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Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
by David Foster Wallace
by David Foster Wallace
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 culture to a holy clarity of insight, showing how acutely attuned to the nuances of the human mind Mr. Wallace was. Even among the shorter pieces here: the Bergman-like silence of ‘The View From Mrs Thompson’s’ to the dazzling dissection of Dostoevsky, this is super-stellar belles-lettrism from outer space.
And to top it all, I now feel deeply for lobsters.
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 culture to a holy clarity of insight, showing how acutely attuned to the nuances of the human mind Mr. Wallace was. Even among the shorter pieces here: the Bergman-like silence of ‘The View From Mrs Thompson’s’ to the dazzling dissection of Dostoevsky, this is super-stellar belles-lettrism from outer space.
And to top it all, I now feel deeply for lobsters.
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Jasmine
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May 15, 2011 10:25am
oh I love the one about maine, he does a nice job.
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well I read a bunch of these I just really liked that cause I'm from maine. but the talk radio one is really insightful too.
poor comment. I didn't like lobster in the first place, and I stopped eating sea food more generally when I stopped knowing the guys who fished it. so not really. but poor lobsters.
Hmm. So parting from fishermen friends caused your seafood abstinence? Interesting. Lobsters are the only living creature we happily boil alive for our supper. It's odd how that came about.
it's less about losing the friends and more about not knowing where the fish came from. In maine the resturant is on the pier and buys from the boats.
I'm not really into essays and short stories very much, but I do like lobsters (except eating them, vile taste).The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean was a five-star read. I might read this though, partly from your review and partly the cover.
