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hard to put down 2010-01-06

Reviewer: Adrienne Aggen

I sailed through this marvelous book of essays. It's a small victory for Wallace that he can keep someone as ADD as me engaged through essays on everything from literary theory to lobster festivals.

A true Talent 2010-01-05

Reviewer: Mr. Steiner

Consider the Lobster is a collection of muscular essays from the late David Foster Wallace on an absurdly wide range of topics. Each of them was commissioned by a particular magazine with a particular topic, hence Wallace's tendency to direct his voice at his readers like a canon. However, Wallace can never be contained by the banalities of his topic here. His work on the AVA's is a particularly damning portrait of the pornography industry, in all its unimaginable insanity and sadness. I particularly like the piece on the American Usage Wars, which involves an impressive demonstration of Wallace's knowledge regarding the history of English grammar debates over the course of the last several decades. Not all of the pieces here are great-the one on McCain in particular is repetitive and mundane. And DFW's tendency to use lengthy footnotes to 'fragment the linearity' of his text is a mere affectation. Still, this represents the work of a great mind, whose creativity and intellect will sorely be missed.

Wallace at his best 2010-01-03

Reviewer: LJS

David Foster Wallace reachs new heights in this brilliant collection of essays. Although uneven, as is much of his work, the best of these essays set new recent standards for this art form. In the finest works of this collection, he truly does achieve art with non-fiction writing. Imagine a critique of a new academic work on English grammar usage that is too fascinating to put down, and frequently too humorous to not have to stop reading while your laughter subsides. His points are made without his ever becoming preachy, and are all the more convincing for it (c.f. the title essay). His mastery of understatement serves to place a new emphasis on events of chilling importance by observation of events seemingly mundane.
His use of sarcasm and irony when appropriate remains as adroit as ever.

For those who are already Wallace fans, I recommend this as my favorite of his collections of non-fiction. For those who have never encountered him before, I think this is the best introduction to his non-fiction work (and that is high praise indeed, as his other collections are wonderful).

This book serves to remind us of the tragic loss to American arts and letters caused by Wallace's untimely passing. I mourn his absence, and am deeply saddened by the void he leaves behind. Treasure these works, he was unique and nothing quite like him will come again.

LJS

Journalism, not essays 2009-12-08

Reviewer: Tom Hartung

These pieces do not earn the category "essay". They read like the journalism that they were. I watched Wallace a few nights ago in a 1990s Charlie Rose interview and felt connected to this bright young man. But he writes too casually, letting any thought get into the narrative. The endless digressions sap the energy of the text. I understand that his novels are that way too (i e endlessly digressive). How sad that he was unable to overcome his depression. Maybe he would have matured into a more disciplined writer.

Missing one key piece... 2009-08-27

Reviewer: Michael Hoffman

DFW's content is not the object of this review. Rather, I am reviewing (and objecting to) the Kindle version of the book, which does not include the marvelous essay, "Host." Although I (now) understand that the article in its original form used sidenotes that cannot be duplicated in the eBook format, it would have been nice to know that before hunting through the publication notes on my Kindle to discover this. It seems that either the sidenotes could be changed to footnotes and so duplicated, or the publisher and Amazon could let me know that what I am buying is a somewhat diminished version of the book.