Author News
There is a god
via USA Today:
NEW YORK (AP) — A long, unfinished novel by David Foster Wallace is scheduled for a posthumous release next year.The Pale King, excerpted in The New Yorker magazine edition coming out Monday, is set in an Internal Revenue Service office in Illinois in the 1980s.
Wallace’s longtime publisher, Little, Brown and Company, will release the novel. Little, Brown said in a statement Sunday that the novel runs “several hundred thousand words and will include notes, outlines, and other material.”
Wallace, best known for the 1,000-page novel Infinite Jest, was a longtime sufferer from depression who committed suicide last fall. He was 46 and had been working on The Pale King for several years.
Sure, it wasn’t finished. Sure, it might not be fully what it would have been if completed under David Wallace’s human eye. But it’s what we have left, and I for one can breathe a little easier now knowing I will have the experience of reading another brick from my brother, even in such light.
I seriously pumped my fist and grinned and shook a little when I read this. I am giddy.
Thank you thank you.
EDIT: The NYer excerpt piece, Wiggle Room, is now available on their site here!!! Which, holy fuck, the first sentence: Lane Dean, Jr., with his green rubber pinkie finger, sat at his Tingle table in his chalk’s row in the rotes group’s wiggle room and did two more returns, then another one, then flexed his buttocks and held to a count of ten and imagined a warm pretty beach with mellow surf, as instructed in orientation the previous month.
And holy fuck the whole rest…
BONUS: a few pages of the manuscript, with notes, etc, as well as accompanying art by his wife Karen Green.
God.
This should be, I think, seen as a celebration, regardless of the sadder angles. As one who could not have adored him more, it seems more vital now than ever.
Tags: david foster wallace, the pale king
Very excited about this. There’s also a longish essay about him called “The Unfinished” in the New Yorker as well.
Very excited about this. There’s also a longish essay about him called “The Unfinished” in the New Yorker as well.
HOT DAMN
HOT DAMN
He added, “Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.”
He added, “Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.”
I think I feel a little sad about this.
I think I feel a little sad about this.
i can understand that. it’s a hairy situation. i, though, am all for it.
i can understand that. it’s a hairy situation. i, though, am all for it.
The New Yorker article made it sound like Wallace edited a 200 hundred page section of hist total manuscript and left it to be published.
It wasn’t clear to in the article if that was what was going to be published though, or if more was going to be included.
The New Yorker article made it sound like Wallace edited a 200 hundred page section of hist total manuscript and left it to be published.
It wasn’t clear to in the article if that was what was going to be published though, or if more was going to be included.
i am pretty sure the book is much longer than 200 pages. but yes, i think he was editing it for a long time. he’s been talking about it for at least 7+ years i believe. it should be interesting to see how they handle it
i am pretty sure the book is much longer than 200 pages. but yes, i think he was editing it for a long time. he’s been talking about it for at least 7+ years i believe. it should be interesting to see how they handle it
I’m referring to the last page of this New Yorker article if people didn’t see it:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_max?currentPage=13
I’m referring to the last page of this New Yorker article if people didn’t see it:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/09/090309fa_fact_max?currentPage=13
This is good news.
Here is another opportunity to celebrate a great writer’s work, a great human’s life.
This is good news.
Here is another opportunity to celebrate a great writer’s work, a great human’s life.
this is awesome. hope to have infinite jest finished by the time the hardback comes out.
this is awesome. hope to have infinite jest finished by the time the hardback comes out.
the TNY essay is absolutely fantastic. i felt excited, moved, and tremendously sad. several times i felt like crying. he was such a brilliant and moral writer. we should all be so honest.
the TNY essay is absolutely fantastic. i felt excited, moved, and tremendously sad. several times i felt like crying. he was such a brilliant and moral writer. we should all be so honest.
For some reason, I don’t mind this being done posthumously. When I read The First Man by Camus, I was glad to have it but just KNEW that Camus would have been pissed, so I felt dirty afterward. The footnotes and marginalia were especially personal and embarrassing. Maybe they’ll do a better job with Wallace. Hope so.
For some reason, I don’t mind this being done posthumously. When I read The First Man by Camus, I was glad to have it but just KNEW that Camus would have been pissed, so I felt dirty afterward. The footnotes and marginalia were especially personal and embarrassing. Maybe they’ll do a better job with Wallace. Hope so.
I am shameless and also don’t mind anything posthumous, even if its not done, or their “early” work or whatever. There was this early Henry Miller book that everyone was up in arms about -Crazy Cock- I just enjoyed reading it.
I’m excited for this. I hope I don’t feel dirty afterward. I’m trying to think of a time I did feel dirty after reading something that the author wouldn’t want read. That’s interesting.
I am shameless and also don’t mind anything posthumous, even if its not done, or their “early” work or whatever. There was this early Henry Miller book that everyone was up in arms about -Crazy Cock- I just enjoyed reading it.
I’m excited for this. I hope I don’t feel dirty afterward. I’m trying to think of a time I did feel dirty after reading something that the author wouldn’t want read. That’s interesting.
At first, i thought it said “seven hundred thousand words,” but several, still, wow. I’m also expecting they come out with a previously uncollected stories and/or essays book, which isn’t a posthumous gray area at all, but is just helpful. That New Yorker story about the couple on a bench especially deserves to be bound, short as it is.
At first, i thought it said “seven hundred thousand words,” but several, still, wow. I’m also expecting they come out with a previously uncollected stories and/or essays book, which isn’t a posthumous gray area at all, but is just helpful. That New Yorker story about the couple on a bench especially deserves to be bound, short as it is.
agreed on uncollected. i have an enormous binder of photocopied uncollected stuff that this list serv i was on assembled, literally several hundred pages of uncollected published work. and so much great.
‘good people,’ the NYer bench story, is also from the unfinished novel.
agreed on uncollected. i have an enormous binder of photocopied uncollected stuff that this list serv i was on assembled, literally several hundred pages of uncollected published work. and so much great.
‘good people,’ the NYer bench story, is also from the unfinished novel.
I’m not really into people publishing the final novel of some great author which the author didn’t finish and wanted destroyed because it sucks.
But DFW didn’t leave us with much, didn’t ask for this to be destroyed (and indeed had left part of it for his wife when he committed suicide, presumably because he wanted it published) and so I don’t feel conflicted about it. I’m glad it is coming out.
I’m not really into people publishing the final novel of some great author which the author didn’t finish and wanted destroyed because it sucks.
But DFW didn’t leave us with much, didn’t ask for this to be destroyed (and indeed had left part of it for his wife when he committed suicide, presumably because he wanted it published) and so I don’t feel conflicted about it. I’m glad it is coming out.
agreed. it seems as if it laid out there, neatly, as if to say “here it is”
and even if it’s not exactly where he wanted it to be, one bad story (or book for that matter) doesn’t lessen what he’s done before.
“2666” was unfinished and they published it, right?
agreed. it seems as if it laid out there, neatly, as if to say “here it is”
and even if it’s not exactly where he wanted it to be, one bad story (or book for that matter) doesn’t lessen what he’s done before.
“2666” was unfinished and they published it, right?
No. 2666 was finished but not published when he died.
No. 2666 was finished but not published when he died.
Really? So that one’s covered.
Black sheep. Sunday sunday sunday.
Really? So that one’s covered.
Black sheep. Sunday sunday sunday.
ah
ah