Something to Do with Paying Attention

by David Foster Wallace, Sarah McNally (Preface)

When David Foster Wallace died in 2008, he left behind a vast unfinished novel—some 1,100 pages of loose chapters, sketches, notes, and fragments—published in 2011 as The Pale King.

But the unfinished King did contain a finished novella that Wallace had already considered publishing as a stand-alone volume. It is the story of a young man, a self-described “wastoid,” adrift in the suburban Midwest of the 1970s, whose life is changed forever by an encounter with advanced tax law. It is, as Sarah McNally writes in her preface, “not just a complete story, but the best complete example we have of Wallace’s late style, where calm and poise replace the pyrotechnics of Infinite Jest and other early works.”

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, American, Novella, Literature, Philosophy, Contemporary

152 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2011

About the author

David Foster Wallace was an acclaimed American writer known for his fiction, nonfiction, and critical essays that explored the complexities of consciousness, irony, and the human condition. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative literary voices of his generation, Wallace is perhaps best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. His unfinished final novel, The Pale King, was published posthumously in 2011 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Born in Ithaca, New York, Wallace was raised in Illinois, where he excelled as both a student and a junior tennis player—a sport he later wrote about with sharp insight and humor. He earned degrees in English and philosophy from Amherst College, then completed an MFA in creative writing at the University of Arizona. His early academic work in logic and philosophy informed much of his writing, particularly in his blending of analytical depth with emotional complexity.
Wallace’s first novel, The Broom of the System (1987), established his reputation as a fresh literary talent. Over the next two decades, he published widely in prestigious journals and magazines, producing short stories, essays, and book reviews that earned him critical acclaim. His work was characterized by linguistic virtuosity, inventive structure, and a deep concern for moral and existential questions. In addition to fiction, he tackled topics ranging from tennis and state fairs to cruise ships, politics, and the ethics of food consumption.
Beyond his literary achievements, Wallace had a significant academic career, teaching literature and writing at Emerson College, Illinois State University, and Pomona College. He was known for his intense engagement with students and commitment to teaching.
Wallace struggled with depression and addiction for much of his adult life, and he was hospitalized multiple times. He died by suicide in 2008 at the age of 46. In the years since his death, his influence has continued to grow, inspiring scholars, conferences, and a dedicated readership. However, his legacy is complicated by posthumous revelations of abusive behavior, particularly during his relationship with writer Mary Karr, which has led to ongoing debate within literary and academic communities.
His distinctive voice—by turns cerebral, comic, and compassionate—remains a defining force in contemporary literature. Wallace once described fiction as a way of making readers feel "less alone inside," and it is that emotional resonance, alongside his formal daring, that continues to define his place in American letters.

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically what you would get if Holden Caulfield got his shit together and ended up getting a job with the IRS.

[Peter Knox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating backstory on this piece... it's a novella that DFW intended to publish before he passed, but ended up being included as the foundation of what would become The Pale King.

So it's not 'new' or 'unpublished' but it is a fascinating and fantastic standalone read, ideally if you can carve out the consecutive hours to do it all in one sitting.

It's a wonderful sample of the type of fiction writing DFW was doing at the end of his career/life. To read compared to even a decade before, you can sense the maturity and the evolution of his style.

But what carries through is the laser-focused introspection and self-actualization that is his signature beat. He writes what he thinks more clearly than anyone else can articulate outloud and to read it is to experience it as a universal commonality that makes us all feel less alone.

The effect is... "wait, other people feel this way too?". And it's powerful the way he does it. To take a simple character and fill in the backstory from his genetics to his circumstances to his mundane job is the funnel focus of his attention at the detail level of emotion.

I would absolutely steer people to read this before they tackle The Pale King or even Oblivion... because it's not for everyone but it's absolutely for me.

Many thanks to McNally Jackson for this standalone publication.

[Xandre · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. Oh how I love my personal friend Mr David F Wallace

[Jasey Roberts · Rating 2 out of 5]

DFW fans be like “I like him because he’s boring and tedious”

[Barney Herrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool. A novella and part of David Foster Wallace’s unfinished book the pale king which he died in the middle of writing and off this seems like it would’ve been a great one. Enjoyed reading it but is further proof that I will do anything else than picking back up and finishing infinite jest after sacking it off the first time round nearly 4 years ago

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I blew through this and it was very refreshing after some of the more intense and long books I’ve recently read.
I don’t know a whole lot about dfw and I don’t really care to but this feels like a very personal and probably just autobiographical work this guy was doing before he died. I’ve read all his other stuff and I like all of it (but most of it I read when I was younger and more stupid and annoying) and this sort of just solidified that yeah, I do still like this writing and this man (but I might just be older and annoying).

[michal k-c · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful little novella that is probably the shining example of Wallace’s late style (excluding the first two pages of Pale King). the linguistic calisthenics of Infinite Jest are gone and we’re left with Wallace’s calmest and most precise prose he ever wrote.
“You are sitting on an old yellow dorm couch, spinning a black-and-white soccer ball, and watching As The World Turns, without ever even acknowledging to yourself this is what you are doing.”

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is."
some of my fave DFW work centers on attention and our increasing inability to pay attention to things.

this novella, a 150 page monologue that the blurb on the dust cover calls a conversion experience and a confessional narrative, details a man's journey from being a "wastoid" to an IRS examiner. it's funny, frank, self-conscious but transparent in the way DFW always was, and a gift to read.

[Mort Marple · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is simply Chapter 22 of The Pale King, which should have been published as its own entity a long time ago. Among my favorites of all DFW's writing. I hope this release helps it reach more people.

[Adam Ferris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A while back I attempted to start Infinite Jest and after about a hundred pages or so, I succumbed to indifference and impatience and put the book down and will probably never end up reading it. This turn of events left me conflicted in feeling like a failure at one of the biggest tomes of modern literature and also very curious about how I would enjoy DFW in a more palatable size. I am glad to say that I don't see myself as a reading failure and secondly, I purchased a copy of Something To Do With Paying Attention while browsing the McNally Jackson in NYC during our honeymoon.

Wallace walks the line beautifully satirizing post-modernity's emptiness in the life of the unnamed narrator who is coming of age. The protagonist is the prototypical youth of Generation X that many people stereotype as a slacker, or in DFW's narrator's own words, a wastoid. Through a haze of Obetrol and Ritalin, his youthful nihilistic spirit leaves his relations with his family and others unfulfilling all the while trying to stay in school or even to pick a major. Eventually, as many of us, the protagonist stumbles upon a life-changing event. This is the part of the book where DFW's writing really takes off when exploring fate, ambition, and mindfulness, awareness, and accounting.

Like many men, the narrator is self-righteous while being insecure caught up in his existential dread until thankful he finds his place in the work force. How absurd is that? We have to work to live? How did we end up in this horrible kind of predicament? The way DFW shifts seamlessly amongst all sorts of thought-provoking philosophizing in such a short book is nothing less than impressive. Being born myself at the tail end of Gen X, there were many personal and cultural reference points that helped me to really enjoy this book on top of the engaging writing. I saw and connected myself to the narrator and was full engaged, immersed and involved for the entire book. I am very pleased to say that even though I will not get to IJ, there is still plenty of wonderful work by DFW left to explore.

"I'm not sure I even know what to say. To be honest, a good bit of it I don't remember. I don't think my memory works in quite the way it used to. It may be that this kind of work changes you. Even just rote exams. It might actually change your brain. For the most part, it's now almost as if I'm trapped in the present. If I drank, for instance, some Tang, it wouldn't remind me of anything-I'd just taste the Tang."

"I think the truth is that I was the worst kind of nihilist-the kind who isn't even aware he's a nihilist. I was like a piece of paper on the street in the wind, thinking, 'Now I think I'll blow this way, now I think I'll blow that way.' My essential response to everything was 'Whatever.'"

"Everyone I knew and hung out with was a wastoid, and we knew it. It was hip to be ashamed of it, in a strange way. A weird kind of narcissistic despair. Or just to feel directionless and lost-we romanticized it."

"I remember almost none of early childhood, mostly just weird little isolated strobes The more fragmented the memory is, though, the more it seems to feel authentically mine, which is strange. I wonder if anyone feels as though they're the same person they seem to remember. It would probably make them have a nervous breakdown. It probably wouldn't even make any sense. names.
I don't know if this is enough. I don't know what anybody else has told you. Our common word for this kind of nihilist at the time was wastoid."

"But based on my experience during the thing time, most people are always feeling something or adopt some attitude or choosing to pay attention to one one part of something without even knowing we're doing it. We do it automatically, like a heartbeat. Sometimes be sitting there in a room and become aware of how much effort it was to pay attention to just your own heartbeat for more than a minute or so-it's almost as though your heartbeat wants to stay out of awareness, like a rock star avoiding the limelight. But it's there if you can double up and make yourself pay attention. Same with music, too, the doubling was being able to both listen very closely and also to feel whatever emotions the music evoked-because obviously that's why we're into music, that it makes us feel certain things, otherwise it would just be noise-and not only have them, listening, but be aware of them."

"But that analogy sounds too cheap, like a cheap witticism. It's hard to explain, and this is probably more time than I should take to explain it. Nor am I obviously trying to give any pro-drug-abuse message here. But it was important. I like now to think of the Obetrol and other subtypes of speed as more of a kind of signpost or directional sign, pointing to what might be possible if I could become more aware and alive in daily life. In this sense, I think that abusing these drugs was a valuable experience for me, as I was basically so feckless and unfocused during this period that I needed a very clear, blunt type of hint that there was much more to being an alive, responsible, autonomous adult than I had any idea of at the time."

"The ability to choose what I paid attention to, and to be aware of that choice, the fact that it's a choice. I'm not the smartest person, but even during that whole pathetic, directionless period, I think that deep down I knew that there was more to my life and to myself than just the ordinary psychological impulses for pleasure and vanity that I let drive me That there were depths to me that were not bullshit or childish but profound, and were not abstract but actually much realer than my clothes or self-image, and that blazed in an almost sacred way-I'm being serious; I'm not just trying to make it sound more dramatic than it was-and that these realest, most profound parts of me involved not drives or appetites but simple attention, awareness, if only I could stay awake off speed."

"Anyhow, it's all just abstract speculation at this point, because I never really talked to either of my parents about how they felt about their adult lives. It's just not the sort of thing that parents sit down and openly discuss with their children, at least not in that era."

"I think the truth is probably that enormous, sudden, dramatic, unexpected, life-changing experiences are not translatable or explainable to anyone else, and this is because they really are unique and particular-though not unique in the way the Christian girl believed. This is because their power isn't just a result of the experience itself, but also of the circumstances in which it hits you, of everything in your previous life-experience which has led up to it and made you exactly who and what you are when the experience hits you. Does that make any sense? It's hard to explain. "

"I don't mean any sort of humanities-type ironic metaphor, but the literal thing he was saying, the simple surface level. I don't know how many times I'd heard this that year while sitting around watching As the World Turns, but I suddenly realized that the announcer was actually saying over and over what I was literally doing. Not only this, but I also realized that I had been told this fact countless times."

"Actually, in hindsight, the substitute have been the first genuine authority figure I ever met, meaning a figure with genuine 'authority' instead of just the power to judge you or squeeze your shoes from their side of the generation gap, and I became aware for the first time that 'authority' was actually something real and authentic, that a real authority was not the same as a friend or someone who cared about you, but nevertheless could be good for you, and that the authority relation was not a 'democratic' or equal one and yet could have value for both sides, both people in the relation. I don't think I'm explain- ing this very well-but it's true that I did feel singled out, spindled on those eyes in a way I neither liked nor didn't, but was certainly aware of. It was a certain kind of power that he exerted and that I was granting him, voluntarily. That respect was not the same as coercion, although it was a kind of power. It was all very strange. I also noticed that now he had his hands behind his back, in something like the 'parade rest' military position."

"Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality-there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth-actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested."

"Part of me was frightened that I'd actually become galvanized and motivated too late and was somehow going to just at the last minute 'miss' some crucial chance to renounce my nihilism and make a meaningful, real-world choice."

"It didn't feel feckless, though it also didn't feel especially romantic or heroic. It was more as if I simply had to make a choice of what was more important."

[Bay Gross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reflections on DFW
1. DFW was one of my first ‘favorite’ authors. Discovering his essays in college was a meaningful, (if common!), milestone.

2. Content: Wry observations of the suburban American experience. A sort of irreverent standoffishness through which he nails the banality and loneliness beneath the surface of strip malls, cruise ships, and good manners.

3. Style: a fun and notable writing style of mixing colloquialisms with long and literary abstract frames. A sort of hybrid between dave barry and joyce, that for me was a fun on-ramp to literary non-fiction.

4. Values: he helps you see neuroses as a strength not a weakness; and to trust individualism/independence as a better goal than conformity.

5. Values: his well known critique of irony/cynicism was ahead of its time; I feel like mainstream TV is just beginning to catch up with Sex Education and Ted Lasso.

6. These days he’s no longer my favorite, but still appreciated and fun. Perhaps a bit too Brooklyny, and a bit too much “punching down”.


Novella Background
1. This book is an excerpt from the larger DFW book “Pale King”, where it occurs as a single 153pg chapter. It has been published as a stand-alone excerpt by McNally Jackson printhouse.

2. Pale King is known for being DFW’s final work, published unfinished and posthumously, found alongside him at his suicide.

3. Pale King (and this excerpt) are weirdly structured as a fictional memoir. They follow the life of a man named David Foster Wallace who grew up in Illinois in the 70’s, went to college at Amherst, and then joined the IRS -- all of which is true. But outside that core fact-base, the narrative deviates from the author’s life in many and meaningful ways.

4. Typical to his fiction, the narrative is indulgently self-aware, almost stoned in its description of minutia. Easily mocked and exasperating at times, particularly the persistent self-referential questions of "does that make sense?" and "I’m not saying it well.."

Plot Summary
1. Extended and unstructured reflections of the protagonist (IRS worker in late twenties) reflecting on his childhood and relationship with his father.

2. Hits on parents divorce, moms feminist new girlfriend. College parties and drug use.

3. Leans in to some silly vocab like “wastoids” for college nihilist slackers and “shoe squeezing” for when the man is getting you down.

4. All vaguely dream like and unfocused in reflection

5. Some interesting monologues on the balance between freedom and loneliness; or between living deliberately and indulgence.


Recommendation
Skip this novella, and instead turn to the DFW kenyon college commencement speech in 2005, shortly before his suicide in 2008. A lot of the same themes but more packaged and effective.
1. A speech less about “how to think” so much as “what to think about”. Where to focus your attention.
2. He delivers an earnest, direct message. Escape from unconsciousness, from the prison you don’t realize you’re locked up in.
3. Be less arrogant about what you think is true, about what you think should be. Find a way to pay more attention, be more mindful, stay out of your heads narrative.
4. Mental discipline, humility, and finding meaning in the day to day

[Yong Xiang · Rating 5 out of 5]

quite funny at points. has some thought-provoking reflections - the extended section on taking obetrol was kinda good. and some memorable images as well - the ritual of the spinning foot, the rain of shopping bags on the train platform etc.

would reread :)

[jayden yau · Rating 5 out of 5]

idk how someone could write getting a job in the IRS interesting and philosophical, but david foster wallace ofc can

[rachy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like David Foster Wallace gets a bad reputation sometimes, both because of the kind of people that often like his work and because of the divisive nature of ‘Infinite Jest’. Now, I haven’t been brave enough to yet dive into it, but everything else I’ve ever read of his has been nothing but impressive. I loved ‘Brief Interviews with Hideous Men’, but because of the daunting nature of his most famous novel and knowing ‘The Pale King’ was unfinished, I stayed at only having read the one book of his for a long time. When I saw this little McNally edition of the most complete fragment that went into ‘The Pale King’, I thought it would be an easy way to read a little more of his work without the other hang ups I would have over his posthumous novel. What I didn’t anticipate is that it would open the door into remembering just how much I really like DFW’s work.

Even as only an incomplete fragment, it’s kind of insane just how wonderful and complete a reading experience ‘Something to do with Paying Attention’ is, in all aspects. It almost goes without saying that the prose here is just so good. His writing is so clear and lucid. Precise but still perfectly natural and convincing and above all, even when covering the most boring of subjects (the IRS for gods sake), entirely engaging. I hardly put this book down once until I finished it.

The entire conceit is also perfect. It uses its own mundanity so exceedingly well to really take aim at the absurdities of what we consider ordinary, and does it in the most entertaining and satisfying way I could imagine. To have such keen insight buried in what otherwise seems like a plodding monologue from an average man and how he ended up going from student deadbeat to working for the IRS, it made me feel like a truffle pig. That I was so sharp as to be able to rustle up the most exquisite treasures from what seems to be nothing. To not only execute this, but to make it feel so gratifying is just so beyond impressive. I also couldn’t help but get stuck on how poignant the theme of paying attention wass, especially in today’s world of TikTok brain rot. It’s always wonderful when something that feels like it should be old and outdated can still have so much to say about modern society.

So the natural end point of all that is this: I’ve already bought a copy of ‘The Pale King’ and I’ve already started reading it, so I don’t feel the need to say too much else on this until I’ve finished it. Though unfinished and ‘rediscovered’ novels aren’t really my bag, preferring to let what never was to never be, I simply need more of this. So, for once, if it exists in any capacity, I want to read it. There isn’t much else I could say that would be a higher compliment to this novella than that.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think this might be the best book I've read on drugs and tax accounting. (Where the IRS is also referred to as 'the Service'). That being said, it has some really interesting and well-written parts on awareness and being/thinking, as well as some neat prose on giving advice (and why it mostly doesn't work), and loss.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is pretty much 150 pages of the narrator saying "As I already mentioned he squeezed my shoes, but I don't think I'm describing it right" over and over. I did like the absurd speech about how accountants are cowboys though.

[Meg McPherson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve reached the level of literary enlightenment necessary to appreciate this book so instead it was just suuuuuuper boring

[Ankit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chapter 22 of The Pale King. Absurdly funny at places yet authentic and full of meaning.

[Kyle York · Rating 5 out of 5]

Might just be my favorite piece of fiction ever

[Michael Ruberto · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first experience reading DFW after years of hearing about him from my roommate and it didn’t disappoint. At only around 130 pages it was a relatively short read (although you wouldn’t guess that based on the average sentence length), but there are still so many parts of it that I haven’t been able to get out of my head.

Part of me wishes I had read it this time last year when I was fresh out of school and still looking to start my career, but even now with my 9 to 5 it has me reflecting on a bunch of different habits and experiences in my life.

This feels like a piece of writing that I’ll come back to multiple times in the future, whether that’s as another standalone read through like this was or as a reading of The Pale King, which this story is one standalone chapter of. Especially given the prominence of generation gaps and parental relationships in the novella, I’m sure my takeaways will change and evolve as I get older. In all, this was a short but significant read that I would definitely recommend.

[Pabgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anecdotal evidence from people that have ingested hallucinogenics suggest a rewiring of the brain, an ability to see life and existence in a way they had never had before, the "oneness", or connectedness of the universe during the experience that forever altered their outlook, on everything, from that point on. Having read Wallace's best known work, "The Infinite Jest", I felt, as have others, a similar "re-wiring" of the brain. That may be the best that I can describe it, although it seems insufficient.
I recently read his unfinished novel, "The Pale King". Chapter twenty two went on and on, leaving the reader to wonder why this odd chapter was part of that book, like maybe it did not really belong. As it turns out, Wallace himself considered publishing it as a novella, standing on its own. That is how "Something to Do with Paying Attention" came to be. And it works. Foster has a way of making you think about the seemingly most ordinary things in a completely different way that you ever did before. A hundred and thirty pages of brain re-wiring, meant to be read it slowly and carefully, savoring every complex detail.
David Foster Wallace was one of the greatest philosophers of the modern era, indeed, maybe one of the greatest ever. Oh, and damn funny!

[caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

With no chapters, no plot, and only the slightest bit of given direction, Something To Do With Paying Attention feels like having a conversation with an old friend and a random stranger. I’m in absolute awe of DFW’s brilliance. The immense amount of detail to world build mundanity it’s more impressive (to me) than any kind of sci-fi story. Callbacks to previously mentioned minuscule moments bring everything to life. The sheer amount of research and care that went into the 136 pages of this book is incredible. I loved it.

[Victoria Reads Occasionally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hypocrisy and mundanity feel like the driving forces of this novella, and the story here is both silly and deeply melancholic, like a deflating balloon. Believe it or not, I’d say the story becomes even more bland and mundane as it progresses, which is the point. DFW has a peculiar and uncanny way of cutting through all the BS and gazing right through to the core of (and exposing?) his readers. I maintain that the Shelley scene is one of the funniest things I’ve read, and I thought the last line was perfect.

[Nathan Pipkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I agree enthusiastically with the publisher’s introduction, that “for someone who has never read Wallace, this little book - funny, modest, afire with a gemlike flame - is a perfect place to start.”

[Christopher]

Probably better as a stand-alone piece than as a part of Pale King, this is late DFW, and I quite liked this. Something that can be given to all HS graduates.

[Eric Mayhew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty much a perfectly written novella

[Micaela Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m always touched by how David Foster Wallace articulates conquering the mundane and meaningless of everyday life. It doesn’t surprise me that this novella is a love letter to the IRS as it’s a perfect metaphor for it all.

I wish we didn’t loose him. It genuinely fucks me up a bit to think about

[Nikki]

quick re-read on a fall day.

[Isabel Baltzan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok so this was Random and Weird and then suddenly became Good and Important. A true DFW or so I’ve heard…

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a former and current wastoid, this is my Underground Man