All Hail The Pale King

Why this will always be my favourite book…

Photo is from: Amazon.com: The Pale King: 8601400271933: Wallace, David Foster: Books

Picture the scene. I’m in a sterile office space, seated uncomfortably at a wooden desk. Harsh artificial light burning my scalp. Fifteen other people bent over at their work stations. All of us are correcting professional accountancy examination papers. Third day in a row.

I can feel my mind unravelling. Pressure and boredom combining to nearly push me over the edge. I see a cardboard box, full of corrected examination papers at the top of the room. The box grows a human mouth, opens it and in a strong northside Dublin accent, advises me to, “consider my life choices.”

I get up and leave. I go to the bathroom and throw up.

I read David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King around the time I was going through a bitter divorce, working eighteen hours a day and in order to help pay legal fees, I had agreed to correct examination papers for a few weekends in a row. Accounting examination papers.

I thought I was going to die in that office and that my final act on this earth would be writing, “do you understand how to present a financial instrument in a set of financial statements at all?” in a student’s answer book.

I was therefore familiar enough with intellectual drudgery and the sobering realisation that I would…