Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays

by David Foster Wallace

  Maybe the one thing that the reader ends up appreciating about Ben Turnbull is that he’s such a broad caricature of an Updike protagonist that he helps clarify what’s been so unpleasant and frustrating about this author’s recent characters. It’s not that Turnbull is stupid: he can quote Pascal and Kierkegaard on angst, discourse on the death of Schubert, distinguish between a sinistrorse and a dextrorse Polygonum vine, etc. It’s that he persists in the bizarre, adolescent belief that getting to have sex with whomever one wants whenever one wants to is a cure for human despair. And Toward the End of Time’s author, so far as I can figure out, believes it too. Updike makes it plain that he views the narrator’s final impotence as catastrophic, as the ultimate symbol of death itself, and he clearly wants us to mourn it as much as Turnbull does. I am not shocked or offended by this attitude; I mostly just don’t get it. Rampant or flaccid, Ben Turnbull’s unhappiness is obvious right from the novel’s first page. It never once occurs to him, though, that the reason he’s so unhappy is that he’s an asshole.

  1998

  SOME REMARKS ON KAFKA’S FUNNINESS FROM WHICH PROBABLY NOT ENOUGH HAS BEEN REMOVED

  ONE REASON for my willingness to speak publicly on a subject for which I am direly underqualified is that it affords me a chance to declaim for you a short story of Kafka’s that I have given up teaching in literature classes and miss getting to read aloud. Its English title is “A Little Fable”:

  “Alas,” said the mouse, “the world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when at last I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into.” “You only need to change your direction,” said the cat, and ate it up.

  For me, a signal frustration in trying to read Kafka with college students is that it is next to impossible to get them to see that Kafka is funny. Nor to appreciate the way funniness is bound up with the power of his stories. Because, of course, great short stories and great jokes have a lot in common. Both depend on what communications theorists sometimes call exformation, which is a certain quantity of vital information removed from but evoked by a communication in such a way as to cause a kind of explosion of associative connections within the recipient. 1 This is probably why the effect of both short stories and jokes often feels sudden and percussive, like the venting of a long-stuck valve. It’s not for nothing that Kafka spoke of literature as “a hatchet with which we chop at the frozen seas inside us.” Nor is it an accident that the technical achievement of great short stories is often called compression—for both the pressure and the release are already inside the reader. What Kafka seems able to do better than just about anyone else is to orchestrate the pressure’s increase in such a way that it becomes intolerable at the precise instant it is released.

  The psychology of jokes helps account for part of the problem in teaching Kafka. We all know that there is no quicker way to empty a joke of its peculiar magic than to try to explain it—to point out, for example, that Lou Costello is mistaking the proper name Who for the interrogative pronoun who, and so on. And we all know the weird antipathy such explanations arouse in us, a feeling of not so much boredom as offense, as if something has been blasphemed. This is a lot like the teacher’s feelings at running a Kafka story through the gears of your standard undergrad critical analysis—plot to chart, symbols to decode, themes to exfoliate, etc. Kafka, of course, would be in a unique position to appreciate the irony of submitting his short stories to this kind of high-efficiency critical machine, the literary equivalent of tearing the petals off and grinding them up and running the goo through a spectrometer to explain why a rose smells so pretty. Franz Kafka, after all, is the story writer whose “Poseidon” imagines a sea god so overwhelmed with administrative paperwork that he never gets to sail or swim, and whose “In the Penal Colony” conceives description as punishment and torture as edification and the ultimate critic as a needled harrow whose coup de grâce is a spike through the forehead.

  Another handicap, even for gifted students, is that—unlike, say, those of Joyce or Pound—the exformative associations that Kafka’s work creates are not intertextual or even historical. Kafka’s evocations are, rather, unconscious and almost sort of sub-archetypal, the primordial little-kid stuff from which myths derive; this is why we tend to call even his weirdest stories nightmarish rather than surreal. The exformative associations in Kafka are also both simple and extremely rich, often just about impossible to be discursive about: imagine, for instance, asking a student to unpack and organize the various signification networks behind mouse, world, running, walls, narrowed, chamber, trap, cat, and cat eats mouse.

  Not to mention that the particular kind of funniness Kafka deploys is deeply alien to students whose neural resonances are American. 2 The fact is that Kafka’s humor has almost none of the particular forms and codes of contemporary US amusement. There’s no recursive wordplay or verbal stunt-pilotry, little in the way of wisecracks or mordant lampoon. There is no body-function humor in Kafka, nor sexual entendre, nor stylized attempts to rebel by offending convention. No Pynchonian slapstick with banana peels or rogue adenoids. No Rothish priapism or Barthish metaparody or Woody Allen-type kvetching. There are none of the ba-bing ba-bang reversals of modern sitcoms; nor are there precocious children or profane grandparents or cynically insurgent coworkers. Perhaps most alien of all, Kafka’s authority figures are never just hollow buffoons to be ridiculed, but are always absurd and scary and sad all at once, like “In the Penal Colony”’s Lieutenant.

  My point is not that his wit is too subtle for US students. In fact, the only halfway effective strategy I’ve come up with for exploring Kafka’s funniness in class involves suggesting to students that much of his humor is actually sort of unsubtle—or rather anti-subtle. The claim is that Kafka’s funniness depends on some kind of radical literalization of truths we tend to treat as metaphorical. I opine to them that some of our most profound collective intuitions seem to be expressible only as figures of speech, that that’s why we call these figures of speech expressions. With respect to “The Metamorphosis,” then, I might invite students to consider what is really being expressed when we refer to someone as creepy or gross or say that he is forced to take shit as part of his job. Or to reread “In the Penal Colony” in light of expressions like tongue-lashing or tore him a new asshole or the gnomic “By middle age, everyone’s got the face they deserve.” Or to approach “A Hunger Artist” in terms of tropes like starved for attention or love-starved or the double entendre in the term self-denial, or even as innocent a factoid as that the etymological root of anorexia happens to be the Greek word for longing.

  The students usually end up engaged here, which is great; but the teacher still sort of writhes with guilt, because the comedy-as-literalization-of-metaphor tactic doesn’t begin to countenance the deeper alchemy by which Kafka’s comedy is always also tragedy, and this tragedy always also an immense and reverent joy. This usually leads to an excruciating hour during which I backpedal and hedge and warn students that, for all their wit and exformative voltage, Kafka’s stories are not fundamentally jokes, and that the rather simple and lugubrious gallows humor that marks so many of Kafka’s personal statements—stuff like “There is hope, but not for us”—is not what his stories have got going on.

  What Kafka’s stories have, rather, is a grotesque, gorgeous, and thoroughly modern complexity, an ambivalence that becomes the multivalent Both/And logic of the, quote, “unconscious,” which I personally think is just a fancy word for soul. Kafka’s humor—not only not neurotic but anti-neurotic, heroically sane—is, finally, a religious humor, but religious in the manner of Kierkegaard and Rilke and the Psalms, a harrowing spirituality against which even Ms. O’Connor’s bloody grace seems a little bit easy, the souls at stake pre-made.

  And it is this, I think, that makes
Kafka’s wit inaccessible to children whom our culture has trained to see jokes as entertainment and entertainment as reassurance. 3 It’s not that students don’t “get” Kafka’s humor but that we’ve taught them to see humor as something you get—the same way we’ve taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke: that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. It’s hard to put into words, up at the blackboard, believe me. You can tell them that maybe it’s good they don’t “get” Kafka. You can ask them to imagine his stories as all about a kind of door. To envision us approaching and pounding on this door, increasingly hard, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it; we don’t know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and ramming and kicking. That, finally, the door opens … and it opens outward—we’ve been inside what we wanted all along. Das ist komisch.

  1999

  “Save up to 50%, and More!” Between you and I. On accident. Somewhat of a. Kustom Kar Kare Autowash. “The cause was due to numerous factors.” “Orange Crush—A Taste That’s All It’s Own.” “Vigorex: Helping men conquer sexual issues.” “Equal numbers of both men and women opposed the amendment.” Feedback. “As drinking water becomes more and more in short supply.” “IMATION—Borne of 3M Innovation.” Point in time. Time frame. “At this point in time, the individual in question was observed, and subsequently apprehended by authorities.” Here for you, there for you. Fail to comply with for violate. Comprised of. From whence. Quote for quotation. Nauseous for nauseated. Besides the point. To mentor, to parent. To partner. To critique. Indicated for said. Parameters for limits and options for choices and viable options for options and workable solution for solution. In point of fact. Prior to this time. As of this point in the time frame. Serves to. Tends to be. Convince for persuade, portion for part. Commence to, cease to. Expedite. Request for ask. Eventuate for happen. Subsequent to this time. Facilitate. “Author’s Foreward.” Aid in. Utilize. Detrimental. Equates with. In regards to. “It has now made its way into the mainstream of verbal discourse.” Tragic, tragedy. Grow as non-ag. transitive. Keep for stay. “To demonstrate the power of Epson’s New Stylus Color Inkjet Printer with 1440 d.p.i., just listen:” Could care less. Personal issues, core issues. Fellow colleagues. Goal-orientated. Resources. To share. Feelings. Nurture, empower, recover. Valid for true. Authentic. Productive, unproductive. “I choose to view my opponent’s negative attacks as unproductive to the real issues facing the citizens of this campaign.” Incumbent upon. Mandate. Plurality. Per anum. Conjunctive adverbs in general. Instantaneous. Quality as adj. Proactive. Proactive Mission Statement. Positive feedback. A positive role model. Compensation. Validation. As for example. True facts are often impactful. “Call now for your free gift!” I only wish. Not too good of a. Potentiality for potential. Pay the consequences of. Obligated. At this juncture. To reference. To process. Process. The process of. The healing process. The grieving process. “Processing of feelings is a major component of the grieving process.” To transition. Commensurant. “Till the stars fall from the sky/For you and I.” Working together. Efficacious, effectual. Lifestyle. This phenomena, these criterion. Irregardless. If for whether. As for because. “Both sides are working together to achieve a workable consensus.” Dysfunctional family of origin. S.O. To nest. Support. Relate to. Merge together. KEEP IN OWN LANE. For whomever wants it. “My wife and myself wish to express our gratitude and thanks to you for being there to support us at this difficult time in our life.” Diversity. Quality time. Values, family values. To conference. “French provincial twin bed with canape and box spring, $150.” Take a wait-and-see attitude. Cum-N-Go Quik Mart. Travelodge. Self-confessed. Precise estimate. More correct. Very possible, very unique. “Travel times on the expressways are reflective of its still being bad out there.” Budgetel. More and more inevitable. EZPAY. RENT2OWN. MENS’ ROOM. LADY’S ROOM. Individual for person. Whom for who, that for who. “The accident equated to a lot of damage.” Ipse dixie. Falderol. “‘Waiting on’ is a dialectical locution on the rise and splitting its meaning.” Staunch the flow. AM in the morning. Forte as “fortay.” Advisement. Most especially. Sum total. Final totals. Complete dearth. “You can donate your used car or truck in any condition.” At present. At the present time. Challenge for problem, challenging for hard. Closure. Judgement. Nortorious. Miniscule. Mischievious. “Both died in an apartment Dr. Kevorkian was leasing after inhaling carbon monoxide.” Bald-faced. “No obligation required!” A

  AUTHORITY AND AMERICAN USAGE *

  Acknowledgements. To give off the impression. Instrumentality. Suffice to say. “The third-leading cause of death of both American men and women.” Positive for good. Alright. “This begs the question, why are our elected leaders silent on this issue?” To reference. To privilege, to gender. “DiBlasi’s work shows how sex can bring people together and pull them apart.” “Come in and take advantage of our knowledgeable staff!” “We get the job done, not make excuses.” In so far as. “Chances of rain are prevalent.” NO TRUCK’S. Beyond the pail. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Rule and Regulation Amendment Task Force. Further for farther. “The Fred Pryor Seminar has opened my eyes to better time management techniques. Also it has given real life situations and how to deal with them effectively.” Hands-on, can-do. “Each of the variants indicated in boldface type count as an entry.” Visualize, visualization. “Insert and tighten metric calibrated hexscrews (K) into arc (C) comprised of intersecting vertical pieces (A) along transverse section of Structure.” Creativity, creative. To message, to send a message, to bring our message to. To reach out to. Context. A factor, a major factor, a decisive factor. Myriads of decisive factors. “It is a federal requirement to comply with all safety regulations on this flight.” In this context, of this context. On a frequent basis. From the standpoint of. Contextualization. Within the parameters of this context. Decontextualization. Defamiliarization. Disorientated. “The artist’s employment of a radical visual idiom serves to decontextualize both conventional modes of representation and the patriarchal contexts on which such traditional hegemonic notions as representation, tradition, and even conventional contextualization have come to be seen as depending for their canonical privileging as aestheto-interpretive mechanisms.” I don’t feel well but expect to recoup. “As parents, the responsibility of talking to your kids about drugs is up to you.” Who would of thought? Last and final call. Achieve. Achievement. Excellence. Pursuit of a standard of total excellence. Partial completion. An astute observance. Misrepresent for lie. A long-standing tradition of achievement in the arena of excellence. “All dry cleaners are not the same.” Visible to the eye. Which for that, I for me. That which. With regards to this issue. Data as singular, media as singular, graffiti as singular. Remain for stay. On-task. Escalate as transitive. Community. “Iran must realize that it cannot flaunt with impunity the expressed will and law of the world community.” Community support. Community-based. Broad appeal. Rally support. Outpourings of support. “Tried to lay the cause at the feet of Congress.” Epidemic proportions. Proportionate response. Feasibility. “This anguishing national ordeal.” Bipartisan, nonpartisan. Widespread outbreaks. Constructive dialogue. To appeal for. To impact. Hew and cry. From this aspect. Hayday. Appropriate, inappropriate. Contingency. Contingent upon. Every foreseeable contingency. Audible to the ear. As for since. Palpably quiet. “The enormity of this administration’s accomplishments.” Frigid temperatures. Loud volume. “Surrounded on all sides, my workable options at this time are few in number.” Chaise lounge, nucular, deep-seeded, bedroom suit, reek havoc. “Her ten-year rein atop the competition? The reason why is because she still continues to hue to the basic fundamentals.” Ouster. Lucrative salaries, expensive prices. Forgo for forego and vice versa. Breech of conduct. Award
for meretricious service. Substantiate, unsubstantiated, substantial. Re-elected to another term. Fulsome praise. Service. Public service. “A tradition of servicing your needs.” “A commitment to accountability in a lifetime of public service.” I thought to myself. As best as we can. WAVE ALL INTEREST FOR 90 DAYS. “But I also want to have—be the president that protects the rights of, of people to, to have arms. And that—so you don’t go so far that the legitimate rights on some legislation are, are, you know, impinged on.” “Dr. Charles Frieses’ theories.” Conflict. Conflict-resolution. The mutual advantage of both sides in this widespread conflict. “We will make a determination in terms of an appropriate response.” Impact, to impact. Future plans. Don’t go there! PLEASE WAIT HERE UNTIL NEXT AVAILABLE CLERK. Fellow countrymen. Misappropriate for steal. Off of. I’ll be there momentarily. At some later point in time. I’m not adverse to that. Have a good one. Luv ya. Alot.