The Lobster considers

The Lobster considers

A government-certified kitchen. The year is unspecified but close. The consumption of food has been bureaucraticized and pleasure is administratively inconvenient.

Like every morning, State Points Auditor Vetch routinely checks the water temperature of the cauldron when Citizen M comes to claim her lobster. She has accumulated enough Alimentary Merit Points to be entitled to this trophy. Sucking on the crustacean’s claws, she secretly hopes to finally feel something—and Vetch’s long closeted fears of uncontrolled desire bubble up. The Lobster, for their part, sits in a pot of water, refusing to boil properly, and settle, once and for all, if they can feel something when boiled alive. But their hands are, quite literally, tied.

Loosely inspired by the philosophical incoherences explored, but never resolved by David Foster Wallace in his essay

Consider The Lobster about collective denial when it comes to the festive public boiling of a live animal, the three end up entangled in a dystopian musical kaleidoscope about ethics and consumerism, pleasure and restraint—and the disturbing mechanisms of convenient uncertainty kicking in when we make many of our life choices.

In her typical entertaining, grotesque and discursive manner, Anne Simon tackles a thought-provoking subject that is making a comeback, and not just in the literary world.