6 ms·

Consider the Lobster (2004)

136 points by markmassie 12y ago

paulgb 12y ago
This is the title essay to an excellent book by DFW (RIP) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_the_Lobster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_the_Lobster
ajtulloch 12y ago
"Shipping Out" [1] is another wonderful DFW essay, describing a week spent on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. [1]: http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazin...
- maroonblazer 12y ago
  Also a great essay and, I believe, retitled for the collection it later was a part of called "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again". A title which perfectly captured how I thought about the first (and last) cruise I ever took.
  - icelancer 12y ago
    Funny; the essay made me want to go a cruise even more! I still agree that it is one of his finest essays. I rank it up there with The String Theory, which is my personal favorite.
- brianwillis 12y ago
  If you're going to read this (or really any DFW) don't skip the footnotes. Yes it's tedious flipping back and forth, but it's so very worth it.
  - dewarrn1 12y ago
    Yes, it's all part of the experience. Reportedly, DFW liked the idea of jarring readers out of a steady progression through his text and used all kinds of notes to effect this.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Or read them after; none of the interest is lost
Pxtl 12y ago
I'd read this essay before but I had no idea it was David foster Wallace.
maroonblazer 12y ago
I almost didn't read this when I bought the book as I have little-to-no interest in Maine, lobsters or lobster festivals. The first few pages give you the indication that that's all it's about. Then, about mid-way through, it morphs into a marvelous meditation on the nature of consciousness and the ethics of killing and eating animals. God, I miss that guy.
- thomaskcr 12y ago
  I only went back because of your comment and I'm glad I did.
- alelefant 12y ago
  I actually found his talks of Maine and travel in general very interesting. I really liked this from one of the footnotes: "To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing."
  - tspiteri 12y ago
    I find that quite a conceited view of mass tourism, borne of the fact that the author has a "fantasy of being a real individual, of living somehow outside and above it all." Sometimes it is fun to be a tourist at a place where there are other tourists around. And I hate that he says tourists are "economically significant but existentially loathsome". If it weren't for tourists, many tourist attractions would be neglected because firstly there would be no point in maintaining them, and secondly, there would be no money to maintain them.
    - klodolph 12y ago
      > If it weren't for tourists, many tourist attractions would be neglected because firstly there would be no point in maintaining them, and secondly, there would be no money to maintain them. Or, in other words, they are economically significant.
kiyoto 12y ago
For those that dislike paginating through a longform (especially not for DFW whose copious endnotes is part of his literary form), here is a single-page URL: http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?currentPage=all http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...
pyromine 12y ago
Interestingly I just has to read this a week or two ago, and I really did find it to be a great essay. My professor used this as a perfect example of an essay crafted to bring together both information and experience in an engaging piece.
hyp0 12y ago
one page http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?printable=true http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l... On mobile, I couldn't see the page 1 of 10, too far on the RHS, and wondered at the comments here...
- dang 12y ago
  Thanks. Changed.
cellis 12y ago
Amazingly well written and well argued. It's worth the time to turn off your tldr impulse and read this piece.
reporter 12y ago
This is a great site for audio recording of his writing and interviews: http://www.dfwaudioproject.org/ http://www.dfwaudioproject.org/
derrida 12y ago
I read the first three sentences, and came back here to comment. Each is a fabulous joke, and I had 3 lol moments, and I wonder if anybody else laughed like I did? I am a big fan of DFW on the basis of reading "The Pale King" alone, and haven't read this before. 1. "... the nerve stem of Maine's lobster industry." I full expect him to exploit this imagery later :-) 2. "... runs from Owl’s Head" Oh, God, already. 3. "... whose summer traffic is, as you can imagine, unimaginable." 4. "... Harbor Park, right along the water." Redundancy from an author concerned with economy of expression... oh, this is deliberate! He's making fun of the absurdity of town called Rockland. It's by the sea. Some sense of absurdity is subtle. 5. "... Camden by the sea, Rockland by the smell.” Economic status of Rockland explained. That's in the first 3 sentences... I hate to "spell it out" but hopefully I can encourage people to read other stuff by DFW in so doing. The themes in the Pale King could certainly help some people in technical communities make sense of what it is they are doing. OK, enough proselytizing, and literary-criticism-ism-ing back to reading now... I won't be back.
- tptacek 12y ago
  I missed several of these, because I listened to the audiobook (which I still recommend, if only for the goofy way they handle footnotes). Thanks! Track down DFW's _Tense Present_. You'll like it.
- thathonkey 12y ago
  If you started with Pale King and already love him youre in for a real treat. Not that Pale King is bad, just obviously incomplete (which it necessarily was, unfortunately).
manachar 12y ago
"I am also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is confused." The older I get the more I realize this seems to be the appropriate response to the world. In Zen circles this approaches the idea of the Beginner's Mind, and seems to be an incredibly powerful way to approach a contentious topic.
- dewarrn1 12y ago
  DFW's commencement speech at Kenyon is another terrific example: http://web.archive.org/web/20080213082423/http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html http://web.archive.org/web/20080213082423/http://www.margina...
brianbreslin 12y ago
Also worth reading http://priceonomics.com/the-invention-of-the-chilean-sea-bass/ http://priceonomics.com/the-invention-of-the-chilean-sea-bas...
eevilspock 12y ago
Consider the Lilly: http://youtu.be/9czBBKof7Yo http://youtu.be/9czBBKof7Yo
chrisdevereux 12y ago
While we're posting DFW links: http://stanford.edu/~sdmiller/octo/files/GoodOldNeon.pdf http://stanford.edu/~sdmiller/octo/files/GoodOldNeon.pdf Deals with the concept of feeling like a fraud (which seems to come up here a lot), amongst other things. Occasionally hilarious, often sad, then it gets awesome towards the end, although I won't spoil it.
Jun8 12y ago
My first exposure to DFW was his essay "The Big Red Son" (http://social.rollins.edu/wpsites/sexwarandplague/files/2012/07/DF-Wallace-Big-Red-Son.pdf http://social.rollins.edu/wpsites/sexwarandplague/files/2012...) and, boy, what an experience that was! I think that essay is even better than "Consider the Lobster". And if haven't already done so, read his commencement speech to Kenyon College class of 2005, or better listen to it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI) (Later published as a book titled This is Water). It's a life-enhancing experience.
startupfounder 12y ago
I am a 13th generation Mainer with family in the lobster business, both in fishing and processing, and I have worked on the waters sailing on schooners on the Maine coast as a young lad. Maine is a state that lives off the land, fishing and forestry are huge industries that provide thousands of jobs and sustain the state the other 10 months when tourism is dormant. The lobster industry is the most sustainable fishery in the world, as others are going extinct the lobster fishery is thriving. We come from the land and we care for the animals and the environment. Current technology used in processing lobster is orders of magnitude more humane than described in Consider the Lobster [0] and other food processing facilities pale in comparison (i'm looking at you whaling industry, fishing industry, livestock industry, etc. We now have the technology to kill lobster instantaneously while simultaneously killing all bacteria and creating raw lobster meat that can be shipped globally. Personally I like the intimacy of being close to killing the animals we eat, it's authentic, I think it gives acknowledgment to the animal's life at a level that is not even close to supermarket bought meats. What other animal do people kill in their own kitchen in SF or NYC? I think we need more of the intimacy with our food that lobster provides. The question is would you like to have animal butchering behind closed doors (because we know where that path leads) or do we want an intimacy with our food, our farmers and our fishermen? [0] http://www.wired.com/2010/11/st_crush_lobsters/ http://www.wired.com/2010/11/st_crush_lobsters/
- socksy 12y ago
  "Personally I like the intimacy of being close to killing the animals we eat, it's authentic" This is such an bizarre statement. Something like "I like the intimacy of being close to [a horrendous thing]". I mean I agree that it's better done outwith closed doors, but really it seems the reason that everyone is OK with it is because lobsters aren't as cute (or at least as conducive to being empathized with) as calves, chicks and lambs. Which doesn't seem like a logical way to choose what we kill.
dpieri 12y ago
Consider The Lobster was my first exposure to DFW. The first time I heard it I thought this guy was crazy and didn't take it seriously. After a while I realized that DFW is one of the best authors that ever lived. His writing is incredibly dense so you have to space it out and be very focused when you read, but its worth it. I'd recommend all the essays in "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", including this one about David Lynch http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html His review of Terminator II is probably the most cerebral essay about an action movie ever written: https://www.scribd.com/doc/14994144/David-Foster-Wallace-F-X-Porn https://www.scribd.com/doc/14994144/David-Foster-Wallace-F-X...

136 points by markmassie 12y ago

This is the title essay to an excellent book by DFW (RIP) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_the_Lobster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consider_the_Lobster

ajtulloch 12y ago

"Shipping Out" [1] is another wonderful DFW essay, describing a week spent on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. [1]: http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazin...

maroonblazer 12y ago
Also a great essay and, I believe, retitled for the collection it later was a part of called "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again". A title which perfectly captured how I thought about the first (and last) cruise I ever took.
- icelancer 12y ago
  Funny; the essay made me want to go a cruise even more! I still agree that it is one of his finest essays. I rank it up there with The String Theory, which is my personal favorite.
brianwillis 12y ago
If you're going to read this (or really any DFW) don't skip the footnotes. Yes it's tedious flipping back and forth, but it's so very worth it.
- dewarrn1 12y ago
  Yes, it's all part of the experience. Reportedly, DFW liked the idea of jarring readers out of a steady progression through his text and used all kinds of notes to effect this.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Or read them after; none of the interest is lost

Pxtl 12y ago

I'd read this essay before but I had no idea it was David foster Wallace.

maroonblazer 12y ago

I almost didn't read this when I bought the book as I have little-to-no interest in Maine, lobsters or lobster festivals. The first few pages give you the indication that that's all it's about. Then, about mid-way through, it morphs into a marvelous meditation on the nature of consciousness and the ethics of killing and eating animals. God, I miss that guy.

thomaskcr 12y ago
I only went back because of your comment and I'm glad I did.
alelefant 12y ago
I actually found his talks of Maine and travel in general very interesting. I really liked this from one of the footnotes: "To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing."
- tspiteri 12y ago
  I find that quite a conceited view of mass tourism, borne of the fact that the author has a "fantasy of being a real individual, of living somehow outside and above it all." Sometimes it is fun to be a tourist at a place where there are other tourists around. And I hate that he says tourists are "economically significant but existentially loathsome". If it weren't for tourists, many tourist attractions would be neglected because firstly there would be no point in maintaining them, and secondly, there would be no money to maintain them.
  - klodolph 12y ago
    > If it weren't for tourists, many tourist attractions would be neglected because firstly there would be no point in maintaining them, and secondly, there would be no money to maintain them. Or, in other words, they are economically significant.

kiyoto 12y ago

For those that dislike paginating through a longform (especially not for DFW whose copious endnotes is part of his literary form), here is a single-page URL: http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?currentPage=all http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...

pyromine 12y ago

Interestingly I just has to read this a week or two ago, and I really did find it to be a great essay. My professor used this as a perfect example of an essay crafted to bring together both information and experience in an engaging piece.

hyp0 12y ago

one page http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?printable=true http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l... On mobile, I couldn't see the page 1 of 10, too far on the RHS, and wondered at the comments here...

dang 12y ago
Thanks. Changed.

cellis 12y ago

Amazingly well written and well argued. It's worth the time to turn off your tldr impulse and read this piece.

reporter 12y ago

This is a great site for audio recording of his writing and interviews: http://www.dfwaudioproject.org/ http://www.dfwaudioproject.org/

derrida 12y ago

I read the first three sentences, and came back here to comment. Each is a fabulous joke, and I had 3 lol moments, and I wonder if anybody else laughed like I did? I am a big fan of DFW on the basis of reading "The Pale King" alone, and haven't read this before. 1. "... the nerve stem of Maine's lobster industry." I full expect him to exploit this imagery later :-) 2. "... runs from Owl’s Head" Oh, God, already. 3. "... whose summer traffic is, as you can imagine, unimaginable." 4. "... Harbor Park, right along the water." Redundancy from an author concerned with economy of expression... oh, this is deliberate! He's making fun of the absurdity of town called Rockland. It's by the sea. Some sense of absurdity is subtle. 5. "... Camden by the sea, Rockland by the smell.” Economic status of Rockland explained. That's in the first 3 sentences... I hate to "spell it out" but hopefully I can encourage people to read other stuff by DFW in so doing. The themes in the Pale King could certainly help some people in technical communities make sense of what it is they are doing. OK, enough proselytizing, and literary-criticism-ism-ing back to reading now... I won't be back.

tptacek 12y ago
I missed several of these, because I listened to the audiobook (which I still recommend, if only for the goofy way they handle footnotes). Thanks! Track down DFW's _Tense Present_. You'll like it.
thathonkey 12y ago
If you started with Pale King and already love him youre in for a real treat. Not that Pale King is bad, just obviously incomplete (which it necessarily was, unfortunately).

manachar 12y ago

"I am also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is confused." The older I get the more I realize this seems to be the appropriate response to the world. In Zen circles this approaches the idea of the Beginner's Mind, and seems to be an incredibly powerful way to approach a contentious topic.

dewarrn1 12y ago
DFW's commencement speech at Kenyon is another terrific example: http://web.archive.org/web/20080213082423/http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html http://web.archive.org/web/20080213082423/http://www.margina...

brianbreslin 12y ago

Also worth reading http://priceonomics.com/the-invention-of-the-chilean-sea-bass/ http://priceonomics.com/the-invention-of-the-chilean-sea-bas...

eevilspock 12y ago

Consider the Lilly: http://youtu.be/9czBBKof7Yo http://youtu.be/9czBBKof7Yo

chrisdevereux 12y ago

While we're posting DFW links: http://stanford.edu/~sdmiller/octo/files/GoodOldNeon.pdf http://stanford.edu/~sdmiller/octo/files/GoodOldNeon.pdf Deals with the concept of feeling like a fraud (which seems to come up here a lot), amongst other things. Occasionally hilarious, often sad, then it gets awesome towards the end, although I won't spoil it.

Jun8 12y ago

My first exposure to DFW was his essay "The Big Red Son" (http://social.rollins.edu/wpsites/sexwarandplague/files/2012/07/DF-Wallace-Big-Red-Son.pdf http://social.rollins.edu/wpsites/sexwarandplague/files/2012...) and, boy, what an experience that was! I think that essay is even better than "Consider the Lobster". And if haven't already done so, read his commencement speech to Kenyon College class of 2005, or better listen to it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI) (Later published as a book titled This is Water). It's a life-enhancing experience.

startupfounder 12y ago

I am a 13th generation Mainer with family in the lobster business, both in fishing and processing, and I have worked on the waters sailing on schooners on the Maine coast as a young lad. Maine is a state that lives off the land, fishing and forestry are huge industries that provide thousands of jobs and sustain the state the other 10 months when tourism is dormant. The lobster industry is the most sustainable fishery in the world, as others are going extinct the lobster fishery is thriving. We come from the land and we care for the animals and the environment. Current technology used in processing lobster is orders of magnitude more humane than described in Consider the Lobster [0] and other food processing facilities pale in comparison (i'm looking at you whaling industry, fishing industry, livestock industry, etc. We now have the technology to kill lobster instantaneously while simultaneously killing all bacteria and creating raw lobster meat that can be shipped globally. Personally I like the intimacy of being close to killing the animals we eat, it's authentic, I think it gives acknowledgment to the animal's life at a level that is not even close to supermarket bought meats. What other animal do people kill in their own kitchen in SF or NYC? I think we need more of the intimacy with our food that lobster provides. The question is would you like to have animal butchering behind closed doors (because we know where that path leads) or do we want an intimacy with our food, our farmers and our fishermen? [0] http://www.wired.com/2010/11/st_crush_lobsters/ http://www.wired.com/2010/11/st_crush_lobsters/

socksy 12y ago
"Personally I like the intimacy of being close to killing the animals we eat, it's authentic" This is such an bizarre statement. Something like "I like the intimacy of being close to [a horrendous thing]". I mean I agree that it's better done outwith closed doors, but really it seems the reason that everyone is OK with it is because lobsters aren't as cute (or at least as conducive to being empathized with) as calves, chicks and lambs. Which doesn't seem like a logical way to choose what we kill.

dpieri 12y ago

Consider The Lobster was my first exposure to DFW. The first time I heard it I thought this guy was crazy and didn't take it seriously. After a while I realized that DFW is one of the best authors that ever lived. His writing is incredibly dense so you have to space it out and be very focused when you read, but its worth it. I'd recommend all the essays in "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", including this one about David Lynch http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html His review of Terminator II is probably the most cerebral essay about an action movie ever written: https://www.scribd.com/doc/14994144/David-Foster-Wallace-F-X-Porn https://www.scribd.com/doc/14994144/David-Foster-Wallace-F-X...