David Foster Wallace Was Better Than That


From Rob Brunner’s review of The Pale King in the most recent Entertainment Weekly:

Wallace revels in the supposed inner workings of this secret world, relishing the mouthfeel of accounting insanity like “for ruling requests concerning the classification of an organization as a limited partnership where a corporation is the sole general partner, see Rev. Proc. 72-13, 1972-1 CB 735.”

Supposed? Secret? Insanity? I checked, and Revenue Procedure 72-13 is real. It can be found in volume 1972-1 of the IRS’s Cumulative Bulletin, on page 735. And its subject heading is “Conditions under which the Revenue Service will issue a ruling concerning classification of an organization as a limited partnership where a corporation is the sole general partner.” David Foster Wallace took his research, and his subjects, seriously.


Not to mention, this title is actually pretty clear.

Have you read The Pale King yet, James? Any thoughts?