David Foster Wallace, one of my favorite writers, has gone the way of so many geniuses. That is, into the compost at an early age.

He died at just 46 last Friday, leaving us with so much great work that we can chew on it and teach it and share it for generations, yet he had more great work–we are all sure–left undone.

A writer of both fiction and nonfiction, Foster Wallace has a renowned book of essays named for one on food–Consider the Lobster. I have to admit that I didn’t track down this essay until today. And it’s a damn shame, because it turns out DFW was not only a fiction writer of Melvillian proportions, but also a great philosopher on the matter of eating animals. He mulls over Maine lobsters, those poor-man’s-food-turned-delicacy that troll the seas “with thick antennae awhip,” in a refreshing way. It’s worth a read. Do it for David.