David Foster Wallace, The Pale King *** 1/2

The Pale King is an unfinished novel that David Foster Wallace left when he died. It takes place at an IRS processing center in Peoria in 1985. Or perhaps it would be better to say that it revolves around the IRS processing in 1985, because many of the chapters describe prior events in the lives of the characters who eventually work there. The major theme of the book is boredom: how people deal with it and how central it is to life in the modern bureaucratic world.

Few ordinary Americans know anything...about the deep changes the Service underwent in the mid-1980s, changes that today directly affect the way citizens' tax obligations are determined and enforced. And the reason for this public ignorance is not secrecy.... The real reason why US citizens were/are not aware of these conflicts, changes, and stakes is that the whole subject of tax policy and administration is dull. Massively, spectacularly dull.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of this feature... The IRS was one of the very first government agencies to learn that such qualities help insulate them against public protest and political opposition, and that abstruse dullness is actually a more effective shield than is secrecy. (Chapter 9)

It's important to read The Pale King as a collection of drafts and fragments rather than as a completed novel. For one thing, the book is all setup and no narrative payoff — although in the preface the editor suggests that DFW might have intended the final book to be like that too. Some of the extant chapters are impressive, and you can see where the author was headed. I think you have to be a DFW fan to appreciate the insights into how he worked, but if you are a DFW fan it's definitely worthwhile.