For people reading the comments first: This is an article about David Foster Wallace (DFW) and her sister, Amy. The title is a rewording of the title of one of DFW's essays "Consider the Lobster"[0], which is an interesting read if you haven't read it.
damn I miss David. of course I never knew him personally, but I read and loved his books, so in a way I did know him. I would like to read his perspectives on social media, Trump, and AI slop. I know it's fashionable to either love or shit on Wallace, but I dare anybody to read Infinite Jest and not fall in love with it. I've read it over 10 years ago and and still to this day haven't read another book that would captivate me as much, and maybe I never will
i like Infinite Jest, but among the "derivatives" of Nabokov's Pale Fire (the "original" postmodern novel + parody of academic hogwash with protos in Nabokov's earlier works; possible earlier proto in Poe's aesthetic defense of his poem The Raven), including Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and Danielewski's House of Leaves, nothing touches Danielewski's semiotic sensibilities in deconstruction and architecture and his ultimate subversion of this "derivative" form of the postmodern novel (nonspoiler hint: having to "physically" llight the previous leaf/page to see the next). Still, I just reread Pale Fire recently, and missed the "Jung" context obscured by Kinbote's erotomania. I used to think that the Pale Fire poem was an absolute masterpiece. But after rereading Kinbote's notes there is no greater truth of the beauty of Art in the history of literature than how Kinbote elevated this masterpiece especially with his note comparing Disa and Shade. If you are interested in other media forms of Pale Fire, see Revolutionary Girl Utena or Sonny Boy.
