Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays

By David Foster Wallace
2007
343 pages. Audio: 15 hours and 8 minutes
Nonfiction

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It is September 12, 2008. The greatest writer of our generation has died. At the age of 46 he hanged himself after writing a suicide note. He had struggled with depressive disorder much of his life, and his doctors were working to adjust his medication regime. It is hard to imagine what psychic pain he must’ve been in. Though I suppose this is selfish, I found myself in enormous grief not just for Wallace and his friends and family but also for myself. There would be no more DFW essays or stories written. Oh, what we have missed!

In my reviews I have limited each author to one book—either fiction or nonfiction. David Foster Wallace is the only name who will appear in both of my lists. I believe he is the greatest American essayist since Emerson. And while a distinction should be made between his essays and his journalism, it is a little hard to tell them apart.

It is slightly ironic that if a casual reader is familiar with Wallace at all, it is likely through his famous graduation speech, “This Is Water.” This 25-minute speech is available in print and online and is a brilliant grasping for meaning in the world from a man who can’t quite pull off religious belief. For all those seeking to understand people who long for belief, cannot reach it, but believe there must be more to the world than the market, this is indispensable reading.

But I will focus here on two collections, Consider the Lobster (2006) and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again (1998). As with all essay collections—especially from someone as brilliant and eclectic as Wallace—you’re probably not going to like every essay, and some of them will be about things that don’t interest you. So I will quickly point out a couple in each book that are worthy of your consideration.

The title essay in Consider the Lobster is about, well, eating lobster and the practice of boiling them alive. Wherever you come out on the practice, the essay is thought-provoking. My second favorite essay in this collection is “The View from Mrs. Thompson’s,” a gut-wrenching meditation on the days around 9/11. It displays Wallace’s great respect for the Christianity he does not believe. It is deeply moving.

The title essay in the older collection is about a cruise—the supposedly fun thing he’ll never do again. Since Wallace often writes about profound things, many people don’t realize he is one of the funniest writers you’ll ever read. And this essay is hilarious. I suppose it helps if you’ve been on a cruise but either way, after you have read this essay you may be as tempted as I was to put down my pencil and vow never to write again because it is just that good. It is in a tiny handful of the greatest essays ever written by an American.

There is one other essay in this collection that I find particularly interesting. With the unwieldy title of “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction,” how could you not want to run out and buy the book? Wallace was fascinated by television and apparently watched a great deal of it. He was interested in how it worked and how it works on us. And though this essay is now more than two decades old, I think it holds up surprisingly well.

Even after more than a decade, I can hardly make peace that there will be no more essays coming from Wallace.