Consider the Lobster (2004) [pdf]
columbia.edu
columbia.edu
It reminds me of early Simpson's episodes. The juxtapositions of pointless and detailed erudition, obvious humor and subtle satire, and breaking the fourth-wall moral mirror. It's equal parts brilliant, snarky and trivial.
I generally find DFW unbearably pretentious, but there is something sublime about an article like this getting published, with all of those footnotes, in a food magazine. Something about it reminds me of the performance art of Andy Kaufman.
It's strange to me that I've heard of this essay probably hundreds of times yet this was the first time I actually read it.
I won't get into details because it is very personal, but DFW did something staggeringly generous and selfless and thoughtful for a close friend of mine -- a friend who was also a complete stranger to DFW at the time.
The pat "DWF/pretentious" critique which is heard from time to time seems to be to be pretty ignorant of what he wrote, why he wrote, and who he was. And that little insight I got of him gave me a deeper appreciation for what he published.
I read Ian M. Banks for the first time recently. About halfway through "Player of Games" I realized what an enormous talent that man has for writing. It snuck up on me, it took me by surprise. I think of the Italian word Sprezzatura and the Wikipedia summary: "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". In my estimation Banks does this, he artfully conceals just how good he is at what he is doing.
In contrast, when I read DFW I feel as if he is poking his talent into my face over and over again. Even in this essay, I feel an overbearing sense of how good it is. The DFW writing I am familiar with lacks the ease I appreciate.
I prefer when artists downplay their ability and express it subtly. That doesn't mean that an artist must do this to be good writer or a good person. Some artists will stretch themselves to the very limit of their abilities in an attempt to express themselves in a way they find satisfying or meaningful. And if I find that tedious or unbearable to read then that doesn't necessarily make me ignorant.
Consider the Lobster (2004) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8407616 - Oct 2014 (48 comments)
David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster." Aug 2004 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1562677 - July 2010 (1 comment)
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lobsters-octopus-and-crab...
If you do not read the whole original article, read just this excerpt.
"If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook its claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof. And worse is when the lobster’s fully immersed. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off. Or the creature’s claws scraping the sides of the kettle as it thrashes around. The lobster, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were plunged into boiling water (with the obvious exception of screaming)."
Switzerland banned boiled them alive a few years ago https://kottke.org/18/02/switzerland-makes-it-illegal-to-boi...
And the real consequences of that joke are?...
Will Mr Johnson reprove the thousands of governments that use seafood to feed their population and avoid famine, suffering and death of millions of people?
How does it feel if we take the previous attempt of emotional manipulation and substitute that for this?
"If you’re tilting it from a container into the steaming kettle, the cabbage will sometimes jump trying to escape its destine or even to hook its leaves over the kettle’s rim like a children trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof with a fluffy kitten in their broken right arm. And worse is when the cabbage is fully immersed. As a Guantanamo prisoner cabbages aren't aquatic plants and can't breath under the water!. Even if you cover the kettle and turn away to not smell its fear, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the dismembered cabbage dies slowly with a sad why? why?. The brassicacea, in other words, behaves very much as you or I would behave if we were a cabbage disfigured after a thousand years of culture and plunged into boiling water after being chopped in a thousand parts (with the obvious exception of not screaming)."
And lobsters are not killed clinging from dishes like that fake relate claims, (but don't allow the truth to stand in the way of a good crowfunding).
Plants are much more sophisticated organisms that most people think. What if we just don't understand their suffering when we put a photosynthetic organism in the dark for months? Plant lives matter! please send me money (or seeds).
I assume that by law octopus in UK must be killed in a fair duel now, because we didn't had enough problems with wet markets yet.
My favorite DFW essay (out of oh so many) is "Tense Present"[3]. I bought the Garner because of it. I've read it more than twice, and I very rarely read things more than once. I recommended it to a friend and she came back and said, "That's why you are the way you are, you're a snoot!". I laughed.
[1][4] "exploiting" chosen to make the meaning explicit.
[2] I try hard to minimize the cruelty in my practice; profit based exploitation rarely does. Neither does a pack of African wild dogs, nor the tarantula hawk dragging the much bigger tarantula across my yard.
[3] Possibly unreadable font, might be others out there: https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-2001-...
[4] DFW correctly (yah, that's redundant) used 1 based footnote numbering.
Thanks for the recommendation. I laughed out loud at this line:
> He's both a lawyer and a lexicographer (which seems a bit like being both a narcotics dealer and a DEA agent).
https://web.archive.org/web/20211206162647if_/http://www.col...