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Consider the Lobster
Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays | David Foster Wallace
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures. Whether covering the three-ring circus of a vicious presidential race, plunging into the wars between dictionary writers, or confronting the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the annual Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his and a voice as powerful and distinct as any in American letters.
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review
Therewillbebooks
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Pickpick

Months ago Peter lost a bet to Matt and consequently Peter had to read a selection of essays from David Foster Wallace. On this episode, we discuss two of those essays, “Consider the Lobster,“ and “Host.“ We discuss the essays themselves but also Wallace's famous style. Side note, let us know your feelings on David Foster Wallace.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1rPbRASQtlxOQYcD4BvGtA

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AshleyHoss820
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Pickpick

You could say that DFW is an acquired taste. I happen to be among those that love him. He‘s a lot like having a friend who is far smarter than you, but doesn‘t *know* they‘re far smarter than you and so does not talk down to you, but as an equal. Which is both confusing and wholesome. DFW has an acerbic wit. He‘s funny, intelligent, thought-provoking, and self-deprecating. I‘m glad I chose this for July‘s #BookSpin & the #RoryGilmoreChallenge

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!!! 2y
33 likes1 comment
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AshleyHoss820
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This is from “Host,” the last essay in this collection. I very nearly bailed b/c Ziegler‘s attitude about saying the N-word “bEcAuSe ThEy SaY iT tOo,” & as some F-you to political correctness is so mind-numbingly stupid/arrogant. As someone who will be teaching English, I think DFW makes such a compelling argument about the difference between PC & being mindful about our speech & how it affects others. Words have power, else we wouldn‘t use them.

AshleyHoss820 I didn‘t really intend to have a soap-box moment, but I do have two sons on the Autism spectrum and when I hear the R-word casually thrown about, I wince. Stupid PC-stuff is like saying “economically challenged” instead of “poor.” It doesn‘t really matter what you call me, it doesn‘t change my financial situation. BUT, saying words that people won‘t even say/spell out b/c they are so painful, is downright despicable. End rant, I guess… 2y
TrishB Rant away. You have a valid point! 2y
AshleyHoss820 @TrishB ☺️ Thank you! I‘m usually a non-confrontational person, but there are a few things that get me heated: the use of derogatory language and banned books/censorship are just a couple…😄 2y
Bookwomble @AshleyHoss820 I really think that the only people who say things like "economically challenged" are anti-woke polemicists with an axe to grind in the so-called culture wars. PC language is just about being empathetic and respectful. I also support your rant ✊? 2y
AshleyHoss820 @Bookwomble Yes! I think you‘re right. ☺️ This essay was from 2005, which makes sense why he used that particular example (which I latched onto, apparently😂). I remember multiple debates in the early 00‘s about this and people freaking out on both sides for multiple reasons. I think my main goal is to be mindful of my speech, but to also actively work to make a difference in people‘s lives/situations. I‘ll be teaching by January, so 🤞🏻🤞🏻☺️ (edited) 2y
29 likes5 comments
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britt_brooke
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Pickpick

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ An eclectic collection of essays and articles from the late 90s and early 00s. It will surprise no one that DFW‘s nonfiction writing is immaculate and thoughtful. I read Infinite Jest a few years ago with an amazing group here on Litsy, but have just now decided to explore his backlist. So far, so good! I wish that he was still with us creating, innovating, and challenging us as readers.

Cinfhen Wow🤩 You‘re on a roll🎊 3y
britt_brooke @Cinfhen I‘m really just behind on reviews. 😂😅 I still have 3 more to catch up on. 3y
83 likes2 comments
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britt_brooke
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Finished up this fun, vintage motel signs puzzle over coffee this morning. 🤩🧩 Really enjoying this DFW nonfiction collection, btw. I‘m switching between print and audio.

Soubhiville I like it! 3y
Texreader Fun!! 3y
Traci1 Love it!! 3y
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Mollyanna That is a great puzzle. Is it a Galison? 3y
britt_brooke @Mollyanna Sure is! They‘re my favorite. 💚🧩 3y
Mollyanna I love them too. I‘ll have to go and see if I can find it. Thanks. 3y
britt_brooke @Mollyanna I got it recently so hopefully it‘s still available! 🤞🏼 3y
rather_be_reading LOVE 😍 3y
85 likes9 comments
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britt_brooke
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Grabbing a few pages while my 7 year old sweet baby gets a tooth capped. Poor guy! I can‘t be in the room with him, but at least I‘m right outside the door.

Loving my new 🐼 book sleeve from #StoryTimeSleeve! @Megabooks can also vouch for the quality. This is the only sleeve maker I order from! And she‘s now making ones with zippers.

Megabooks So glad you‘re still liking her sleeves! I hope H is okay! 💜 3y
britt_brooke @Megabooks He‘s all good - thanks! Said it didn‘t hurt at all. Such a big kid. 3y
Amandajoy I love that fabric! (edited) 3y
britt_brooke @Amandajoy It‘s so trippy and fun! 3y
90 likes4 comments
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RealLifeReading
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An octopus cupcake 🐙 🧁 made while listening to DFW talk about how lobsters are cooked. #audiocrochet

DGRachel That‘s so cute! 5y
MusicallyMorgan I love this more than I have ever loved anything!! 5y
EH2018 Nice! I wish i could make this! 5y
See All 7 Comments
CrowCAH He‘s adorable! 🐙 5y
mhillis This is the cutest thing ever!! 5y
AnneCecilie So cute 😍😍😍 5y
sudi Soo cute 💙💙💙 5y
101 likes7 comments
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RealLifeReading
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Latest #audiocrochet project - a short-sleeved cardigan using Jeans yarn from Lion Brand yarn. Cute and relatively easy to make! Also, I‘ve been wanting to read Consider the Lobster for a while and the push was listening to Ruth Reichl‘s Save Me the Plums where she talks about that very essay that was published in Gourmet magazine.

IamIamIam 😍😍😍 Gorgeous!!!!! 5y
llwheeler Looks great! 5y
mydearwatson Very nice! 5y
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Leftcoastzen Beautiful! 5y
Butterfinger It is gorgeous. 5y
krayoncolorz Impressive! 5y
julesG Suits and fits the model. Well done! 👏👏 5y
Johanna414 Nice! I haven‘t mastered the knack of making garments that actually fit anyone... 5y
sebrittainclark Impressive! 5y
Jeg Very nice.👍👍 5y
AnneCecilie Love it 😍 5y
8little_paws Looks great, fits well and is practical! I often end making stuff then realize.... I'm never going to wear it! Lol 5y
sudi Looks pretty 😍 5y
Bookzombie It‘s beautiful! 5y
RealLifeReading @julesG that‘s me in the photo 😂 thanks! 5y
RealLifeReading @Johanna414 I made it for myself so I could easy adjust it 😂 I had to redo it though as it was smaller than I expected at first 5y
RealLifeReading @8little_paws I made a couple of tops that I haven‘t worn yet! 5y
108 likes1 stack add19 comments
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Readerann
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Can now cross ‘The Strand‘ off my Bookstore Bucket List. What a great place! (Visiting my daughter, who is working in NYC for the summer.) The tagged book is my purchase here - I‘m a big fan of DFW‘s writing.

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AnimalRiotPress
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Pickpick

Always a treat to flip through some DFW essays.

#amreading #amwriting #davidfosterwallace

Nute Agreed! 6y
23 likes2 stack adds1 comment
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rather_be_reading
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Some David Foster Wallace

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LivingReflections
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#24in48 hour 16 challenge: what is on my nightstand. Usually it's higher, but I moved some to my 24in48 TBR pile in the living room. And notebooks, always aome of my approximately 500,000 notebooks...

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Elizabeth8
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I might have gotten a little carried away with the filters on this post, but I love this essay so much I couldn't stop myself.

Erin7 I like this quote. It feels relatable to other things also to include art. Essentially isn‘t that was real focus is?...this ability to let go of all the chatter in our mind and concentrate on the task at hand. It is part of what brings about the love of the game for the player or the love of the act of painting for the artist. In my view it‘s like a sort of meditation to tune all the noise out you know. (edited) 7y
Elizabeth8 Very true! I think the same can be said of running. There's the initial discomfort and mental complaining, but if I can get myself past that, it's like a switch gets flipped. I don't enjoy running, but I appreciate the quiet, meditative moments it offers. 7y
Hugheslifts As an athlete, I can testify to this. I am a wrestler and jiujitsu player. When I step onto the mat, I‘m intensely and uncomfortably cognizant of the crowd, of my gi, of my singlet, of my fear that I‘ll fail to live up to my expectations. Then the whistle blows or the hand held aloft by the referee falls and so the the world. It‘s fades into nothingness and my mind turns everything off but the muscle memory developed for this singular event. 6y
1 like3 comments
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kidamy
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Bailedbailed

2/2: when I started reading recreationally again (I'm not dyed in the well, like many of you), I promised I would push myself intellectually, and some of these essays are so good, they're transcendent. It was so good to experience that feeling again. But 15 pages into the McCain essay and I'm just lost and disappointed. I need to set this aside. Sorry for being melodramatic about it.

kidamy *that's supposed to read "dyed in the wool" I think. My fingers don't get along with my phone keypad sometimes. 7y
6 likes1 comment
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kidamy
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Bailedbailed

1/2: Is it possible to do a temporary bail? I was enjoying this, but the next 80 pages or so are about following John McCain on the 2000 campaign trail. Given the current political climate, I'm really just not in the mood for that stuff. McCain wouldn't have been my first choice then (if I had one. I'm an a Canadian, after all), but he would be a vast improvement over what's in office now, even if I don't agree with his record all the time.

7 likes1 stack add
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Christinak
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A well loved copy of #essays
#noteworthynovember

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britt_brooke
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Some essay collections we have on hand. The top and bottom are still #TBR. #essays #noteworthynovember

Joybishoptx Nice stack! 7y
LeahBergen Nice! 👍🏻 7y
113 likes2 stack adds3 comments
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teresareads
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There is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

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Quirkybooknerd
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Took the plunge and dipped my toe into some David Foster Wallace for the first time. Now I never want to leave this DFW pool!

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Redwritinghood
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This is a Kindle Daily Deal for $2.99 today. I haven't read any DFW, so this is a good chance to read some of his non-fiction. Has anyone read this one?
And, yes, those 13 items in my shopping cart are all books. I'm struggling not to hit the buy button.

britt_brooke I haven't read it yet, but soon! I have a physical copy but I'm thinking of snagging this deal, too. 7y
37 likes1 comment
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kidamy
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Alright, I'm not ashamed to admit it: I've had to look up three "new-to-me" words since I started reading this book. Today's word was "lallating":

Medical Definition of lallation. 1: infantile speech whether in infants or in older speakers (as from mental retardation) 2: a defective articulation of the letter l, the substitution of \l\ for another sound, or the substitution of another sound for \l\—compare lambdacism 2.

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kidamy
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I couldn't resist this Mary Ness bookmark while in the market this morning. #ldnont

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kidamy
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Foregoing my own writing this morning to dig into this. I've been meaning to read some David Foster Wallace for some time. I picked this up after reading @bookriot 's Start Here essay on him. I'm elbows deep in two other books at the moment, but I started reading the first essay last night. Five pages in and he was already going through the ins and outs of the porno industry. So, I'm hooked.

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CAGirlReading
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Pickpick

One of my first and my all time favorite essay collections!Not only did it completely change my opinion overall on essay collections but it was also my first exposure to David Foster Wallace! #READATHONESSAYS @Liberty

britt_brooke I bought this but haven't read it yet. Waiting until I complete Infinite Jest at the eve of next month. 😉 8y
90 likes9 stack adds1 comment
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britt_brooke
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Holy bookish things day!! 😍😍😍

Took advantage of the recent @outofprint buy one get one t-shirt deal, ordered the DFW from #amazon, then picked up the KV (already read, just needed a hard copy) and Parnassus on Wheels today at #parnassusbooks. #bookmail #bookhaul

SaturnDoo Nice haul 😆🖒🖒🖒 8y
Bks4Wrms My sister-in-law gave me the same gray library card shirt for Christmas last year. 👍🏻 8y
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britt_brooke @Bks4Wrms Ooh, good SIL! I love it. 💚 8y
LeahBergen Awesome!!! 8y
saresmoore Yay! What fun goodies! 8y
tjwill I love Kurt Vonnegut! 8y
britt_brooke @tjwill Me, too! 🙌🏻🙌🏻 8y
152 likes1 stack add9 comments
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doomfelter
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"Hell could easily be a chain hotel."

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doomfelter
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It's fascinating how Wallace makes the mundane seem so important, especially in an essay about the events of 9/11 in a small town in Iowa.

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paradise_found92
Pickpick

Amazing. I love his meditative, stream-of-conciousness-with-a-clear-point writing style. My favorite essay was the John McCain Election 2000 one.

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GoneFishing

Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How do I ever actually know whether I‘m bullshitting myself, morally speaking?

Gezemice Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Hegemon ponders something similar - if a person does good things, even from the wrong motivations, we must count them as a good person - because actions are what count. 8y
GoneFishing Thanks for the note. Just added shadow to my tbr list. 8y
5 likes2 comments
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HeatherBookNerd
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Mehso-so

DFW is clearly brilliant and there are some fantastic insights here. But his rambling style is EXHAUSTING and the constant tangents and footnotes were way too much for me to really enjoy this. I think I will take Infinite Jest off my bucket list. But here's a great quote about the 2000 election.

syasutake I gave Infinite Jest what I considered a good effort, but it wasn't for me. 8y
23 likes1 comment
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HeatherBookNerd
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I don't think I am going to survive this book. The footnotes. OMG the endless footnotes. I'm so exhausted looking at it. Most of his references are flying right over my head. I start an essay and keep going until I can no longer understand what is going on, and then I move to the next one. Help me.

HeatherBookNerd How does anyone actually finish Infinite Jest? 8y
Notafraidofwords You don't want to hear my opinion, because I would just bail :/ if it's not for school or for work & I cannot understand it after 100 pgs then BYE. 8y
mllemay Wow, pretty sure I would have no patience for that. Strength and courage to you! 8y
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LiteraryinPA My boyfriend really likes DFW and I wanted to get a taste of his writing, so I read the collection you're reading. I didn't read the footnotes, and taking that pressure off made it more doable. I also skipped the essays I wasn't interested in. I agree that reading straight through is daunting! 8y
Leelee08 @HeatherBookNerd I'm embarrassed to say it, but I'm amongst fellow book nerds, so I will....I didn't finish Infinite Jest. I only made it about 30 pages in, and I was like NOPE. It was too confusing for me. 8y
HeatherBookNerd It's for book club, so I feel committed to finish. I feel like surely I can finish and comprehend at least one chapter 😳 8y
13 likes6 comments
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mauveandrosysky
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I like to think of this quote as I spend the first week of July in Maine every summer being one of these loathsome tourists. 😂 Oh, DFW, you and your insistence on making us confront the most uncomfortable truths about ourselves. ❤️

mauveandrosysky (At least I don't eat lobster...?) 8y
BookishFeminist 💙 I love DFW. He is so poignant. Always delivers the ultimate truth bombs. 8y
mauveandrosysky @BookishFeminist totally! He had such incredible insight into humanity. 8y
manifestsanity "Tourism is the march of stupidity." - Don DeLillo 8y
mauveandrosysky @manifestsanity hahaha...so apparently all my favorite authors think I'm the WORST 😂 8y
22 likes2 stack adds5 comments
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Britafish
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Last weekend I saw The Lobster (the movie.) This weekend I'm listening to DFW's essays.

Dooplum What did you think of The Lobster (the movie)? Wondering if it's worth it to see in the theater. 8y
Britafish @Dooplum I liked it very much-super weird in the way I like. But it did drag in the middle. 8y
16 likes3 stack adds2 comments
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HeatherBookNerd
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Vacation reading for the plane

Ericmanciniwriter One of those books I've leant out, lost track of and re-bought multiple times 8y
HeatherBookNerd I am not sure I am prepared to appreciate this book. It's all essays, several addressing other authors' books that I haven't read. So I don't even know what he is referring to most of the time. Not sure I'm going to get much out of it. 8y
ValerieAndBooks I bailed on this one a while back. His writing style just exhausted me. So many footnotes!! 8y
13 likes3 stack adds3 comments
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CAGirlReading
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Pickpick

My first and still favorite collection of DFW essays...the subject matter is extremely varied but his writing will keep you hooked to all of them📚📚📚📚📚

9 likes3 stack adds
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KerryRubenstein
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Pickpick

Have always been a DFW-hater.

This one is changing my mind.

akfreeborn Is this a good book to start with DFW? 8y
smccallum The essays in general are a good place to start 8y
6 likes2 stack adds2 comments