Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (Selected Essays)

By: David Foster Wallace

Narrated by: David Foster Wallace

Length: 3 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

Long renowned as one of the smartest writers on the loose, David Foster Wallace reveals himself in Consider the Lobster to be also one of the funniest. In this program, he ranges far and farther in his search for the original, the curious, or the merely mystifying. He discovers the World's Largest Lobster Cooker at the Maine Lobster Festival and confronts the inevitable question just beyond the butter-or-cocktail-sauce quandary.

Do lobsters feel pain?

He addresses this and other important cultural questions in four brilliant esasays from his latest collection.

In what is sure to be a much-talked-about exploration of distinctly modern subjects, one of the sharpest minds of our time delves into some of life's most delicious topics.

This collection includes the following essays: "Consider the Lobster", "The View from Mrs. Thompson's", "Big Red Son", and "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart".

©2005 David Foster Wallace. All Rights Reserved. (P)2005 Time Warner AudioBooks. All Rights Reserved. A division of Time Warner Book Group.

Critic Reviews

"Wallace poses an unsettling challenge to the way many of us live now....This is strong stuff....It is Wallace's nostalgia for a lost meaningfulness...that gives his essays their particular urgency, their attractive mix of mordancy and humorous ruefulness....Few of his young peers have spoken as eloquently and feelingly as he has about the moral imagination that contemporary American life imposes on them." (The New York Times Book Review)
"Novelist Wallace might just be the smartest essayist writing today." (Publishers Weekly)

Great Author Read

This was a fantastic author read, much better than most. Wallace is a brilliant writer and hearing him read his own work adds to the experience of these essays.

The structure of the audiobook follows that of the print book - 3 separate essays. Each is thoughtful, well-written, and very entertaining.

7 people found this helpful

David Foster Wallace...a good place to start

I had neither read nor listened to any of DFW's work, but I decided to check into it upon hearing of his recent death. Accolades called him our great lost voice and an amazing essayist. Well, he is a fantastic writer. These essays, about a lobster festival in Maine, a long essay about a porn awards ceremony, and another about his experience of 9/11 from the safe remove of Indiana are engaging and outstanding. He writes with a funny slant, great asides and observations. And he's laugh-out-loud funny. Also, check out his week-long tour with the John McCain press corps while a Rolling Stone correspondent in 2000 in another fine listen called "McCain's Promise"

12 people found this helpful

What a Great Writer!

My only disappointment with this audiobook is the fact that several of the articles and essays that are in the actual printed book are missing. Made me mad. Otherwise, bravo!

I bought this audiobook after the deeply saddening suicide of David Foster Wallace. He's one of the greatest minds of our time, and it's such a tragedy that he wasn't able to enjoy his life more. He had a lot to give.

His vocabulary is challenging and his humor is sharp. His narration made the listening experience extra-special.

8 people found this helpful

It's Great, But...

I would point anyone looking at this audiobook toward DFW: In His Own Words. The entirety of Consider the Lobster is included in it, as well as all of his voice work on Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and several of his radio interviews. I bought this one before that was released, but now having both is redundant.

7 people found this helpful

Incomplete collection (only 4 of 10 stories).

What disappointed you about Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (Selected Essays)?

I love the man, his readings, and of course the essays - but the book pictured with the same name has 10 stories, this audiobook has four and I made the mistake of assuming the complete book would be found here.

It is not. This is a lesser collection that happens to share samples with the book pictured. This is annoying, to me. If they didn't use the title and *cover* of a greater collection I would have rated it highly had I purchased at all.

What did you like best about this story?

I'm not a fan of Tennis but through DFW, I was crazy engaged in criticism of a sports biography.

2 people found this helpful

Great set of mind

Tom Wolfe, Hunter S Thompson, and David F Wallace... There are just a few authors (journalist) that deserve to have their words stand long after the living have forgotten their faces and the world in which the words were penned has moved on. These guys and a handful of others deserve that right to live on into future.

There are four stories here and the Adult convention coverage story is worth the price of the book. Based on that painted horror of narrative, one needs to only halfway listen to understand that something is terribly wrong with the counterculture of the adult industry. Wallace shows us the truth of the misguided and mislead men and women that bare it all for the camera and what he reveals is not the golden rump in the haystack, but the basement rape of innocence and humanity... and I like porn (however, not nearly as much after listening to Wallace's account of the AVA in Vegas).

The Sept 11 account paints a wonderful picture of middle America on a beautiful late summer's morning and the horror that rocked the world. It captures a lot of the disbelief that such hatred and horror could find us on our own home turf and the despair of knowing that peace would now never be a possibility in this life time.

Buy the book. You will enjoy it.

2 people found this helpful

A chance to hear his voice

I will admit upfront that I am an unabashed fan of DFW. That being said, I think his books are best read on paper if only to experience the non-linear footnoted style and the odd little abbreviations like "w/r/t" that he liked to sprinkle through his prose. This is one of the few abridged books I have purchased at audible.com, and it was primarily just to hear what he sounded like. His own little spoken preface on solving the footnote problem with his recording editor is worth the price all by itself. I suppose it was too much to ask that he would record the entire unabridged book, so all we get is a sampling. DFW's essays are every bit as enjoyable as his fiction. His abilites to self-reflect, to consider the subject in detail, to explore all the angles, and to record the nuances of a situation, will be sadly missed.

3 people found this helpful

DFW Rocks!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Wise words from a sensitive thinker.

What other book might you compare Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (Selected Essays) to and why?

[It is not

Which character ??? as performed by David Foster Wallace ??? was your favorite?

clear how

What???s the most interesting tidbit you???ve picked up from this book?

to finish

Any additional comments?

this review and submit it.]

Next page? Preview?

Ah, Preview finally just changed from unavailable to available. I can't figure out how that happened, but there must be a minimum comments before that icon becomes available.

3 people found this helpful

Abridged...

While the abridgment is probably necessary given an essay like "Host," I was hoping to <i>hear</i> "Authority and American Usage." The conversational tone of that essay would fit this medium so very well--except for the nasally footnotes: but then, how <b>do</b> you handle audio footers?

3 people found this helpful

not the full book. should be deleted

don't read. not full book. find the real one. the one that is 15 hours

Excellent essays, but poor value

I bought this thinking it would be at least roughly comparable in length to either of DFW's published short story collections. In fact, this selection comprises only a handful of his pieces, the longest of which (on pornography and the AVN awards) I would argue has aged extremely poorly. I suspect that these are simply all the recordings that exist of DFW reading his own reportage. As much as I enjoy his style of speaking, I can't help but feel that supplementing these with new performances of some of his other work would have made for a more satisfying collection.

Perfection!

If you like your essays well-researched, eloquently written and unflinching in factual content, this is for you. DFW's deadpan delivery on various topics ranging from the inhumanity of boiling lobsters to the porn industry's annual oscar-fest in Vegas is very engaging. Loved this!

Wallace

Effortless and charming. An entertaining, incredibly intelligent stream of consciousness that never jars with the reader (listener) as pretentious in nature. Hilarious and insightful in equal measure. The only issue I have is that Wallace's vocal performance was so good I want him to personally read me all of his works now

Great writing, nice is you have little time

Would you listen to Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (Selected Essays) again? Why?

Perhaps. I do not often listen twice to books, but with short essays the threshold is much lower.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Consider the Lobster and Other Essays (Selected Essays)?

it is the good writing and the sense of humour that make the book enjoyable.

Have you listened to any of David Foster Wallace’s other performances? How does this one compare?

no

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

cannot be made into a film

DFW is a legend.

fantastic essays. read the book last year. listening to them is great. interesting how they handle the footnotes. spoilers... he really doesn't like sports memoirs. haha