy visions, we have the rites and rituals of accountancy. Gentlemen, you are called to account, is cried like the sermon on the mount. The Christian girl serving as the looming narrative foil. We have the glorious chapter 25, reeking of begat-begat-begat. The boredom of a sermon. The sudden aching electricity of his turns of phrase. We have the impenetrable language of those of the profession — translated in footnote by our benevolent priest, David Wallace (author).
How do people find meaning? How do they give their lives meaning when there may be none? Where do we find what calls us, where do we find belief, what happens to us that we turn to faith/The Service? This is the corporation. This is my body.