Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays Kindle Edition

I'm sure that 99.999999% of people who asked DFW to review something knew what they were getting into -- ask him to review a lobster festival, get a miniature treatise on the ethical implications of causing pain to animals; ask him to review a grammar handbook, get a play-by-play of warring factions within the lexicographical community; ask him to review an adult-film trade show, get (in a footnote, no less) one of the most moving little soliloquies ever written about the connection between sex and truth -- but I wonder if anyone ever commissioned a piece without ever actually having read his stuff before (like, they just heard he was a really "in" writer) and then they get a draft of his article and they're like "oh COME ON he didn't even say if the lobster rolls were any good"

If you've read anything by David Foster Wallace (henceforth DFW), you'll know exactly what you're getting with this collection of essays and whether or not you want to read more from him. Thus, I will assume that you have not read anything by him previously.

Consider the Lobster is a collection of ten essays, five of which I would call major essays (50+ pages), and the other five are significantly shorter.

When at his best, DFW is the best American writer of his generation. You have to go back to McCarthy and Pynchon to find someone who surpasses him. However, he does not always write at his best, and Consider the Lobster reflects that. To understand both my praise of some essays and my letdown with regard to others, you'll need to understand what DFW is doing with these essays. DFW takes a seemingly uninspired banal topic and uses it as a launch point to discuss issues which would be very difficult to discuss directly or without a great deal of context. For example, in the essay How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart, DFW begins by reviewing the insipid sports autobiography of Tracy Austin. However, he uses that as a lunching platform to discuss the nature of sports genius- what separates a Tracy Austin or Tom Brady from every other athlete? Also, why are athletes so inarticulate about the nature of their ability?

My personal favorite, Up, Simba, details the 2000 John McCain Republican Nominee race against George W. Bush. The essay interlaces mundane detail of the day-to-day happenings of the campaign with astute observations about the nature of political advertising, whether or not its possible for a candidate to be genuine (in what may have been the single best insult I've read, DFW describes Al Gore as "surprisingly life-like"), and why young people seem so disengaged with politics. His writings and observations about marketing, political leadership, and the political ennui many young people feel are relevant considering how young people overwhelmingly supported Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders (ideologically polar opposites whose only connecting feature is an apparent genuineness.)

DFW has some ideas that are pervasive in this book and some of his other writings (such as his magnum opis, Infinite Jest). He is concerned with the interplay of marketing, entertainment, the insularity that this allows individuals and communities of people to exist in. These are all deeply important topics to modern (as in, right now) American culture and Western Culture in due time.

About seventy percent of the essays in this book are of elite quality. They are deep, refreshing, and I fell enriched for having read them. With such a high bar set, it's not surprising if some essays fail to measure up. The opening major essay "Big, Red, Son" is a expose of the porn Adult Video Network award ceremony. I would have thought this topic would be a veritable gold mine in the hands of a writer and observer like DFW. He could have written about how porn has warped (mostly young mens') aesthetic sensibilities of sex and women all the while not sounding preachy or condescending. Or perhaps he could have written about the escalatory nature of media and our viewing habits. Porn must become increasingly extreme, outlandish, etc. in order to keep male viewers, thus exacerbating those warped sexual sensibilities. With all this potential material, the essay defaults to "the people are crude and wholly without a sense of decency". The essay falls flat for the time it takes to read it.

Overall, this is a good book, and 70 percent of it is great.

The Amazing thing about this book is that its eponymous essay, "Consider the Lobster," was written by DFW at the behest of the organizers of a Lobster Festival in Main to hype its event, and and for whom DFW wrote a jeremiad against boiling live lobsters for mass consumption at an event ostensibly held to honor the lobster! It reminds me of how NYU must have felt after luring an esteemed professor from Princeton at exorbitant price only to have him publish Dr. Sokal's satirical takedown of PoMo (critical theory) in a university backed journal created for its defense. Given DFW's prolix style, I wonder if the festival committee members read the essay given its length, elaborate footnotes, and meandering style, which contributed to its length that would have justified publishing it as a separate volume that could rival a phone book in weight.

David Wallace, like Hunter Thomson, writes about the forest, the trees, the flora and fauna and the minutiae always remaining laser-focused on his topic of the moment whether observing the sentient behavior of crustaceans or the oft-times less-sentient responses of adult video players. Sometimes breezy, sometimes difficult reading, but always well worth the effort, this is the stuff that readers who love reading will eat up with a spoon.

Also a great introduction to his work prior to the dear reader diving headlong into "Infinite Jest,"

The late Mr. Wallace has been reviewed by too many to mention. I'm just a person reading anything of his for the first time. My nephew is a huge fan and pointed me to his essays to start. The first essay in this collection had me laughing out loud from the first paragraphs. Later ones have proven a little dry and deep for me. I am, for the most part, enjoying reading these reviews and essays and will explore further into his works. He uses some almighty big words (which in context you do understand) . Be prepared for many, many footnotes. I followed my usual practice on footnotes and ignored them. If you want to go deeper you can explore them later. That's a personal quirk of mine. RZ

Excellent read. An astonishing mixture of hoighty-toity (though certainly formidable) intellect, gramma nazism, and laconic humor. Very entertaining. His essay on 9/11 is particularly moving. It's a great shame that he's no longer around, and even sadder that it's his own doing. RIP DFW.