Luke Anderson’s Reviews > Consider the Lobster and Other Essays > Status Update

Seventh essay - this one took me a while.
DFW is a reporter for Rolling Stone along for the hilarious ride that is John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign trail.

Of the seven I’ve read so far, this is my favorite. Really funny, super engaging and interesting, kind of thought provoking if you’re not already distrustful of politicians and their ulterior motives. Mostly just fun.

AND LIKE NO FOOTNOTES THANK GOD

Sixth essay which is a highly critical review of tennis prodigy Tracy Austin’s sports autobiography. DFW Just rips it and talks about how good it could’ve been, then loosely compares himself to superstar athletes (kind of, not really). It was fine. I agree with his assessment of the state of modern sports autobiographies. Obviously, I’ve never read one myself. DFW has certainly convinced me to stay the course.

Fifth essay. About his experience watching “The Horror” unfold on 9/11 in the home of his old lady church-mate neighbor. I liked it. He wrote much more normally in this one. Of the five essays so far, he was oldest when he wrote this. I thought that was interesting, because he really reads as a much younger man here.

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).

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.

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.

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.