Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays

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Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of a vicious presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters.

Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Fine Dining for the Mind July 21, 2006
43 out of 54 found this review helpful

I was introduced to DFW by the classic essay "A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again," but stupidly lost track of him until picking up "Lobster" on a whim a few weeks ago.

Let me say this first: even though DFW is a freak for the correct use of language, I love him because he can break all the pesky little rules we've all learned about clear writing (eg, no fifty-cent words, limit footnotes, limit adverbs, two simple sentences are better than one complex sentence, etc), and write vividly, clearly, engagingly, etc (see, he's already liberated my long-caged drive to adverbize.) Perhaps even better, he writes so that it feels we are in his head, and doesn't patronize his reader by tidying up messy internal disputes, which is damn refreshing.

Many of the essays are are similarly conceived (it somehow all seems to do with marketing to the least common denominator, and the way this marketing glosses over so much that is complex and difficult and important to think about, and the author's simulataneous fascination with and and revulsion regarding said marketing, in an "I'm revolted but I can't look away... and in fact am I actually that revolted?.... Gosh, should I be more revolted? Am I actually falling for this?" kind of way).

At this point, I'm thinking that my favorite is the title essay, which is among the shortest in the collection but definitely the most visceral and, at many points, just plain sad. I have a neuroscience background, and can vouch for the moral and biological complexity of the question over whether animals without cerebral cortices "experience" pain. Warning: yes, the essay's description of a lobster's behavior during the boiling process dissuaded me from eating lobster ever again.

Other standouts: "Up, Simba," about the author's travels with a press contingent during John McCain's 2000 "Straight Talk Express" ride for the Republican presidential nomination. This is one that, again, just ends up damn sad, showing just how meaningless political campaigns are. [Side note to those who have read this essay -- DFW's account of McCain's well-documented POW years is fantastic, but raised a questions I'd never thought of before, and apparently DFW didn't either -- Could young McCain have "refused" to be released from the POW camp based on his adherence to a code? I mean, if the VietCong had wanted to release him for publicity reasons, they could have just knocked him upside the head, dumped him in a jeep, and driven him to wherever they wanted to leave him. The very fact that I'm thinking this probably means that I am one of the young American cynics DFW both chastizes and sympathizes with in the course of the essay.] Also outstanding are "Big Red Son" and "Host," the latter of which is made fascinating by the use of sidenotes, with sidenotes on sidenotes, and I think in one case a sidenote on a sidenote on a sidenote. (I like the sidenotes; there will be dissenters I'm sure)

Do it -- this is filet mignon -- I mean lobster -- I mean uh a high-quality vegetarian feast for the mind.

3 out of 5 stars

Spot-on observations, brilliant arguments, thought-provoking asides, and an intellectually snobby attitude August 12, 2006
28 out of 47 found this review helpful

The essay "Consider the Lobster" has changed my life. Wallace's ruminations on lobster are thought-provoking and eye-opening, no matter what your personal beliefs about lobsters, boiling, and pain are. So, to be fair, I'll give you my beliefs upfront: lobster is way too much work to eat, way too tasteless without butter, and doesn't interest me at all. At the same time, I worry much more about force-fed ducks and debeaked chickens (I am an omnivore, yes) than I do about boiled-alive lobsters.

Wallace has made an important academic contribution on the subject of consuming meat, whether it be mammals or shellfish. His assigned magazine task for the title essay was covering the Maine Lobster Festival. Let me give you a smattering of the questions he raised for me (which still resonate with me weeks later): Why do we call meat by pseudonyms like beef and pork, while sea-dwelling animals are called by their common animal names? Should Maine look down on the Lobster Fest as a tourist trap, when all of us must admit to being tourists at one time in our lives? Really, how is eating lobster on a paper plate with chinzy paper napkins any different than any Midwest festival celebrating beef or corn? Is celebrating the "World's Largest Lobster Cooker" a little obscene--would we celebrate beef by cheering at the world's biggest slaughterhouse?

The highlight of the essay is Wallace's cogitation on pain--on what pain is, what thinking animals are, what preferences are, basic neuroscience, a comparison of mammals to humans and other life forms, and the behavior of lobsters in boiling water. Then comes the downfall of Wallace, the attitude which ruins every essay he writes. He's not satisfied to write a few pseudo-apologetic sentences about how Gourmet magazine readers may not want to read about the ethical aspects of their food, but he hopes they should open their minds. Nope, he harps endlessly in his conclusion about how the magazine's reader base needs to consider moving out of their sheltered gourmet-loving lives and listen to his arguments. As someone who had already been moved by his arguments, I was repulsed by his concluding lecture--almost enough just to adopt a contrary point of view to spite him.

So, now you know my take on Wallace. There are some gems in his musings, but his uppity attitude overshadows any insightful comments he makes. In his essay on 9/11/2001, he comments on the lovely, educated, but woefully mis-informed Midwestern church ladies he spent the day of September 11th with. They were just sad and woeful, but they didn't have the cynicism (intellect?) of a New Yorker who would notice that President Bush's speech was eerily similar to certain movie lines, that the television networks only showed x, y, and z, that it was a good career boost for the President, and so on. Let me set the record clear--I am a cynical liberal Northeasterner. I lived in New York on 9/11/2001. I despise our President. And I (along with my extreme left-wing and anarchist roommates) spent the entire day of September 11th sobbing in the living room, watching television. We made no snarky comments. We grieved. I might have developed some conspiracy theories later, but trust me, I was right there with Mrs. T in Bloomington, Illinois on that fateful day. Our whole nation was in pain, and just because Wallace was a super-cool former NY resident who happened to be in IL at the time, he is no better than his peers in the Midwest. I am disgusted that he used the tragedy of 9/11 to write an essay which elevates his status as one of the Americans (aka New Yorkers) who the terrorists really hate (as opposed to the Midwest Americans). (While that is not a direct quote, that is precisely the sentiment of Wallace's concluding remarks in his 9/11 essay).

The remainder of Wallace's essays did not win me over. He attended the Adult Video News annual pornography awards, and the resulting essay is aimless. He opens by celebrating the lack of pretension in the porno industry--by admiring their pure financial success when compared to the Hollywood Oscar-obsessed world. He later contradicts himself by attacking the AVN voting system and mocking the nom de guerres of the voting committee. Wallace's pseudo-intellectual statements on porn are just wrong--in 1997, he thinks that porn is going so extreme that snuff films are right around the corner. He claims that bizzaro filth means that we will be wanting to see girls die on camera. So, there are a few extreme wackos, and there are extreme fetishes in this industry--that means that all of American is jonesing for snuff films?? (I do, of course, have the benefit of nine years of hindsight on these predictions, but even so, porn is mainstream, and no women are going to get killed to sell more videos. Your reviewer promises you this. Call me in twenty years and I'll still be right.) Wallace also makes the statement that the porn industry has welcomed the mainstream Hollywood hit Boogie Nights despite the fact that "everyone in the industry is either portrayed as either creepness or filth, or a combination of both." Clearly, Wallace has not seen this film, which is a brilliant study of a range of characters, some of whom are positive and genuine, some of whom are ruined by drugs, some of whom are fighting personal demons. It's a portrayal of the industry as any other (sports, music, mainstream acting, etc), in which people have wild success and extreme downfalls. I'm sorry our author missed that point.

How much more can I beat up on this man? Ahh, the Tracy Austin memoir essay. 70% of this essay is pure brilliance, as a book review. I haven't read Austin's memoir, but I believe Wallace--Austin is a brilliant tennis player, but a terrible narrator, and anyone looking for inspiration should steer clear of her book. As a book review, this essay is spot-on, and one of my favorite literary pieces. But Wallace doesn't stop there. Nope, he needs to lecture on (1) how the athlete auto-biography always leaves the reader in this unsatisfied position and (2) what Tracy Austin should have written about. Wallace seems to think that his disappointment in his hero (Austin) sums up everyone's experience with hero worship. Most of us know not to expect musical or athletic heros to write literary masterpieces. Wallace can't accept that, and wants to reprimand his hero, even if he gives an "out" in the end by stating that athletic brilliance requires a certain cluelessness about their natural genius. He also makes blanket statements about "athlete autobiographies" with no supporting evidence other than his experience with Austin's memoir.

No matter how spot-on Wallace's observations are, he twists his remarks to denigrate either the reader or his subjects. The writing is top notch, the research is impeccable, but the experience of listening to this man can leave the reader with negative feelings.

4 out of 5 stars

Not Perfect, but Awfully Good November 4, 2006
20 out of 22 found this review helpful

I've never read Wallace, mostly because his best known work ("Infinite Jest") is so long. But I tend to like writers that digress and use footnotes for asides, so I thought maybe this collection of ten essays would give me enough of a taste to know if I should check out his other stuff. Ranging in length from 7 to 80 pages, the essays all appeared previously (albeit often truncated) in various magazines such as Harper's, The Atlantic, Gourmet, Rolling Stone, Premier, etc. They can be roughly categorized into three categories: brief review, personal piece, and long in-depth topical examination.

The brief reviews generally tend to take an item and use it as a staging area for discussing something more interesting than the given subject. For example, in "Certainly the End of Something or Other", Wallace uses his review of John Updike's novel Toward the End of Time to highlight the general narcissism and shallowness of writers such as Updike, Philip Roth, and Norman Mailer. His 20-page review of Joseph Frank's biography of Dostoevsky is largely dedicated to making a larger point about literary criticism, and his 25-page review of tennis player Tracy Austin's autobiography is similarly dedicated to identifying the fundamental problem of sports memoirs. I have to admit that the essential point of the shortest piece, "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness", eluded me.

The two more personal pieces are strikingly different, but in each one gets a vivid impression of Wallace working through his own feelings. In, "The View From Mrs. Thompson's", he uses 13 pages to recount his own September 11 experience in Bloomington, Indiana. As one reads of the mysterious sprouting of flags, Wallace's hunt for a flag of his own, and his spending the day watching the footage with old ladies who've never been to New York, his mounting alienation from his neighbors is fascinating. The titular story is ostensibly a standard travel piece on a Maine lobster festival, but rapidly evolves into a thoughtful meditation (with scientific research) on the ethics of preparing and eating lobster.

The four in-depth essays are the real stars of the book, in each Wallace gets deep into his material and wallows in it with intellectual vigor and above all, wit. In the 50-page "Big Red Son", he covers the porn Oscars and emerges with scenes and quotes so surreal they must be true. Over the course of the 50-page "Authority and American Usage", he takes a topic close to his heart as a writing instructor and provides a layman's overview of the Prescriptivist vs. Descriptivist "usage wars". The underbelly of political campaigning is exposed in the 80-page "Up Simba", detailing his week on the John McCain's 2000 campaign trail -- the ultimate lesson is that if you want the most astute and nuanced political analysis, turn to the camera and sound techs, not the journos. Finally, the 70-page "Host" takes us into the world of talk radio, via a profile of an LA radio personality. All of these long pieces are wonderful (albeit in very different ways), as they allow Wallace's intellect the space to range free and elaborate.

Ultimately, it's not hard to see why Wallace is a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award-winner. His combination of smarts, thoughtfulness, self-awareness, wit, and ability to write killer prose simply can't be ignored. One does have to raise an eyebrow at his overuse of footnotes, however. While I'm a big fan of footnotes (yes, even in fiction), I find Wallace's use of footnotes within footnotes rather tiresome (not to mention tough on the eyes). In many instances, it seems like the material could have been handled much more elegantly within the text, or within a parenthetical. This is especially true of "Host", which is very nearly ruined by the attempt to use boxed text and arrows to replace footnotes. There's no textual reason for the method, and the experiment doesn't work at all, only serving to highlight the unnecessary divisions of information and reducing their navigability.

Although a few of the pieces failed to totally captivate me, and the overfootnoting grated (especially in it's final iteration), this is still a highly entertaining and enlightening book. Chuck Klosterman's essays are like potato chips -- yummy, hard to stop at just one, and not super filling. Wallace's are generally a full nutritious meal at your favorite restaurant.

5 out of 5 stars

Wallace (finally?) delivers the goods October 18, 2006
19 out of 20 found this review helpful

Probably no contemporary writer has to meet higher expectations than David Foster Wallace. He's a genius. Ask anyone. In some cases, this works against him; as someone who survived reading Wallace's essay collection A SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING..., I can testify that Mr. Wallace sometimes has aspirations that even his prodigious skills can't meet, and the results ain't pretty.

But in CONSIDER THE LOBSTER, he is hitting on almost all of his many cylinders. In fact, it is high praise indeed for me to report that on a flight to Phoenix, I was laughing so hard at this book's first essay (it's about a pornography awards show), I almost felt compelled to explain to my fellow passenger the source of my mirth.

I didn't. (I'm not insane.) But it was that good.

The rest of the topics examined by Wallace's gimlet eyes are, shall we say, wide-ranging, but aside from an enervating and lengthy examination of A DICTIONARY OF MODERN USAGE, Wallace lives up to his "genius" billing. I did grimace when I saw that the book contained a piece devoted to one of his pet topics, (namely tennis), but even this essay transcended its subject and was eminently worthwhile.

In short, I'm quite glad to have read this book. More, please.

4 out of 5 stars

DFW is a great essayist, very readable, and this is the DFW we all know and love January 13, 2006
18 out of 24 found this review helpful

In the past few years DFW's books have been kind of uneven, in my opinion. not so with this collection of essays. One is about him learning about Sept. 11th. One is him attending the Maine Lobster Festival (and as someone from Maine who has never gone, thinking it a tourist/logistical nightmare, well I guess it is). One is about how dicitonaries are created--not boring, but one of those essays you'd never imagine being interested in but afterwards it forms a part of your permanent knowledge base.

My only reason for 4 not 5 stars is some of the subject matter is kind of uninspired; i.e. the essays, all worthwhile, didn't have the fireworks effect his first collection did. However, the DFW style, knowledgable, with spot-on voabulary and diction (maybe it sounds simple to you but to me it makes for a truly aesthetic pleasure to find a word hittig the sweet spot in my brain), and also very honest.

A total pleasure...definitely buy this book.

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