Consider the Lobster
| Company type | Book |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Founder | David Foster Wallace |
| Products | Essay collection |
Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (2005) is a compilation by author David Foster Wallace, featuring the titular essay initially released in Gourmet in 2004. The collection’s name alludes to Consider the Oyster by M. F. K. Fisher.
Content
Included essays are:
- "Big Red Son"
- Wallace narrates his experience attending the 15th AVN Awards, often dubbed the Academy Awards of adult cinema, along with the related AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. This piece first appeared in the September 1998 edition of Premiere under various pseudonyms.
- "Certainly the End of Something or Other, One Would Sort of Have to Think"
- A critique of John Updike's novel Toward the End of Time, originally published as "John Updike, Champion Literary Phallocrat, Drops One" in The New York Observer (1997).
- "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness from Which Probably Not Enough Has Been Removed"
- Delivered at a 1998 PEN American Center event marking a new translation of Franz Kafka's The Castle, this speech was published under the title "Laughing with Kafka" in Harper's Magazine (1998).
- "Authority and American Usage"
- A detailed 62-page review of Bryan A. Garner's A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, where Wallace applies George Orwell's guidelines to issues of grammar and social class within American language. The essay debates descriptive versus prescriptive grammar and explores the validity of African American Vernacular English. It appeared as "Tense Present: Democracy, English and the Wars over Usage" in Harper's Magazine (2001).
- "The View from Mrs. Thompson's"
- Wallace offers his viewpoint on the September 11 attacks from Bloomington, Illinois, where he was teaching at Illinois State University. He describes neighbors as church members, later clarified to be friends from a recovery group to maintain privacy. This essay was published in Rolling Stone (2001).
- "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart"
- A critical analysis of tennis champion Tracy Austin's autobiography that expands into a wider condemnation of ghostwritten sports memoirs saturating the market. It first appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer (1992).
- "Up, Simba"
- An account covering John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign while traveling on the "Straight Talk Express." Originally titled "The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys And The Shrub" in Rolling Stone (2000), it was republished during the 2008 election cycle as "McCain's Promise". This essay earned the 2001 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing.
- "Consider the Lobster"
- A review centered on the 2003 Maine Lobster Festival that highlights ethical concerns regarding boiling lobsters alive for food. Published in Gourmet (2004), it generated considerable debate among readers.
- "Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky"
- A critique of Stanford professor Joseph Frank (writer)'s biography on Fyodor Dostoevsky, initially titled "Feodor's Guide" in The Village Voice (1996).
- "Host"
- A profile examining conservative Los Angeles talk show host John Ziegler (talk show host), who is fixated on the O. J. Simpson murder case. The essay investigates media conglomerates such as Clear Channel Communications and their impact on American public dialogue and electoral behavior. Published in The Atlantic (2005), it featured pioneering annotations designed to simulate an online reading experience. It was a finalist for the 2006 National Magazine Award for Profile Writing.
Audiobook
In 2005, Time Warner Audiobooks issued an audiobook narrated by Wallace, presented as a three-CD collection that included the essays "Consider the Lobster," "The View from Mrs. Thompson's," "Big Red Son," and "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart." A more comprehensive version, featuring narration by both Wallace and Robert Petkoff and containing all the essays, was released by Hachette Audio in 2017.
External links
- KCRW interview with Wallace discussing Consider the Lobster
- "Grammar and Authenticity in Postmodern America" by Amelia Atlas, featured in The Harvard Book Review (Winter 2006)
- "The Postmodern Moralist" by Pankaj Mishra in The New York Times (March 12, 2006)
- "A cult above the rest" by Robert McCrum published in The Observer (December 11, 2005)