Pretend it's 2004. You've got a good set of knives, a decent set of pots, a subscription to Scientific American, a subscription to Newsweek and a subscription to Gourmet... because you like their recipes, and you like that they put their food first and foremost. It's an aspirational read, to be sure - you'll never own the Rolex they're selling inside the cover. You'll never enjoy whatever it is they're telling you is enjoyable on the coast of Mali. That cute new bed'n'breakfast that opened up in Fiji for $900 a night? You'll never stay there. It's fun to read about, but those pictures are as close as you'll ever get. Oh, but the food. Gourmet doesn't fuck around with food. They'll tell you how you have to eat mangosteens, and will even tell you how to smuggle them in your luggage. They'll tell you about all the great street food to be had in Havana, and will even tell you how to evade the US travel embargo. When it's Thanksgiving, they'll cook 140 turkeys 140 different ways in order to give you their best practices. Their recipes are so tried and true that people bind the issues and keep them for decades. I had a girlfriend with 1971-1979 bound in red leather; the Rolls Royce ads and all the coked up models with their Baccarat really made it. So you open your August 2004 Gourmet, expecting barbecue snobbery, potato salad snobbery, how the true glitterati are taking in the sun in Bairritz, not East Hampton and oh by the way, Movados are for poseurs. And you turn the page, and there's David "Infinite Jest" Foster Wallace deciding you need to feel bad about eating lobster. 1) If you read Gourmet, your mind is made up about lobster. 2) If you've ever cooked a lobster, your mind is made up about lobster. 3) If you've ever eaten lobster, your mind is made up about lobster. 4) If your mind isn't made up about lobster, there are better avenues to discovery than Gourmet. 5) If your mind isn't made up about lobster, trudging through eight thousand words of David Foster Wallace isn't going to help. It was controversial not because of anything it said. It was controversial the way Hunter S. Thompson stories are always controversial - "We asked you to write photo captions for an article on desert racing and you gave us Fear and Loathing." It was controversial because DFW clearly didn't give the first fuck about his audience, how to reach them, who they were or what he was being paid to write. It was controversial because DFW took Gourmet's money and then said "fuck everyone who reads Gourmet, lobsters are people, too." Your average Gourmet reader overthought her food. She knew which store had better pie apples. She had a fishmonger she trusted. If she was a vegetarian, it's because she'd thought about it and come to her own conclusions. If she wasn't a vegetarian, it's because she'd thought about it and come to her own conclusions. The DFW piece essentially says "you haven't ever thought about this, so I'm going to do it for you, you poor simp. Here's 20 footnotes." Bitch, VEAL CRATES were legal in all 50 states in 2004. We were dropping phosphorus on Iraq. You wanna talk about impotent suffering, going gonzo over sea cockroaches is a stupid place to start. Important note: like most people, I've never kept lobsters as pets. Unlike most people, I did have a 20-gallon tank with four eight-inch crawdads in it for several years. They were brought back from a science trip by my dad, who expected to eat them, but my sister and I decided the aquarium wasn't doing anything so we kept them there, next to the dining room table, from 2nd to 6th grade when we returned them to nature. Four hour drive. Turned it into a week-long camping trip. Empathy for crustaceans? I haz it. Crawdads are not lobsters. They're about as close as you can get, though. There are houseplants that are more interesting than crawdads. Spiders are more interactive. If "sapient" (the word DFW misuses - it actually means "human-like") is a binary condition, then bacteria are "sapient." If "sapient" is a gradient, then lobsters are hella closer to bacteria than they are to chickens. It's also 2004 - these have been on the air for 9 months. Chicken Run was 4 years previous. Finding Nemo was the year before. Babe Pig in the City five years before that. It's 2004 and cows, pigs, chickens, and fish all have cute little mascots that your son or daughter are likely to bring up around supper time and here comes David Foster Wallace, here to convince you that you should feel bad about eating something that would absolutely eat you if it could figure out how. It's controversial because people don't read Gourmet to be lectured about their choices. No lie. I cancelled my subscription over this article. My choice to eat lobster is not going to be dictated by some simp English teacher from Pomona College.In any event, at the Festival, standing by the bubbling tanks outside the World’s Largest Lobster Cooker, watching the fresh-caught lobsters pile over one another, wave their hobbled claws impotently, huddle in the rear corners, or scrabble frantically back from the glass as you approach, it is difficult not to sense that they’re unhappy, or frightened, even if it’s some rudimentary version of these feelings …and, again, why does rudimentariness even enter into it? Why is a primitive, inarticulate form of suffering less urgent or uncomfortable for the person who’s helping to inflict it by paying for the food it results in? I’m not trying to give you a PETA-like screed here—at least I don’t think so.
He's not really lecturing though, is he? To me the tone seemed more as if he realized he had never really thought about the topic previously and that the whole situation seemed surreal to him. In trying to understand that feeling he did further investigation and had to think much more deeply than he ever anticipated. He then tried to convey this to the reader. I love this piece. Then again, I didn't read this in Gourmet magazine.It's controversial because people don't read Gourmet to be lectured about their choices.
He's absolutely lecturing. The title of the piece is a command: "CONSIDER the lobster." There is no room for the notion that everyone reading had already considered the lobster and had come to their own conclusions. More than that, it's a piece on a lobster festival - an archetypal slice of americana in which only four of the article's 32 paragraphs are even glancingly about the festival itself.
If someone turned in an 8,000 word video game review in which barely a thousand words were about the video game but seven thousand were about the ethics of free-to-play, no one would consider it a good article - ...unless it was written by David Foster Wallace. Finally, there's this: This is a magazine article by a freelance contributor that finishes with SIX questions. How, exactly, is Mr. Wallace supposed to get his answers? How can they therefore be anything other than rhetorical? And how is finishing an 8,000 word screed with rhetorical questions anything but condescending and trite? People tell me I oughtta read David Foster Wallace about twice a year. They have since he was alive. And every now and then I get forgetful and think "You know, I really oughtta read The Infinite Jest. People dig that." And then whoever I'm talking to says "You totally should! DFW is, like, SOOOOOO amazing!" And then I remember that David Foster Wallace wrote that shite lobster piece in Gourmet.Given this article’s venue and my own lack of culinary sophistication, I’m curious about whether the reader can identify with any of these reactions and acknowledgments and discomforts. I am also concerned not to come off as shrill or preachy when what I really am is confused. Given the (possible) moral status and (very possible) physical suffering of the animals involved, what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh-based viands (since of course refined enjoyment, rather than just ingestion, is the whole point of gastronomy)? And for those gourmets who’ll have no truck with convictions or rationales and who regard stuff like the previous paragraph as just so much pointless navel-gazing, what makes it feel okay, inside, to dismiss the whole issue out of hand? That is, is their refusal to think about any of this the product of actual thought, or is it just that they don’t want to think about it? Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it? After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory?
Huh, the reference didn't occur to me. I'll admit to missing the mark, though I suppose I place different connotations on "a lecture" and "lecturing". I really should have reread the whole article before posting my comment, I was working off my memory of it.
FWIW, I don't hate the writing. I like DFW's prose, but I happen to disagree strongly with him about the sentience of a lobster. It's a piece that has stuck around in the popular consciousness for a long time, however, so clearly many people think it's worth a read.
Yep. I've seen this article in the past and I've never read it until just now. In fact, it was kleinbl00's comment that finally made me read it. Not for his praise of it, but because I had to see for myself if his criticism of it was just. He is most certainly lecturing and not just that, he's doing it while snidely mocking the everyday men and women that flock to such "fairs." -As someone that lived in a town with one of the largest "art" fairs in the U.S., I can sympathize with his characterization of this group, but still...it's a lecture. You had a great comment in the past regarding the "pain" aspect.
Rereading your quote, I will concede that I may have misremembered his tone, but I don't believe he is overly scolding or reprimanding. He is an outsider and I still think he seems genuinely ignorant of the attitude within the culinary community, and at least initially, of his own. You seem to think it's put-on, I don't know, perhaps it is. Also:
Is this not what the Slow Food, farm-to-table, movement is all about? People like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters encourage putting more thought into where your food comes from, so where do you draw the line? Why not consider how your food is prepared as well? or at what cost? Given the context of where this was published, the intended audience, and perhaps what the assignment was, I could see why you would think this is a "shite lobster piece." Shouldn't you take umbrage with the editor instead though? If DFW was assigned a 1,000 word fluff piece on a lobster festival and turned in this, why would the magazine even publish it unless they wanted it in their magazine or found it compelling? Maybe they needed to fill pages? I'm honestly surprised that it happened and I'll admit that I find it a bit amusing. This was the first thing I ever read by David Foster Wallace and I read it in the collection of essays that goes by the same name. His experience following McCain on the presidential campaign trail might be my favorite, but similar to this one, he goes a bit off the rails. In fact, thinking about all of the essays I've read by him, this is just what he does. I enjoy that. And regarding your comment about a video game review, I would rather read your proposed non-review than a blurb about "compelling game play" and "impressive graphics." That industry could use more thought and insight. It's nice to see you around. I obviously don't always agree with you but I enjoy reading your comments.Do they ever think about their reluctance to think about it? After all, isn’t being extra aware and attentive and thoughtful about one’s food and its overall context part of what distinguishes a real gourmet? Or is all the gourmet’s extra attention and sensibility just supposed to be aesthetic, gustatory?
Once again, it comes to the context. If David Foster Wallace chose to venture down to the State Fair on his own dime to write his own essay about his own thing, his own conclusions in his own essay are entirely appropriate. HOWEVER, when you've been commissioned as a journalist to cover an event, your job is to cease to be an outsider. The goal of writing an article is to not only eliminate your own ignorance but work to dispel the ignorance of your readers. Here's David Karp on mangosteens, exactly thirteen months previously. Read that, you learn some stuff about mangosteens. Read David Foster Wallace, and you learn some stuff about David Foster Wallace. I don't give a shit about David Foster Wallace. If I'm to "consider the lobster" you'd best tell me about the lobster, not about what an asshole I am for eating one. I've heard that "going off the rails" was his thing. It isn't mine. Slow Food, farm-to-table is about food and our relationship with it, and about the inherent advantages of preparing food with care. This article is about not preparing food. As far as anger with the editors, remember - I canceled my subscription over this piece.He is an outsider and I still think he seems genuinely ignorant of the attitude within the culinary community, and at least initially, of his own. You seem to think it's put-on, I don't know, perhaps it is.
Context is everything, for sure. As far as meeting expectations, he failed. Had I given the assignment, I would likely not be pleased. I did learn about the lobster festival, although perhaps in a disagreeable tone, but little about lobsters what lobsters taste like. I did not get to vicariously attend the festival through his writing. Or perhaps I did, but through his subjective, questioning eyes. Which, I understand, is probably not what his readers were hoping for. I learned much more about lobsters than I could have predicted, and it was interesting! The history of lobsters as food, different "preparation" methods, their biology, their nervous system. This article was so much more than I could have expected going into it. Then again, I suppose that's the problem. The scope shifted. I enjoyed where it took me, what it taught me, and the thoughts it provoked from me; the readers of Gourmet Magazine, you being one of them, clearly did not. He essentially wrote an editorial blog post. It may have been appropriate if he was speaking as a member of the community and hoped to encourage self-reflection and discussion on the matter. It may be a topic for humanity-at-large to discuss, but one that chefs and culinary enthusiasts probably have an opinion on and using the pages of their magazine isn't the best place to wax philosophical or try to start such a discussion. I'm just happy to have read it.
The piece gets under my skin for several reasons. The first of which is I've had my writing compared to David Foster Wallace's several times by people who mean well and honestly wish to flatter. It's like when people attempt to sing my praises by quoting American Psycho. I should just be flattered. I'm not. The next of which is that the piece really was the turning point for Gourmet. They were a foodie's magazine about food and they decided they wanted to be an everything's magazine about everything. In an attempt to capture market share in a cooking-averse world dominated by The Food Network and useless blogs, they opted to go to long-form bullshit that wasn't about food. This article was in an issue that experienced the third style revamp in as many years, each of which came with the death of columns that were the high points of the magazine. They were bankrupt four years later. The last of which is it's a disorganized, self-indulgent mess. You extolled Michael Pollan earlier. You read Pollan and you know where you've been, you know where you're going, and you're on a journey with someone who is certain enough in their adventures to take you by the hand. That's how Ruth Reichl ran Gourmet... for the most part. They were a steadfast authority on food that would ensure that everything you read would enrich your experience with food. This article? Not even David Foster Wallace can tell if you should bother. Is it about lobster? Is it about eating lobster? Is it about the deep humanity of eating another creature? Is it about the deep inhumanity of eating another creature? Who knows? It's written by a genius, so it doesn't matter. Is this sort of waffling necessary? No. Nobody ever compares me to David Petersen.
At least Cook's Illustrated is still serious about food. I don't know if you know about it, or if you have a different replacement for Gourmet magazine, but Cook's is pretty legit.