David Foster Wallace's cleverness and distinctive style have earned him critical acclaim and a fan base that is as devoted to him as Star Wars fans are to George Lucas, many of whom will surely have a this-person-just-doesn't-get-it reaction to much of what follows.
Consider the Lobster is a compilation of director's-cut versions of essays that were previously published, albeit heavily edited in some cases, in a range of publications, including Harper's, Gourmet and Rolling Stone from 1994 to 2005. They cover a wide scope: porn, Dostoyevsky, the Maine Lobster Festival. Some, like "The View from Mrs. Thompson's," a personal account of 9/11, are enjoyable, emotion-evoking essays, while others glaze your eyes and have you flipping forward to see just how much more you have to endure.
It'd be difficult to argue that Wallace is anything but an intelligent and gifted writer. Aside from the 800-verbal-SAT-type vocabulary that he nicely juxtaposes with slang and colloquialisms, he can eloquently illustrate people and events while folding in social, academic or political commentary.
In "Up, Simba," he chronicles a weeklong stint covering John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. He conveys conversations, gestures and anecdotes about the TV techs he hangs around—and McCain himself—so vividly, it is easy to feel transported to the press bus, "Bullshit 1," he writes from:
"Right now Bullshit 1's Press Liaison, Travis—23, late of Georgetown U and six-month backpack tour of Southeast Asia during which he says he came to like fried bugs—is again employing his single most important and impressive skill as a McCain 2000 staffer, which is the ability to sleep anywhere, anytime and in any position for 10-to-15-minute intervals, with a composed face and no unpleasant sounds or fluids, and then to come instantly and unfuzzily awake the moment he's needed."
Throughout the essay, the longest in the book, Wallace masterfully catalogues his own vulnerability, questions the sincerity of the candidate and ultimately examines the downfall of contemporary politics that has alienated young voters. It's heavy and light, hilarious and serious, and Wallace inserts his self-deprecating presence throughout.
In fact, Wallace is present in all of the essays, and while it works individually, after a while his constant presence starts to feel egotistical. There's a suspicion that he's typing with one hand and patting himself on the back with the other.
In "Authority of American Usage," a 62-page review of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage that originally appeared in Harper's in 1999, Wallace proclaims himself a "Snoot" or "Usage Nerd," which is obvious in all of his essays. The essay examines the difference between two types of linguistic theories, and of course has a greater political message. Reading it, one would imagine, is a fellow Snoot's idea of a perfect Saturday night, but to anyone looking for an enjoyable read it's ... well, boring.
And, unless the reader's vocabulary is at the same Snoot-level as Wallace's, the reader has to infer the meaning of certain words from the context or spend a considerable amount of time flipping through a dictionary.
Another ever-present and time-consuming gimmick that quickly loses its novelty is the footnotes. Oh my gawd, the footnotes. "Big Red Son," Wallace's 47-page coverage of the 1998 annual Adult Video News Awards here in Las Vegas, contains 56 footnotes, some occupying three-quarters of a page.
While the footnotes add interesting anecdotes, bits of obscure information and humorous elements, by Page 3 their freshness wears off and dread sets in. The actual physical act of leaving the main text to scroll down, find the corresponding footnote number, place the book an inch from your face (even with glasses on) to read tiny type that is only worth the interruption from the main text about a quarter of the time, results in a great temptation to skip them altogether—a temptation Wallace himself very cleverly suggests to the reader they are free to do on several occasions in the book.
Perhaps the most aggravating essay with regard to ("w/r/t" as Wallace would put it) the footnotes is "Host," a profile of AM-radio talk-show host John Ziegler. In this final essay, Wallace sends the reader on a footnote scavenger hunt that involves following arrows to boxes within the text, which often sends you to another box and so on and so forth until, when you finally get back to the main text, you have to reread the paragraph to get back on track. The boxes are titled with descriptors such as "editorial content," "editorial aside," "just clear-dispassionate reason," etc., which is all bogus because the various pieces add up to a commentary on politically biased media. Seeing a pattern here?
In short, the book is a mixed bag. Each essay is everything Wallace's devotees claim them to be—clever, intelligent, funny—but the gimmicks get old, and to sit down and enjoy the book at length requires the reader to be a Snoot with a good sense of humor and a penchant for footnotes. While critics and fans will scream that those who don't like everything Wallace writes aren't intelligent enough to understand it, the truth is, it isn't that difficult to get. Wanting to read 340 pages of it is the hard part.