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Jan 31, 2008

David rated it:

Full disclosure: I have a major intellectual crush on David Foster Wallace. Yes, yes, I know all about his weaknesses - the digressions, the rampant footnote abuse, the flaunting of his amazing erudition, the mess that is 'Infinite Jest'. I know all this, and I don't care. Because when he is in top form, there's nobody else I would rather read. The man is hilarious; I think he's a mensch, and I don't believe he parades his erudition just to prove how smart he is. I think he can't help himself - More...

5 comments like (34 people liked it)

Dec 11, 2009

Bells rated it:

Do you know that feeling of falling in love so hard and so fast that your head spins? That feeling that your sweetie is AMAZING, PERFECT, and you have no idea how you ever lived without them? The sun rises and sets with each breath they take??
No?
Sorry about your luck.

The first DFW book I read was A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and I was instantly smitten. Totally in love.
And then I read this.

That AMAZING, PERFECT love? I feel like I have More...

13 comments like (17 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2009

Kelly rated it:

I'm going to admit to a very large book lover's solecism here: I pre-judged David Foster Wallace by his cover, without reading a word the man had written. And no, I do not mean the starkly depicted, rather adorable lobster we've got on this edition of the book, I mean his figurative cultural cover- the movement he is classified as belonging to, several people I know who like him, the worship surrounding Infinte Jest and what is said about it, etc.

All of those pre-judgements were nega More...

21 comments like (31 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2009

Dave rated it:

There's a small theme running through some of these essays(1): People trying to bridge the gap between two different camps. In "Authority and American Usage" DFW praises Garner for bridging the gap between the Prescriptionist and the Descriptionist usage experts. In "Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky" Frank impresses DFW by weaving together two rival approaches to literary criticism. "Up, Simba" is an encomium to John McCain's ability to appeal to Young Voters (presumab More...

3 comments like (12 people liked it)

Oct 09, 2008

Valerie rated it:

I just finished reading Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. What I'm left with is an absolute amazement at the immense amounts of knowledge related in the essays. It's like DFW had - or did enough research - to fill a set of encyclopedias on each topic, and then whittled it down to the presented short-storyish length.

In "Big Red Son", an essay about the Annual AVN Awards (that's Adult Video News, by the way) I learned more about the adult entertainment industry t More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2008

Rob rated it:

I would suggest, dear reader, that when considering Consider the Lobster, that you consider it in the same light as David Foster Wallace's collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. Use that book as your frame of reference for style and content and you can place this collection firmly into the category of "typical" DFW. That being said, if you thoroughly enjoyed A Supposedly Fun Thing... then you'll likely thoroughly enjoy this one as well; by that same coin, if you're on More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2009

Lena rated it:

I didn't know much about David Foster Wallace when I cracked open this collection of his essays, so the first piece on the Adult Video News Awards caught me rather by surprise. Within just a few paragraphs, however, the sheer and utter brilliance of this fascinating and yet also erudite and intellectual examination of the porn industry left me with little doubt that DFW's reputation as one of the smartest and funniest writers of my lifetime is well-deserved.

Prior to this book, if yo More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2007

Adam rated it:

Another essay collection by the man I would consider America's foremost essayist. As great a novelist as he is, and he's certainly no slouch with the short story, his non-fiction is beyond compare.

I think that this work differs from his previous stuff in that it plays up the author's own dorkiness a lot less than the other ones, although it doesn't even come close to losing it entirely. Rather, it gets augmented by some level of taking himself seriously that lends a little more cred More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 11, 2008

Guy rated it:

Every word a treasure. From the very literally-titled title essay to the humor of starstruck fans at porn-video awards shows in Vegas to the very human look at a conservative radio talk-show host.

Most interesting and perhaps most pertinent: Wallace spent time following John McCain on the campaign trail in the 2000 Republican primaries. The picture of McCain is, to say the least, intriguing now, as is the reminder that - to a very large extent - what we see of any candidate is no mo More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2010

Moira rated it:

(Ceci n'est pas une review, but I'm getting tired of just rating and adding status updates)

Thought maybe this was worth 4.7666666666666665 stars, but what the hell, there isn't going to be any more, so....'Up, Simba' wrestles in my affections with the cruise ship essay, it's that good. The usage essay is also phenomenal. Big Red Son, Tracy Austin, lobsters, Dostoevsky, Kafka, 9/11, gutting Updike, all amazing....the _one_ thing I don't like is the Host essay, which seems a little lon More...

6 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 17, 2011

Snotchocheez rated it:

I must confess that I am not one of the cult of DFW followers that wallow in his genius ramblings; I honestly appreciated, though did not love, his (universally acknowledged) masterpiece: "Infinite Jest"; despite its raw humor, it rambled and meandered WAY too much for me to get a feel for his true storytelling talent. It seemed almost as if he was using his (arguably infinite, or at least infinitely superior to my) intelligence to slap the reader insensate. (Part of this feeling was no dou More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 15, 2011

MJ rated it:

Outstanding. The closest one can get to triple penetration in essay form.

Each one is a stunner, from the grotesquerie of the Adult Video Awards in ‘Big Red Son,’ the magniloquent ass-handing of John Updike, the sublime pedantry of the modern classic ‘Authority and American Usage,’ the obsessive campaign chronicling of ‘Up, Simba,’ to the staggeringly researched meta-bubbling John Ziegler profile ‘Host.’

All the essays succeed at tying razor-sharp exegeses of American cultu More...

8 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jul 01, 2010

Moira added it

Not sure how I feel about the 'footnotes voice' - it seems about as desperate an idea as the little boxes in 'The Host' which wound up annoying me. It was interesting to read in one of the posthumous profiles that he didn't want the footnoting to be like hypertext, because that seems like the most logical way to represent them online with endless scrolling pages. It's nice to hear him, though.

Audiobooks have GOT TO stop the whack tradition of having noodling non-melodic music behind More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2009

Simon rated it:

Do you have any idea how many lobsters die each year in order to satisfy our culinary cravings? I've no idea, but after reading the essay `Consider the Lobster,' I have to say - too many.

Mr. Wallace approaches the issue from the stand point of our claw-y friends. Put yourself in the lobster's position - here you are, backtracking through the bottom of New England's coastline and suddenly you find yourself in the 100+ lbs pressure cooker of the annual Main Lobster Festival. You squir More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 21, 2007

Harlan rated it:

An excerpt from the NY Times review of another David Foster Wallace book, Oblivion, is close enough to my own feelings to be worth pasting:

"One reason it's tempting to follow the smart set -- that anxious clan of stylishly camouflaged, overeducated social maladapts that functions in the literary world a lot like those old guys sucking White Owl cigars do in metropolitan Off Track Betting parlors -- and flatly declare David Foster Wallace a genius and the greatest you More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 16, 2007

Brendan rated it:

The essay “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky” appears near the end of David Foster Wallace’s collection, Consider the Lobster. In it, Wallace is writing about someone (Joseph Frank) writing about someone (Fyodor Dostoevsky) writing about Important Questions. He (Wallace) also writes about himself (and his literary peers) not writing about Important Questions, ramming his point home by interspersing throughout the essay said IQs, uncommented-upon and tucked safely inside asterisks, in uneasy juxtapositio More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 13, 2010

logankstewart rated it:

"But if I decide to decide there’s a different, less selfish, less lonely point to my life, won’t the reason for this decision be my desire to be less lonely, meaning to suffer less overall pain? Can the decision to be less selfish ever be anything other than a selfish decision?"

Consider the Lobster, and Other Essays is a non-fiction book by the late, acclaimed journalist and novelist David Foster Wallace. I first heard of DFW on a recent NPR interview, and, like ma More...

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 01, 2010

Nate rated it:

Opening essay "Big Red Son", an account of the Adult Video News Awards -- yes, the "porn Oscars" -- is one of the funniest pieces of writing I have read in ages. And informative! DFW's style seems well suited to the subject here, with footnotes serving as expansions into long verbatim anecdotes delivered to the author by the article's colorful supporting cast, and his prose is well up to the challenge of rendering the circus as lucidly as seems possible.

This wa More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 02, 2008

Amanda rated it:

This was my first DFWallace and I will read more. He is a really smart dude. I'm kind of grossed out by lobsters right now but I think their deliciousness will override the fact that they are sea-bugs. Things in addition to lobsters for the reader to consider: a review of John Updike describing a novel that reads like John Updike is badly imitating himself; a really, really long and really, really interesting review of a dictionary; thoughts on Dostoevsky; attending a porn awards show; Kafka i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 11, 2007

Colette rated it:

So, I have a crush on David Foster Wallace. It's long-standing, and quite inappropriate given that he's *so much* smarter than me. Maybe I should only give 'Lobster' 4 stars, because I couldn't get through the 'American Usage' essay without skimming and then going back and skimming some more. I guess I'm not enough of a SNOOT.

Still, everything DFW does is amazing. I'm constantly amazed at his intellectual genius (and knowledge of so many subjects). I think what I really value More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 25, 2007

Justine rated it:

DFW may have just won a place as one of my favorite writers. His intelligence, sharp observance, and keen wit jump off the pages. At times a little dense and circuitous, the payoff for reading his work is HUGE. There are so many dogears in this book (good quotes) that it doesn't lie flat.

DFW's style is what I would call "masturbatorily educated." He drops references (both popular and erudite) everywhere and expects his reader to get it. But beyond style, the true bri More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 11, 2007

Dean rated it:

DFW's challenging fiction, while super-smart, often requires back-tracking and exhaustive concentration.

His searing essay collections, though, are an easier read. Consider the Lobster, much like his earlier collection, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, is sharp but effortlessly absorbable.

Lobster takes us behind the scenes at an awards ceremony for porn stars, on a sea-to-plate journey with the crustacean of our desires, and deep into the psyche of a former girl More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Zedder rated it:

In a stroke of genius, I assigned the title essay of this as a reading on identity theory for my philosophy of mind class this summer. They loved it, and it gave me a really concrete example of multiple realizability to keep coming back to later in the course.

Here's how Wallace's cab drive puts identity theory: "Lobsters don't feel pain because they don't have the same part of the brain that allows humans to feel pain."

Overall, I feel like this volume isn't as More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 25, 2007

Christina rated it:

I cannot recommend this enough. If DFW's prose has turned you off in the past, try this out. It's still riddled with his trademark way-overdone-footnotes, but is wonderfully written. Makes all sorts of topics accessible and stimulating. I, of course, being who I am, loooved Big Red Son. The McCain bit was a superb slice into the American political machine (in a human way, not an I-have-a-bias-and-I'm-out-to-prove-something way); surprisingly, the radio host piece was too. Possibly my favorite es More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 17, 2009

Carolynz rated it:

His last book of essays. Midway contains one of the most authentic reads on experiencing 911 that I've came across. The title essay, Consider the Lobster is classic Wallace.

1 comment like

Apr 21, 2011

Puzziker rated it:

"Immaginate che l'apocalisse abbia preso le sembianze di un cocktail-party". Oppure che la raccolta in questione, una volta aperta, si riveli essa stessa un'apocalisse.
A me capita con tutto quel che leggo di DFW: del centro di gravità, in fondo, comincio a fregarmene. Mi annodo nelle spirali sempre più strette delle sue analisi frattali.
Soffro, a volte, ma sento che sto andando a fondo, all'interno. E' un microscopio elettronico manovrato con perizia e spietatezza.
Massimalista, isteri More...

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Nov 30, 2008

Andy rated it:

This book is a collection of essays by the late David Foster Wallace. You could describe these essays as humorist in nature and I wouldn't argue too much with you, but he is less in the joke-making business than he is a "pure" writer who laces his prose with a wonderful wit that manages to be earnest and wry and insightful all at once.

In my opinion the shorter essays in this book tend to be better. When Wallace focuses his writing to a point, he is peerless; his literacy, More...

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Jan 20, 2012

Walter rated it:

I simply cannot believe how smart this guy is. Whatever he writes about, he immerses himself in that subject from head to toe, and seems to master it totally. I can't imagine that he knew much about the lobster industry, or talk show hosts, or John McCain, before he took on those assignments. But I'm pretty well convinced that whatever he says is going to be the final word on it, no matter the issue. I did not expect anyone to go over my head so utterly in the realm of grammar and usage. (O More...

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Jan 16, 2012

Kira rated it:

I have my moments of frustration with David Foster Wallace—his writing can be extremely dense and he sometimes shows little regard for the knowledge level (or interest level) of his audience—but to be honest there was just no way this book wasn’t getting four paper cuts. As an author, he will make you laugh, make you think, maybe make you cry, challenge you intellectually, question you ethically, and just generally manage to make you interested in whatever he’s writing about, and more often than More...

1 comment like

Jan 07, 2012

Joseph rated it:

Well. I started reading this as an attempt to correct a long-lasting antipathy toward DFW's work that was based on extra-aesthetic judgements, and at the behest of a couple of my friends. For the most part, it worked pretty well. The book is funny and often astonishing, well-written in general -- but also a little bit twee and sometimes condescends to its reader in a way that annoys me. The best essays are probably "The View from Mrs Johnson's" (about experiencing 9/11 in the small tow More...

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