The Pale Kings

David Foster Wallace’s posthumous novel is brilliant; there’s no other way to describe it, focusing on the Internal Revenue service in a time where taxes are hotly debated in this election season, focusing on the comical clerks and accountants who populate the organization, plus riffs on the various political views and actors who influence tax policy, all in an amusing and highly entertaining tone without degrading the high theme, right smack into the debate on the role of government. Great writers are those who detect the pulse of their society, Wallace’s book though unfinished when he died, is a tome that displays his talent in focusing on the major concern long before it reached the news worthy proportions of today, accurately predicting that it’s a commendable subject for his talents. His voice reminds me of Thomas Pynchon, especially his book ‘Inherent Vice’, both comical but subtly displaying the absurdity of reality, a better story than those in books by his friend Jonathan Franken, who prefers to focus on social drama, like it were a television show, high end writing about essentially silly stuff.

I am also reading Jennifer Egan’s ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’, herself a recent celebrated writer who just won the latest literary award (that escapes me at the moment), a wonderful book of social drama, with stories about an aging rock and roll executive and his pretty assistant, lacking perhaps the underlying seriousness of another author James O’Neill with his recent book ‘Netherland’, a book that focused on the sub culture of cricket playing immigrants in New York after 9/11, a book that I enjoyed very much especially its take on Bush and the neo-conservatives. Excepting Pynchon, Wallace is the superior writer when compared with the other writers discussed above, although I have not read his other novels and considering ‘The Pale Kings’ was unfinished and heavily edited by an editor, he still has a vibrant voice that slightly reminds one of George Orwell especially the book ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’. Orwell is the standard when talking about important writers who focus on the important themes of society, his novels ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’ are the gold standard in comic absurdity without losing the high theme of political organization or centralized government or totalitarianism.

The late writer Christopher Hitchens’ book ‘Why Orwell Matters’ is an excellent essay on Orwell’s influence, coming from a writer with decidedly right wing tendencies, who was disgustingly critical of Jacqueline Kennedy in a Vanity Fair article, not realizing that she should be elevated to sainthood by the sheer fact of witnessing her husband’s brutal assassination, in turn losing her eldest son later in life though after her own death; a tragic family in any way imaginable; nevertheless Hitchens is superb in some of his arguments despite the occasional lapses in English snobbery. There does not seem to be any great English writers today in the same level as Orwell, the mantle passed to writers like Wallace or Pynchon or James O’Neill, authors who can write about the absurdities of life while focusing on great subjects, not succumbing to the Hollywood predilection for silly social drama, even the well written one. Perhaps it is like the comparison between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, great men who have done great things (the pale kings?) but the later one focusing on the difficult tasks while the former kicking the can of (health care) down the road to the next administration though balancing the budget and having a surplus (with the help of Newt Gingrich). One is chasing women and squandering his potential (silly social drama) and the other a decent family man unafraid to make difficult but unpopular decisions.

Desire to Know

The weekend was again spent reading too many books and watching DVDs. So much time is wasted with these activities that were previously thought as educational and mind expanding. Ordinarily, these were good activities to spend one’s time but now seem wasteful and self indulgent because it’s at the expense of other activities that one has considered important. Activities such as writing a novel, looking for college scholarships for one’s kids, exploring nearby towns, kayaking and hiking in the mountains. But the weekend was not all lost as I was able to visit the Greek festival and the nearby museum. It was a great 4-5 hours spent in a Sunday afternoon. But one still has the load of magazines, picture books and DVDs still unwatched and left over from the weekend. This brings to mind an old Chinese saying that knowledge not used is useless knowledge. This can also be re-phrased as experience without learning any practical lesson is useless experience.

It’s the same old desire to do everything and be alive. The desire to lead a good and exciting life. It’s the cause of stress where one is conflicted with too many demands on one’s time. It’s a question of choice and deciding on what task one should devote one’s time and energy in. The time for decision is never made because one just plunges along the road to distraction. Being well-rounded is an ego trip. The secret of great people is really focus and dedication. It is not doing many activities that make one successful but focusing on only one or two tasks. The enemy of focusing for some folks like me is the desire to know. To be in or conversant on the latest technical gizmo, gossip, spectacular picture, movie or hip novel. Perhaps it’s the fear of being ignorant and un-educated that is the root of this desire. A desire that is addictive and worse as any kind of addictive drug such as heroin or cocaine

Great people who can focus on a few tasks don’t have this fear. It’s these people who are the ones who are really free. The good thing is the realization that chasing an elusive secret is a waste of time. Perhaps it’s the tiredness of age or the realization that time is running out as one approaches middle age that brings a new awareness. The awareness is all the more important in this country where there are too many distractions. But it is also the land of re-birth or transformation or the second-act. So chasing the elusive secret is like a quest for transformation as well – to change oneself after one finds the ‘real’ truth. Unfortunately, one will only end up where one has started as the title of that famous book on meditation called ‘Wherever You Go, There You Are.’ It’s not the gathering of experiences or skills that matter as Eckhart Tolle often says but being in the moment.

People who can focus on a few things are confident people. They don’t care about being in the know. They have no desire to understand everything except for those few things that will help in the task focused on. I guess that is the fulfillment achieved by great craftsmen – people who are experts on the things they do like making great furniture or software. This is the lesson of Zen; of making tea or tending a Japanese garden or making a haiku – to be able to focus on a single task and be an expert on it. Unfortunately, when one is a technologist one is forever distracted by the latest gizmo or gadget that is forever being released in a never ending stream by giant multinational companies. It feeds into the addiction of wanting to know more and experience everything possible on earth.

Jonathan Franzen in his essay ‘Perchance to Dream’ says that today’s writers can never attempt to write a novel that will appeal to a mass or ‘general’ audience. Book reading is now a pursuit of a sub-culture of readers. Television has won according to his late friend, David Foster Wallace. Television and perhaps movies is now the better medium to tell a story. Franzen says that one should NOT have the general audience in mind but instead focus on that small group of people who remain readers despite the inevitable onslaught of technology. People no longer have the focus and attention to sit down and read a good book – forever distracted by the seemingly endless diversion available in the Internet. It’s an intriguing idea despite considering the success of their books like Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’ and ‘Freedom’ and Wallace’s ‘Infinite Jest’.

Despite the death of the ‘social novel’ as proclaimed by Philip Roth, these books by Franzen and Wallace still succeed. But I think the greatest success will come to contemporary writers like Cormac McCarthy whose works are successful in both print and film. His works are also brief and focus on the truly relevant themes that are urgent today. Don DeLillo and William Gibson also have a focus and brevity of style that maybe more appealing to today’s highly distracted reader. Both Franzen and Wallace are a continuation of the stream of American writing populated by writers like John Updike, Philip Roth and Norman Mailer who have a certain verbosity and extravagant flourish. Perhaps it is the overabundance of words that fuel a feeling of wanting more, to be able to get everything and live a larger than life existence ala Ernest Hemingway, John Huston or Orson Wells.

I guess the idea is to focus on a certain theme and stick to it when writing. Focus on simplicity and the stripping of other useless (to the task at hand) external activities are the key to sanity and success. Perhaps this is the theme that one arrives at after so much thought and deliberations. I guess a re-reading to Eckhart Tolle is needed again. Simplicity is the answer to life’s stress. There is just too much thinking and churning of thought which feeds the mind and the desire to know. The antidote is to stop thinking and wake up and enjoy life. For instance, it was good to be out last Sunday and experience the Greek festival – to be out of one’s thoughts and just enjoy the exotic food, good weather and the performances. It’s the revenge of the un-nerd. One just needs to get the job done and do it - as some people would say.