Luke Anderson’s Reviews > Consider the Lobster and Other Essays > Status Update
Luke Anderson
is on page 128 of 343
Finished fourth essay which is about grammar nazism and dictionaries and made me sick. The usage of words I’ve never heard is cool unless it’s DFW throwing them around knowing that not a single reader is gonna have any idea what he’s talking about. This one was an absolute slog with the footnotes and interpolations, and was pretty much DFW showing off the whole time (which was kind of cool - he’s unreal).
— Sep 25, 2026 01:50PM
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Luke Anderson
is on page 66 of 343
Read the third essay which is about Kafka being funny and how difficult it is to get his college lit students to understand that. I didn’t like this one much. Maybe I felt offended as someone who finds Kafka absolutely hilarious (I’ve read only The Trial and The Metamorphosis). I really didn’t like his wordy description of Kafka’s humor, which I previously imagined everyone understood without explanation.
— Sep 22, 2026 03:55PM
Luke Anderson
is on page 60 of 343
Read the second essay, a highly critical and mean one about the author John Updike. My friends read it first and said they’d have liked it more if they knew who John Updike was first, so I did a little reading in hopes that this context would help me enjoy it more. I enjoyed it. He certainly convince me that the guy is a scumbag and that the book he’s criticizing sucked. The quotes about sexual stuff were insane.
— Sep 22, 2026 02:27PM
Luke Anderson
is on page 51 of 343
First essay about the porn industry and the AVNAs. Pretty hilarious but I can’t stand the footnotes. I understand after some research that this is the style of DFW. I liked the second half of the essay a lot, when he described the main event linearly. I laughed out loud many times, and he’s a really impressive writer.
— Sep 22, 2026 02:24PM