You can pick up David Foster Wallace's essay on luxury Caribbean cruise trips as a Kindle Short from Amazon. Short is, perhaps, a bit of a misnomer since this piece is anything but. It's not the 368 pages that Amazon will tell you it is — that's the length of entire book of the same name of which this was one part — but it's not an E. B. White, read it in ten minutes, undertaking either.

It's laugh-out-loud funny in places, penetratingly observant in others, and quite disgruntled throughout. Wallace doesn't really like luxury cruising and it shows. Oh, he finds it luxurious and even narcotic but, in a real sense, that's exactly the point.

This essay, very definitely, bears the hallmark of the author of Infinite Jest. First, as I mentioned, it is long, maybe 100 pages although Kindle only lists "locations". Second, you might need a dictionary once or twice. Third, there are surreal moments except, in this case, they are real. Fourth, there are endnotes...yep...137 of them, some of them multi-page, even a couple where the endnotes have endnotes. But, most of all, it's the return to themes of hollow entertainment and consumerism and caring about one's fellow man.

If you don't mind a bit of a rant, enjoy a bit of humor, and are willing to think about our lifestyle, this is worth a read. ( )