Appear­ing in The New York­er this week is an excerpt from David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s unfin­ished nov­el, The Pale King. It begins:

Once when I was a lit­tle boy I received as a gift a toy cement mix­er. It was made of wood except for its wheels—axles—which, as I remem­ber, were thin met­al rods. I’m nine­ty per cent sure it was a Christ­mas gift. I liked it the same way a boy that age likes toy dump trucks, ambu­lances, trac­tor-trail­ers, and what­not. There are lit­tle boys who like trains and lit­tle boys who like vehicles—I liked the lat­ter.

Con­tin­ue read­ing the rest here. Also see this oth­er  pre­vi­ous­ly pub­lished excerpt and some pages from DWF’s actu­al man­u­script.

via Kottke.org

PS Is any­one hav­ing prob­lems post­ing com­ments? If so, please shoot me a note at the email address above. I appre­ci­ate your help.

A quick note: Her­ta Müller, who won the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, deliv­ered her lec­ture in Stock­holm yes­ter­day. You can now read the full text online; the video should be com­ing soon.

My grand­fa­ther had been a sol­dier in the First World War. He knew what he was talk­ing about when he said, often and embit­tered, in ref­er­ence to his son Matz: When the flags start to flut­ter, com­mon sense slides right into the trum­pet. This warn­ing also applied to the fol­low­ing dic­ta­tor­ship, which I expe­ri­enced. Every day you could see the com­mon sense of the prof­i­teers, both big and lit­tle, slid­ing right into the trum­pet. The trum­pet I decid­ed not to blow.