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By ASHLEY GAUTHIER
For THE FREE LANCE-STAR
David Foster Wallace's newest collection of essays, "Consider the Lobster," is smart writing for those who are dismayed by our increasingly dumbed-down public discourse. While it's certainly not light reading--Wallace will casually throw out terms like "dysphemism" (the opposite of euphemism; using a more offensive term rather than a less offensive one), it is entertaining, sharp, and often amusing.
Wallace takes on all kinds of topics, from whether it is ethical to boil live lobsters, to why professional athletes tend to be terrible memoirists, to the ridiculousness of the porn industry. But his essays share a common theme, the notion that being an intelligent, complete human requires thinking about things you could easily choose not to think about, even if you don't have any answers.
For example, the title essay, "Consider the Lobster," was written for Gourmet magazine in 2004. It was intended to be about attending the Maine Lobster Festival. But in Wallace's hands, it turns into a sociological-philosophical piece about what it was like "to spend several days in the midst of a great mass of Americans all eating lobster, and thus to be more or less impelled to think hard about lobster and the experience of buying and eating lobster," which inevitably becomes an essay about how lobsters respond to boiling water. The most striking thing about the essay is his brutal honesty. Although he can point out all the reasons why logic tells him that the lobster suffers when boiled, he justifies his lobster-eating with the belief that "animals are less morally important than human beings." But what makes Wallace unique is his willingness to struggle with the complexity of the issue. He has the decency to acknowledge that "I haven't succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient."
His willingness to struggle with complexity is most obvious in "Up Simba," an essay written for Rolling Stone magazine about what it was like to be on the campaign trail with John McCain during the 2000 primaries. Since he is not part of the political journalism establishment, he is able to describe events with an objectivity that other commentators lack, but he also includes subjective commentary about what it's like to be a cynical, disinterested voter. While you might not expect essays about politics to be funny and moving, this one is.
Wallace is known not only for his astute observations, but also for his style of writing. He favors traditional, standard written English, and in fact, one of the essays in his book is about that very subject. Although he has an M.F.A. in creative writing, his undergraduate degree is in philosophy, and his writing often incorporates a philosophical approach to even the most mundane topics. Also, he regularly utilizes footnotes, which some critics see as an affected hipster ploy, but others see as a genuine means of communicating complex themes in an organized manner. But his essay "Host," about the significance of talk radio in American society, pushes the use of footnotes to an extreme. It is not merely footnoted; it is practically a flowchart of ideas and facts. It may be difficult to read--you have to follow arrows up and down and across the page--but perhaps the complexity of the topic justifies the complexity of the read.
Wallace also tackles the events of Sept. 11, but he completely avoids the routes that have already been overdone by everyone else. In an essay that is simultaneously dark and funny, he tells of his experience on Sept. 11 in Bloomington, Ill. Wallace explains that Bloomington is "a lot like a seaside community except here the ocean is corn," and that it has two distinct cultures, "so well and truly symbolized by the SUV and the pickup truck, respectively." The day after the attacks--"the Horror," as he calls it--he was amazed to see that every house had a flag hung when, curiously, no store in town sells flags. But the essay soon turns to genuine emotion, describing how he watched the Horror on television while crowded into a woman's home with other members of the community and having to explain the geography of Manhattan to a distraught neighbor to relieve her concerns about a relative who works in midtown. With an ending that will stab at the heart of the most jaded Gen-Xer, Wallace doesn't pretend to have any answers, but at least he knows what the questions are.
Ashley Gauthier is a freelance writer who lives in Stafford Coun ty.
Consider the Lobster By David Foster Wallace (Little, Brown, 352 pages, $25.95) |
