David Foster Wallace is not finished yet. The American literary giant, whose suicide this past September was a devastating blow to a generation of readers and critics, has left behind a manuscript. At about two hundred pages long, The Pale King is far shorter than Wallace's monumental and self-establishing work, Infinite Jest (which, based on word count, is approximately 1500 pp).
Length is not the only quality distinguishing the two works. According to the Guardian, fourteen years later, Wallace had moved away from the "maximalist" style of IJ, opting for a "new, straightforward technical direction". Lovers of the endnote may blanch; others can sneak a peek by browsing this week's New Yorker. [UEM.]
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