Consider the Lobster
By David Foster Wallace
343 pp. Abacus. $19.

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Is David Foster Wallace the best writer of short form nonfiction America’s ever had?

Often when reading him my mouth falls open at seeing just how spectacularly he mastered the form. There are few things, if any, more intellectually stimulating than reading DFW, even if it can also be a highly depressing experience if you’re in the habit of comparing your writing to the authors you read.

I haven’t yet managed to read any of his fiction (the sheer length of “Infinite Jest” has thus far deterred me), but his nonfiction is sublime, and the pieces included in “Consider the Lobster” are among his very best.

The topics covered in this collection run the gamut from the porn industry to John McCain, from Standard American English to Dostoevsky, from talk radio to lobsters.

How many other writers have that kind of range? How many others can manage to be so thoughtful when writing about porn starlets and so funny about a contentious presidential election?

DFW is about as close to a public intellectual as America has … or had, since he killed himself in 2008.

Dammit, DFW.

Perhaps there really is a thin line between genius and madness. The footnotes certainly seem to attest to that.

One can’t help but admire DFW’s clear-eyed view on the silly, and troubling, nature of American nationalism in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (“The View From Mrs. Thompson’s”). Reading his essays now on American conservatism and intra-party election tactics circa 2000 (“Up, Simba”) or right-wing talk radio (“Host”), it’s tempting to wonder whether DFW had a crystal ball next to his writing desk.

Casting a gaze across the western landscape now, it feels as though our most clear-sighted chroniclers have left us. What would DFW, Hitchens, Didion, etc … (insert name here) think about the times in which we live? Who can we trust to tell us the truth about the complicated issues of our day?

But in reading the work of yesterday’s writers we can still gain insight into the issues affecting us today, and those that will arise tomorrow.