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Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

david foster wallace

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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.

Contains: "Big Red Son," "Certainly the End of Something or Other, One Would Sort of Have to Think," "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed," "Authority and American Usage," "The View from Mrs. Thompson's," "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart," "Up, Simba," "Consider the Lobster," "Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky" and "Host."

343 pages, Hardcover

First published December 13,2005

This edition

Format
343 pages, Hardcover
Published
December 13, 2005 by Little, Brown and Company
ISBN
9780316156110
ASIN
0316156116
Language
English

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About the author

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david foster wallace

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David Foster Wallace worked surprising turns on nearly everything: novels, journalism, vacation. His life was an information hunt, collecting hows and whys. "I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today," he once said, "of which maybe 25 are important. My job is to make some sense of it." He wanted to write "stuff about what it feels like to live. Instead of being a relief from what it feels like to live." Readers curled up in the nooks and clearings of his style: his comedy, his brilliance, his humaneness.

His life was a map that ends at the wrong destination. Wallace was an A student through high school, he played football, he played tennis, he wrote a philosophy thesis and a novel before he graduated from Amherst, he went to writing school, published the novel, made a city of squalling, bruising, kneecapping editors and writers fall moony-eyed in love with him. He published a thousand-page novel, received the only award you get in the nation for being a genius, wrote essays providing the best feel anywhere of what it means to be alive in the contemporary world, accepted a special chair at California's Pomona College to teach writing, married, published another book and, last month [Sept. 2008], hanged himself at age 46.

-excerpt from The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky in Rolling Stone Magazine October 30, 2008.

Among Wallace's honors were a Whiting Writers Award (1987), a Lannan Literary Award (1996), a Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction (1997), a National Magazine Award (2001), three O. Henry Awards (1988, 1999, 2002), and a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant.

More:
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/dfw

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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 99 votes)
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99 reviews All reviews
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Crylix
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Credo di aver goduto poche volte nella mia vita come durante la lettura di Considera l'aragosta, e mai leggendo una raccolta di saggi.
David Foster Wallace è intelligente, brillante, divertente, acuto, gigione, abilissimo in quel gioco delle tre carte che è una scrittura che incolla il lettore alla pagina.
Nonostante i saggi che compongono la raccolta siano un po' datati, le conclusioni che trae e la sua capacità di tenere il lettore per mano anche quando lo spedisce su quelle piste di caccia che sono le note li rendono attuali ed esemplari.
Senza contare che, in quella perla che è Autorità e uso della lingua, ho finalmente trovato una definizione che calza a pennello a me e a quelli come me diversa da "cacacazzo" o "bastardo paranoico" :-D
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Girisajin
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This was my first encounter with the genius of David Foster Wallace. These essays present his musings on topics as diverse as the 2000 US Presidential race, the plight of the Maine lobster and the seediness of the Adult Film Awards. His writing style takes a little getting used to - sentences can be lengthy and man he loves his footnotes (and footnotes within footnotes!). I get the feeling that his brain was operating at a million miles an hour and that he was bursting to get everything onto the page. You can't help but marvel at how witty, incisive and articulate he was - as Zadie Smith commented he operated in a different time-space continuum to the rest of us. It's such a shame we lost his unique talents too soon - I will certainly seek out the rest of his non-fiction (and if I'm brave enough, the gargantuan Infinite Jest).
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Jade18
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Is David Foster Wallace the best writer of short form nonfiction America's ever had?

Often when reading him my mouth falls open at seeing just how spectacularly he mastered the form. There are few things, if any, more intellectually stimulating than reading DFW, even if it can also be a highly depressing experience if you're in the habit of comparing your writing to the authors you read.

I haven't yet managed to read any of his fiction (the sheer length of "Infinite Jest" has thus far deterred me), but his nonfiction is sublime, and the pieces included in "Consider the Lobster" are among his very best.

The topics covered in this collection run the gamut from the porn industry to John McCain, from Standard American English to Dostoevsky, from talk radio to lobsters.

How many other writers have that kind of range? How many others can manage to be so thoughtful when writing about porn starlets and so funny about a contentious presidential election?

DFW is about as close to a public intellectual as America has ... or had, since he killed himself in 2008.

Dammit, DFW.

Perhaps there really is a thin line between genius and madness. The footnotes certainly seem to attest to that.

One can't help but admire DFW's clear-eyed view on the silly, and troubling, nature of American nationalism in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 ("The View From Mrs. Thompson's"). Reading his essays now on American conservatism and intra-party election tactics circa 2000 ("Up, Simba") or right-wing talk radio ("Host"), it's tempting to wonder whether DFW had a crystal ball next to his writing desk.

Casting a gaze across the western landscape now, it feels as though our most clear-sighted chroniclers have left us. What would DFW, Hitchens, Didion, etc ... (insert name here) think about the times in which we live? Who can we trust to tell us the truth about the complicated issues of our day?

But in reading the work of yesterday's writers we can still gain insight into the issues affecting us today, and those that will arise tomorrow.
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KageShinigami22
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Wallace takes boring topic like reviewing a dictionary and turns it into an interesting piece of writing. I came in only for Dostoyevsky, but left with suffering lobsters.
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Nyaruko_chan_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I've long been told by so many to read Infinite Jest, but the problem is, an equal amount of people have said it's not worth the bother. For a book so long, I'm not ready to take the risk. I can't comment on his fiction, but this collection of essays was simply A+ material. I would have given five stars just for the piece on the porn industry. The rest too were also mighty fine. I don't use tour de force that often when it comes to books, but this was precisely that.

He's been called a postmodern philosopher, and a genius, and also a sublimely funny writer, and that it's easy to see here. It's funny ha-ha and peculiar funny. Consider the Lobster offers an exhilarating short-cut to the mind of a writer for whom autocastration is a good reason to investigate 'adult entertainment', who swears once a year not to get angry and self-righteous about the misuse of the possessive apostrophe, or the serial comma, and who is happy to devote 3,000 words to Kafka's 'sense of humour'. This collection demonstrates a contemporary American master working at the extreme edge of the literary radar, asking question after question about the mad, mad world in which he finds himself. How else to encompass a book that segues from 9/11, Dostoevsky and Senator John McCain? These pieces, previously published in Rolling Stone, Harper's, Gourmet magazine, and the Atlantic Monthly, explore three main themes: language, literature and US society.

Whilst all, in their own way were great, it's the Piece on the Adult Video News awards, which I found the most memorable. Wallace's ferocious snootiness makes him a fearsome literary critic. There are not many American writers who would relish landing a swinging left hook at John Updike. In the search for the truth about David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster throws up some vital clues. His influences include Tom Wolfe, Flannery O'Connor, Fitzgerald and Pynchon. But above and beyond all these literary godparents, the writer to whom Wallace is more deeply in debt than the current American economy must be Mark Twain, from whom, as Hemingway observed, all American literature derives.

Great stuff!
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TeucosFoxTrot
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Quando a scrivere è un Grande qualsiasi argomento diventa un ricostituente neuronale.
Le pagine sugli Oscar del porno, tanto per dire, sono un mix perfetto di intelligenza, senso dell'umorismo e affettuosa indignazione.
DFW riesce a rendere interessanti e persino divertenti le sue note di linguistica e grammatica (inglese !!!) senza rinunciare neppure ad un grammo della sua evidente pedanteria in materia (il che lo rende ancor più vicino e simpatico. Ai miei occhi, almeno).
La sua traspirante bontà ci accompagna poi a solidarizzare con le aragoste destinate a bollire in pentola durante il Festival dell'Aragosta del Maine (vi sembrerà di esserci stati, in Maine o magari il Maine in fondo è come Moscufo - Pe - Sagra dell'extravergine - olio, s'intende).
Il pezzo che più mi ha entusiasmato é quello sulla campagna elettorale di McCain 2000. Ovvero come si può esprimere empatia per uno dalle cui idee sei lontanissimo, portandoti dentro il suo mondo; persino dentro la sua testa. E per di più a colpi di punti interrogativi (il massimo!). Altro che gli Autodafè che si vedono da noi: dove Togliatti e Bernardo Guy vanno in giro a braccetto, a destra come a sinistra, come fossero due maître a penser.
E poi l'11 settembre in casa di una vecchietta, la biografia della tennista più forte del mondo pensionata per invaliditá a 21 anni, le note sul Dostoievskij che non sospetti, il mondo delle radio conservatrici americane (forse il pezzo che ho gradito meno, salvo che per l'impaginazione: originalissima e labirintica).
Qui e lá spunti di riflessione (quelle sul bisogno di un nuovo senso della moralità e della responsabilità vissuto da un liberal progressista, da uno di sinistra insomma, ancora le sto faticosamente ruminando) che ti trascinano come avrebbe potuto fare solo la scia della bici di Coppi in fuga.
E poi qualche battuta indimenticabile (riferita tra l'indignato ed il divertito) tipo: "il 50% dei matrimoni sono dei fallimenti assodati, l'altro 50% finisce nel divorzio". Oppure: "il corpo femminile é la più grande dimostrazione a noi nota della possibile esistenza di Dio, ma la psiche femminile é il segno che questo Dio ha un senso dell'umorismo perverso".
Lo chiudo con un sorriso e ripetendomi che a quest'uomo (che non a caso ha voluto andarsene) mi sono proprio affezionato.
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Half-MagePrince
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Wallace e atât de sclipitor de inteligent și așa de exersat în folosirea discursului ca armă de seducție (OK, să îi zicem retorică) încât face ca orice temă să fie actuală (deși materialul a fost scris acum 15, 20 sau chiar 25 de ani) și te împinge să afli mai multe despre ea. De la filmele pentru adulți (care sunt grotești nu pentru că arată forme excesive/anormale (?) de sexualitate, ci pentru că sunt, din ce în ce mai mult, despre umilirea femeilor și exercitatea puterii bărbaților) până la campania electorală a lui John McCain (povestită atît de vizual încât ai impresia că ești într-un film cu the All-American-Hero) - nu editorul le pune succesiv, eu am pus intenționat filmele porno lângă politică -, trecând prin bucuriile din dificultatea folosirii corecte a limbii literare (și datul de pământ cu discursul academic găunos) și incitantele eseuri despre Kafka si Dostoievski, de la oroarea lui Nine Eleven (trăită în sufrageria celei mai non-cinice WASP, care chiar nu merită să înțeleagă cinismul corporațiilor și războaielor, pentru că America ei nu are nicio legătură cu ele) până la analiza populismului atât de util afacerilor de presă - toate sunt de o actualitate absolută. Și așa vor rămâne pentru mult timp, pentru că, prin fapte și personaje irepetabile, Wallace explică fenomene universale. Articolul de presă nu mai e derizoriu și trecător când îl scrie el - devine un material literar desăvârșit. Cred că toți jurnaliștii visează să scrie așa (și dacă nu, ar trebui să o facă).

M-a frustrat intenția evidentă de a face textul dificil pentru cititorii insuficient antrenați, ilizibil aproape pe alocuri (de exemplu, în ultimul material trece de la interminabilele note de subsol la casetă în casetă în casetă în interiorul textului - sunt sigură că nu a fost decizia editorului). Pentru cei dinafara castei "tocilarilor elitiști veritabili" (vezi "Autoritatea și uzul limbii americane") cred că textul acesta este imposibil de parcurs - și e o pierdere pentru ei. Dar ăsta e un fel de utilitarsim din partea mea (stupid și care m-a făcut sa îi dau inițial 4*). De fapt, Wallace te forțează să îți folosești părți ale creierului moarte în timpul unei lecturi obișnuite - și asta e , probabil, maximum pe care îl poți obține de la o carte.
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QueenOfAlbion
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book reminds me why I love DFW. The erudition, humility, self-consciousness, and truth-seeking are all on fine display here, as is the extremely personal nature of his prose. He's constantly revealing himself while writing about others, even when such revelations are less than flattering, and is openly unsure about the worthiness of such self-revelation, and is also unsure whether this very open unsureness about the worthiness of his self-revelation is itself another layer of unworthy self-revelation, as in: look at and admire me because I reveal all my inner faults! Which is another way of saying what he himself says in one of these essays: that there's no such thing as true altruism, because even when you're being altruistic (or in this case unflatteringly self-revelatory), this is itself a way of garnering praise for yourself, thereby undermining the claim that it's so selfless.

And so the book goes, constantly looping back and forth through a brilliant mind more hyper-aware of itself than just about any other. Which might be incredibly revelatory about the author or might itself might be the ultimate ruse.
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