In our discussions of celebrity artists—be they authors, film directors, composers, fashion designers, or any of the other myriad creative pursuits—the word “genius” is oftentimes used indiscriminantly. The simple pair of words—“genius artist”—yields a horrifying 21 million results in a variety of search engines. The dictionary¹ provides us with the following: “a person who is exceptionally intelligent or creative.” Certainly there’s a value judgment placed on that rather ambiguous “exceptionally,” yet even the most jaded of us must make concessions when confronted with choice bodies of work². Occasionally, we are met with those legacies of such unrestrained passion and vibrance that no critic could dispute it.

David Foster Wallace³ is a genius. We choose the word “is” because even though Wallace committed suicide in September of 2008 his oeuvre, like that of all geniuses, is still here for us to experience. One truly remarkable aspect of genius⁴ is its ability to continue on with all its initial strength⁵ and affect our thinking, our intellectual and emotional capacity, our decisions, our breathing and our pulse, our tear ducts, the little hairs on our arms and necks, our sweat glands, and in every other way imaginable sow the embryonic ideas and nascent opinions that will one day lead to our own genius⁶.

In Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace shows us the genius of his nonfiction. Beginning with an essay on the Adult Video News Awards⁷ and ending with a labyrinthine portrait of a conservative radio host⁸, this collection illustrates unfalteringly the astute awareness of what Los Angeles Times editor David Ulin called “one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last 20 years”⁹. Here we see that Wallace is (was) not merely a novelist, merely a literary critic, or even merely an essayist. His finger is (was) so firmly on the pulse of the modern world that he can only be described as our foremost cultural critic. Wallace goes beyond literary insight and journalistic impartiality¹⁰. He goes beyond an extraordinary prose style¹¹. In Consider the Lobster, the polyethylene film adherent to all things American is peeled back and the startling truth is laid bare underneath. What does it say about our culture where on any given year “between one and two dozen adult US males are admitted to ERs after having castrated themselves” or “no generation of Young Voters has ever cared less about politics and politicians”? In the wake of September 11th, 2001, where did all the tiny US flags come from? Do lobsters, “com[ing] alarmingly to life when placed in boiling water,” feel pain? As we read on it becomes clear that Wallace is a certain brand of genius. He isn’t merely creative or merely brilliant or merely one of our most perceptive thinkers—instead his genius is especially pertinent when we consider our culture. David Foster Wallace, like few before him, is a cultural genius.

So—in the wake of one of the previous decade’s most upsetting literary tragedies^{again, see FN 9}, where does that leave us? Wallace is “a versatile writer of seemingly bottomless energy”¹² and he has indeed left behind a monolithic body of work, but what next? His style¹³ is exhaustive and leaves its mark in the pantheon of idiosyncratic styles in that there’s so much to love, so much to hate, and so much to envy. In Consider the Lobster, as well as the rest of his work, he shows us the real pleasure—the ecstasy—in reading. For those among us¹⁴ seeking inspiration, Wallace is essential, whatever your tastes. We all fell in love with reading once—why not do it all over again?

***
1: Apple, Inc. v. 2.1.3*
2: ie: James Joyce, Igor Stravinsky, Salvador Dali, Maria Callas, David Lynch**, Herman Melville, William Shakespeare, John Lennon†, Anne Carson, J. W. von Goethe
3: B. 1962, Ithica, NY, D. 2008, Claremont, CA
4: This reviewer’s opinion
5: If not more
6: Which is of course purely theoretical§
7: Absolutely terrifying
8: Even more terrifying
9: See the September 14, 2008 article on Wallace’s suicide in the Los Angeles Times
10: Even in political essays, such as the 2000 essay on the McCain campaign or the aforementioned “Host” re: conservative talk radio, Wallace remains objective and offers an approach that wouldn’t necessarily be called bipartisan so much as purely observant.
11: ie: “How can great athletes shut off the Iago-like voice of the self?”; “None of the ladies seem to notice the president’s odd little lightless eyes appear to get closer and closer together throughout his taped address”; “Dostoevsky is a literary titan, and in some ways this can be the kiss of death, because it comes easy to regard him as yet another sepia-tinted Canonical Author, belovedly dead”; “Unlike Gore’s dead bird’s eyes or the Shrub’s^ƒsmug glare McCain’s own eyes are wide and candid and full of a very attractive inspiring light that’s either devotion to causes beyond him or a demagogue’s love of the crowd’s love or an insatiable hunger to become the most powerful white male on earth”
12: See the New York Times article on Wallace’s suicide^∆
13: Again, labyrinthine: Wallace reminds us of our very nonlinear existence with extensive footnotes, tangents and digressions, complex sentences, his love of vocabulary, etc., etc., etc.^∂
14: Writers young and old, novice and veteran

*Yes, this reviewer has a Mac
**A point of contention with some
†But what is he an artist of? It isn’t only music. Is it possible to be a cultural genius (see main thesis)?
§But we have to believe it. We can’t not believe it. How else can we go on doing what we do without that promise out there waiting however frail and transparent and gossamer and let’s be honest completely and irresponsibly imagined?
ƒ“GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush”
∆ This is possibly the most pervasive, depressing, and disturbing fact of this entire review, if not our literary generation, or even our cultural generation. If genius—if success and literary reknown—are not validating for those of us^a who are in turn prone to depression—who are more often than not pessimistic and overwhelmed by American culture—what hope is there?
∂ Cheekiness aside

a: Speaking from this reviewer’s somewhat sordid personal experience

Just one brief assignment for this demanding month, a mere essay, online and free to all:

“How to Build a Universe that Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later” by Philip K. Dick

As made famous in the film Waking Life‘s “Tango of Yes” scene, this essay regards the mystical claims made about Dick’s celebrated novel, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said.

DISCUSSION JUMP STARTS:

1) Compare the events here with those in the Will Ferrell movie Stranger Than Fiction.

2) Does this essay bolster Rachel’s hypothesis that, yes, time is wrong?