David Foster Wallace era el maestro de maestros de la metaliteratura y en Hablemos de langostas queda nuevamente demostrado. Los 10 artículos periodísticos que componen el libro no son en realidad artículos periodísticos sino ensayos profundos sobre la naturaleza humana y sus contradicciones, la política, el fanatismo, la ideología, la libertad de expresión, el sexo, la vida y la muerte, entre otros temas filosóficos complejos, que DFW aborda con la genialidad que le era característica.

Es difícil escoger con que artículo quedarse porque todos son magistrales, pero quisiera destacar dos, el primero,“Cómo Tracy Austin me rompió el corazón”, en el que, utilizando como excusa la reseña de la biografía publicada por esta famosa tenista, hace un análisis soberbio de la naturaleza humana y, por supuesto, de cómo se deberían escribir las biografías, texto que estoy seguro de que leyeron André Agassi y J. R. Moehringer para escribir Open, la biografía del primero.

El otro es el que justamente le da al título del libro, Hablemos de langostas, en el que, a través de un reportaje sobre el festival de la langosta de Maine, hace una profunda reflexión sobre nuestra relación con la comida, los animales que comemos y el trato ético que se merecen, sin caer en los extremos y fanatismos de PETA o de otros grupos animalistas, texto que encima fue publicado por una revista dedicada a las delicias de la cocina, Gourmet, y en el que también hace una crítica fabulosa e hilarante a ese turismo masivo que yo también tanto odio. Realmente fascinante.

Sin embargo, como digo, ninguno de los textos que conforman esta obra, tienen desperdicio, así que la recomiendo vehementemente.

A disappointment. Often I found myself asking, do I really care what DFW thinks about ______? And almost as often I answered myself no, I really don’t. I have only myself to blame for struggling through it. There were some gems though and I feel like complaining about certain essays more so I put my thoughts & feelings on each essay below <3:

big red son (1/5 stars): a rough start to essay collection, DFW has nothing really interesting or funny to say about the topic and seems to just be detailing every mundane detail of the event without a motive in doing so

certainly the end of something or other, one would sort of have to think: can’t really comment on this one bc I haven’t read updike but it was fine, some parts were interesting even for the uninitiated

some remarks on kafka’s funnines from which probably not enough has been removed (3/5 stars): short, fun, cool to see DFW’s take on kafka from the role of literature professor

authority and american usage (4/5 stars): if one was going to read any essay from this collection this would be a good one to pick. this was a topic that I actually CARED what DFW had to say. he was obviously passionate about the subject and it was what I had hoped every essay in this book was: a brief and curated introduction into an interesting topic through DFW’s unique point of view.

the view from mrs. thompson’s (2/5 stars): his reactions to 9/11, you could not prepare me for how annoying these were going to be. okay so I didn’t live through 9/11 and obviously don’t know what that was like and I’m sure many people had weird illogical reactions but to publish them??? why?? he ends the essay by coming to the conclusion that “whatever America the men in those planes hated so much was far more my American… than it was these ladies’” describing the “innocent” church women who he was watching the news with. these midwest women are “not stupid, or ignorant” but he feel alienated from them because he has been to New York and knows it geography and they don’t? his whole way of discussing these women makes me uncomfortable in ways I can’t precisely describe, it feels so condescending.

how tracy austin broke my heart (2/5 stars): DFW wanted to be a pro tennis player but he wasn’t good enough (boo hoo). his favorite tennis player penning a poorly written biography gives him the chance to explain away his apparent failure: he is far to cerebral to be good at sports. he posits that at the most important moments of games athletes are really thinking “nothing at all” which is why they can truly mean all the trite expressions they stuff into their ghost authored autobiographies. DFW, on the other hand, thinks all the time because he’s brilliant.

up, simba (4/5 stars): if there were two essays one was going to read from this collection, this should be the second. DFW follows John Mccain’s 2000 presidential election campaign for Rolling Stones and and though the details he expends sometime feel gratuitous, it was overall a very interesting essay and I appreciated the discussion of marketing which can be applied outside of politics.

consider the lobster (2/5 stars): often people have recommended this book because they thought I, as a vegetarian, would enjoy the titular essay. I became a vegetarian when my younger sister did, which, coincidentally, was when she watched crabs be boiled alive for the first time (right after the sudden death of a beloved cat). Is DFW more eloquent than my 12 year old sister was? For sure. But did he introduce any ideas beyond the deep moral convictions she felt in that moment? No, not really. I found myself rolling my eyes a lot during this essay as each of his revelations were very well tread paths of thought but I think that, despite people’s recommendations, I am not really the audience for this given essay.

joseph frank’s dostoevsky (3/5 stars): basically just validates all the reasons I like dostoevsky

host (3/5 stars): pretty interesting, often annoying. haven’t decided if I loved or hated the organization of this one (instead of just overusing footnotes, he scattered boxes of text over each page which were connected by arrows that denoted the structure of the essay)

DFW is a brilliant writer. He can make *anything* interesting. Some of these essays are articles that random magazines asked him to go write and he basically said “I have no experience in this area and I really don’t care about it at all but sure”. Fantastic

This is the first Wallace that I have read and I have to say, it didn't start off promising. The opening essay in this collection is by far the weakest. It was ok, but nothing special. It read like the generic magazine article that it was. Luckily I persevered and kept reading. As with all collections of essays, I found some much better than others, but taken as a whole, I ended up really enjoying the book.

I think my favorite essay was the one about being on the 2000 campaign trail of John MacCain. My second favorite was the one about the dictionary. The porn convention and 9/11 essays were my least favorite.

At random times during my reading, I was forcibly struck with the fact that Wallace is dead, that he hung himself 11 years ago. He has such a strong, likable, compelling voice that to step back and realize that it is no more....I find that devastating. I wish he had been able to find another escape from his crippling depression. What a tragedy not only for his family and friends, but for us all.

Review #8 of "Year of the Review All Read Books"

Big Red Son was the first thing that I ever read by David Foster Wallace. It was a few days after Christmas 2011 and I was at my local Barnes & Noble. It was the anecdote about men that had voluntarily cut off their own penises that had gotten me. I knew of David Foster Wallace in vague terms: a depressive, a gifted fiction writer of large books I was long away from reading (how wrong I turned out to be), a successive suicidal, and a man whose non-fiction was as widely acclaimed as much of the fiction he did. And I liked the footnotes. Not so much their presence as their obsessiveness. It was a brain on the page trying to recklessly and obsessively record any and every thought, often with a verbose colloquiality.

Referring back to my note Der Anfang, this was one of a triage of books that I got that Christmas as part of a generous gift of ~$50 in gift cards. I read Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs almost immediately after buying it. I bought this and House of Leaves as well though until a few months ago neither of these books had been completed. I remember this purchase in particular among other purchases in part because a) it was a gift and most of what I read is bought by myself or checked out from the library and b) because it was during a sort of recommitment in my life to reading. Reading not only so that I could become a better writer but reading because there was that feeling of grandness in books, a romantic ideal of, primarily, fiction.

But this is not fiction. And what I ultimately settled on this book for, as far as I can remember, was the opening essay that so intrigued me and the fact that it was a paperback, meaning it was cheaper than probably some other options. This combined with the fact that Barnes & Noble is not even as well stocked as the used bookstores I constantly haunt. I read the first few essays, Big Red Son, the Kafka one, the Updike one and found myself stalled out, flipping to the Joseph Frank review and putting the book aside. After which I proceeded to read 7 other volumes of David Foster Wallace including his first essay collection (which I grade as slightly higher than this though at present of writing this review they are both 5 stars) "A Supposedly Fun Thing…" and including the two posthumous works "The Pale King" and "Both Flesh and Not." I can't offer a good reason I why I so delayed with this book as many of the other volumes I owned and could have sat on my shelf without urgency as so many owned books tend to do.

Perhaps it was because of the dauntingness of non-fiction that stretched to novella lengths in "American Usage…" and "Up Simba" and even "Host." Perhaps it was because outside of a few brief moments in "How Tracy Austin…" Wallace doesn't approach tennis and sports quite as much as he does in his other non-fiction; tennis and sport being what he is undeniably best at and don't even try and argue it with me. Or maybe it's the simple fact that I told myself these last three years that there were always more pressing reads to get to even if some of those pressing reads turned out to be quite disappointing.

Discussing the Actual Essays
I'm not positive what the "best" essay is, though my favorite is probably the Joseph Frank one. It certainly was a factor in last year's "Year of the Russian."

The View From Mrs. Thompson's is a purely personal, autobiographical essay about events in the author's life. The only other one I can remember in the DFW oevre is "Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley." My suspicions (totally baseless as they are) are that Wallace likely did not see a great narrative in much of his life and that he had to have the structure of reviews or journalistic adventure to kind of create narrative or interesting rhetorical probities.

As a person who considers himself a (young) writer I greatly appreciated "Certainly the end of something…" about Updike's Toward the End of Time. It has probably pitted me unfairly against the GMNs, but for myself I think I have constantly fought the impulse to write a character as a mouthpiece for myself and been (I think) better for it.

I heard rumor that an early incarnation of the Pale King contained a character who was an X-rated film star. It would not shock anyone how much Big Red Son influenced this creation but it does get me wondering a) was DFW a porn fan? b) what made him decide that this character wasn't a good fit in The Pale King…or was that even his call. Was it Nadell's or Pietsch's?

Coming from a conservative background and having developed more moderate to liberal opinions I think Wallace does a superb job on Host and Up Simba without coming across as mocking of his subjects, which would be too easy. He is not without opinion in these pieces but he doesn't belabor his opinions. It seems that the strategy of most of his journalism, as well as some of his reviews, the conclusions, or climactic moments, tend to be questions impossible to really answer. And this is what he presses toward especially in these two "political" essays. It is always understood that Wallace is a liberal leaning writer but that he has sympathies for those who attach themselves to conservative opinions. He understands that it is radically important to try and see the beliefs and people attached as complex and never stupid or derivative. Personally, I think this is his most important gift.

1st of all Evie finishing A Supposably Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again made me wanna finally finish this so thank you

3.5 stars. Fantastic writing, but the footnotes, dear god, the footnotes.

The math makes this come out at four stars. But I was disappointed. Disappointed in the same way you are when you hear so many rave reviews about a movie and expect it to be the best movie ever and it turns out to be only really good. That said, I'm reading another collection of his essays next and still VERY much look forward to getting into his fiction (which is more my preference than essays anyhow).

"Big Red Son"--my very first taste of Wallace (I can't bring myself to refer to him as "DFW" for some reason) has left me ambivalent. As a perennial Howard Stern fan, I am familiar with the AVN (Adult Video News) awards; as someone who is alive today, I am familiar with the generally sad/soulless/self-absorbed disposition of most involved in the adult film industry. This piece was nothing special, and it leaves me wondering (worrying?) how much the audience of the periodical for which Foster was writing affected how/what he wrote. It seems obvious that the place of publication would greatly alter his writing, but this isn't something I thought about until now. (2/5)

"Certainly the End of Something or Other"--very precise, entertaining critique of an Updike novel. Made me wish Wallace wrote reviews on goodreads.(3/5)

"Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness"--insightful ideas that I wish were much further developed than this short speech allowed. Great job cutting to the essence of Kafka in very easy to follow language. I like his final assessment of the "central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle" (64). (3/5)

"Authority and American Usage"--marvelous, brilliant, laugh-inducing AND a review of a grammar book. DFW's (I'm sold) ability to combine such erudition and to drop so many "big names" without at all coming across as unbearably erudite or pretentious in the least is quite a feat. For example, within two sentences (dedicated to the ills of wearing pants) he uses both "pants can squish the 'nads" and that they are "an androsartorial norm" (94-5). A delightful essay that I would love to write more about, but now I am eager to begin the next. (5/5)

"The View from Mrs. Thompson's"--a 9/11 piece that really isn't anything special until the very last line, which inspires serious thought and reflection. (3/5)

"How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart"--another scathing book review that approaches far deeper issues than just the quality of the book. (4/5)

“Up, Simba”— The longest essay so far, this gonzo-esque article find Wallace following McCain’s 2000 GOP Primary campaign trail. Surprisingly, politics are almost wholly absent from the piece. Rather, readers get complete, in-depth look at what it’s like to be on the campaign trail. There are a few poignant analyses of the cynicism and evil-genius-but-also-sort-of-juvenile marketing that goes into a campaign and how little the whole thing itself is actually about real politics and who can even tell when a candidate is truly talking about real politics or when he is just portraying a carefully constructed image. Historical perspective: with only eleven years of hindsight, it is so tough not to have an indelible opinion of both Bush and McCain already, hence to scoff at some of the (for Wallace) perceived bullshit that is now known to be absolute bullshit. (2.5 or 3/5)

“Consider the Lobster”—No wonder this is the titular essay: it is the best of the bunch. Wallace’s experiences at and musings inspired by the Maine Lobster Festival are the first to make me consistently laugh aloud. Then, pages later I was actually close to tearing up; in fact, I used part of this selection in my evening class to teach effective use of pathos. Wallace’s thoughts really are all over the place—the article is essentially every lobster related tangent that you could imagine—but they are so easy and entertaining to follow while at the same time being far-reaching and deep. (5/5!)

"Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky"--apparently Frank is to Dostoevsky what Boyd is to Nabokov (times two). Also, after reading this one I realize that if I continue to read DFW's essays, I am going to run out of ways to say "deep/insightful/thought-provoking" etc. Every piece has a clear enough topic, but meanders (gracefully) into DFW's own d/i/t-p queries raised by said topic. (4/5)

"Host"--Rather than footnotes, Wallace employs a retarded (well they slow the reader down, at least) connection of text boxes. This was very bothersome, most so because it really felt like forced/trendy/dare-to-be-different-to-be-cool-and-anti-norm. Aside from that, the content was sterling. (4/5)

A master of insight. Essays on topics I would have no inclination towards were it not for Wallace’s musings on them.

Fascinated how Wallace can balance so much self-righteousness and yet so much exasperation regarding how difficult it is to be the smartest person in the room

I treat my ever growing collection of books carefully. I don't lend them out often (mostly due to lack of requests) but when I do there are rules. That being said, all my adored DFW copies are in varies states of ruin. Be it from highlighters, margin notes, or stains from various unfriendly book environments (I brought this copy hiking a few times)... they're not read with the same physical care as most of my other books. Almost as if I clawed the information out of them. Consider the Lobster is no exception.

this is my first time reading DFW's nonfiction, and possibly the first time I've read an essay collection (or story collection, really) this solid. I can't choose a favorite.

I genuinely don't know if I'll be able to enjoy lobster this summer either.

Consider the Lobster

مجموعة مقالات لدايفد فوستر والاس تسيطر عليها ذات الغرابة التي تسيطر على قصصه، مقال عن كواليس جوائز الأفلام الإباحية وصناعتها، وآخر عن السباق الرئاسي وثالث عن المعاجم، بعض المقالات للحقيقة توقفت عن قراءته باكراً، وبعضها واصلت قراءته إلى النهاية، على أي حال صرت أتفهم لمَ لم يترجم أي كتب والاس حتى الآن.