This is how I look at it: a lot of artists say that once a work is "out there", it really belongs to the audience. Also, people start to get funny POVs when the

This is how I look at it: a lot of artists say that once a work is "out there", it really belongs to the audience. Also, people start to get funny POVs when they get older. He may have been living with a bunch of contradictory energies. Did Pale King tarnish DFW's reputation? (Maybe a bad example, his demons did a bit of that) DFW's short stories and earlier novels seem to have stood well on their own and survived the publishing of the incomplete Pale King.