Jordan Colley

This book keeps with the theme lately of reading lesser-known books by well-known authors. I read Pattern Recognition by William Gibson previously. David Foster Wallace is of course best known for Infinite Jest.

It's an odd premise to describe. A late-1970s “wasteoid” looks back on his transition to becoming an IRS accountant. That greatly simplifies what is actually a very profound book about enthusiasm, life's purpose, understanding our parents, and the transition to adulthood. It's a short book and written in a conversational stream-of-consciousness style. In fact, it struck me as funny that the book is called Something to Do with Paying Attention, but the narrator constantly gets side-tracked and goes off on tangents. It makes the writing feel very real as different memories often spawn other memories before realizing we've lost our train of thought and getting back on track.

The book moves at a pretty quick pace, it's only about 135 pages. It's a character-driven book more than a plot-driven book. You're witnessing a narrator recount the arc of their growth. The main thought I'm left with after reading this book is how well it captures a specific but subtle feeling. It's the feeling of a spark of enthusiasm, when you realize something core to your life's purpose. Some would call it a calling. I don't know that I've ever read something that captured this feeling this specifically. I'm probably not even doing a good job of describing it. I'll be thinking about this one for a while and will probably re-read it at some point.