The Pale King

If anyone else is reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts as you go through it. I started it when I bought it back when it first came out (1-2 years ago?) and gave up, but now I'm reading it again. It's my breakfast reading, and so far it is, well, very DFW. I actually like the tax parts better than the other parts which so far (I am only about 100 pages in) are super duper sad. I really feel like his depression is almost palpable in those parts. Anyhow, I have just got through the "section" (a conceit in this book is naming the chapters "sections" like the IRS code) which has a bunch of videotaped speeches by IRS employees and it was really hilarious, especially the one employee who knew a lot of background and had the verbal tic of saying "type of thing" at weird moments.

Anyone want to share thoughts, frustrations, anything about the Pale King?

I bought this over a year ago but haven't yet made a start on reading because I suspect it will not be an easy read so I've chosen easier fodder. Perhaps some further responses to your post will encourage me to take the plunge (or perhaps not).

I've been meaning to read this. Will move it up the pile and hopefully get to it before you've finished and forgotten it again.

I read it a few years ago. Agreed: the tax parts were the best, and I do remember being amazed at the depiction of dead-eyed toddler, the child of one of the higher-ups– but overall, I really didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the rest of DFW's stuff, and do wonder whether it would have been better had he lived to finish it.