The Pale King

What surprises me is The Pale King actually is intended to have a plot as enumerated in the end notes that are included in the unfinished novel by the late David Foster Wallace.  From my reading, which sadly was mostly done on my commute, I couldn't find a plot, something remotely resembles a plot maybe but not in the traditional sense that I understand it.  In fact it's more like a collection of short stories, those that have no beginning or end at all.  I find it difficult if not impossible to make any sense out of the characters, who come from and go nowhere, in the grand scheme of things such as the story of the novel.  But once I accepted the novel was probably written by a mad man who happened to be smart, articulate, pedantic and very good at moving words around then I kind of came to the conclusion that I could enjoy or even admire it, all these were of course done without me realizing it--the novel is so hypnotic that it either puts me to sleep or totally engrosses me during my daily commute to and from work.  His use of footnote is somewhat annoying to say the least.  I am in the opinion that if you cannot incorporate your thoughts in the body of a sentence or a paragraph then you should leave it out otherwise just write it in, that is, unless you are writing a research paper or you are DFW who tends to write extensive footnotes whenever he feels like it (of course being a wordsmith he can absolutely write anything in a sentence or paragraph, it's just that he makes a conscious literary choice not to and instead happily writes footnotes in the length of a chapter or a section).  There are a few chapters or rather pages (out of more than 500 pages) that I particularly enjoy and am duly impressed.  One being how an agent got an epiphany and turns himself from being a wastoid at college to an accountant; the other being how a father got killed in a busy subway platform.  I personally think the detail and the psychological landscape presented are pretty out of this world.  And above anything else (and despite his fixation on footnotes or rather my own fixation and displeasure on his writing footnotes), I find his writing touching and deeply sincere, which turns out to be the real surprise for me.