David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008

Nice going with suggesting reading an article that requires a $16.97/year subscription to a magazine just to see it. I’m not subscribing to Harper’s just to see one linked article.

I’m sorry, but DFW has to be the most over-rated writer ever.
I tried “Infinite Jest” but kept getting the feeling that the jest was on me for wasting my time on it. I just couldn’t get through it.
I always wonder who all these people are who say that DFW is so brilliant. Do they actually wade through his books? And if so, WHY?
DFW’s stuff reminds me of a writing instructor in college I had, who said of (I think) Kerouac’s work:
“That’s not writing; that’s TYPING.”
RIP.

I am a Wallace fan, though I never found time for Infinite Jest (I know, I know). I was saddened to see such a talent leave us. Love the footnotes, Jake. The article you reference is amazing. Everyone of all political stripes here should read it now…

I am one of those who regard his writing as brilliant. And I have ‘waded’ through the majority of his work for the rewards of pleasure and insight. He was a genius amongst us and will be sorely missed by me.
RIP

I guess I shouldn’t have gotten rid of my Infinite Jest action figures.
Poor guy. RIP DFW.

Jim; Well, DFW’s stuff isn’t to everybody’s taste. I liked Infinite Jest, but a lot of people who are smarter and richer than me couldn’t stand it. I think it’s one of those books like Gravity’s Rainbow or Ulysses, which a lot of people try to get into but never finish (I never could). Some art is just idiosyncratic like that.
Not sure where your teacher got off with the “typing’ thing. Easy to be a critic, I guess.

“Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” This was the question posed by the renowned late author David Foster Wallace in “Consider the Lobster,” his August 2004 feature on the Maine Lobster Festival for Gourmet magazine. Wallace, who was hailed by critics as a literary genius, wrote this article “to work out and articulate some of the troubling questions that arise amid all the laughter and saltation and community pride of the Maine Lobster Festival.” Gourmet editors may have gotten more than they bargained for, but Wallace’s words echoed the concerns of thinking people everywhere.
For Wallace, the Maine Lobster Festival inspired an unflinching inquiry into the ethics of boiling an animal alive. His article highlighted two specific coping mechanisms that people adopt when confronted with the reality of animal suffering—avoidance and denial. Wallace admitted that his “own main way of dealing with this conflict has been to avoid thinking about the whole unpleasant thing.” However, upon arrival at the Maine Lobster Festival, he found that “there is no honest way to avoid certain moral questions.”
Wallace’s article explored the excruciating pain that lobsters feel when they are boiled alive, taking both scientific evidence and his own observations into account. He expands his analysis to consider the question of eating meat in general, as well as the deeper question of how humans relate to other animals. Read the full article here.