Shipping out for good

“Shipping out” by David Foster Wallace is a very, very long article written about his travels aboard a luxury cruise liner. The first thing I noticed about this article was the length and amount of descriptive words he uses to describe his experiences. I had trouble trying to pick out significant points in this article because of the sheer amount of words and feelings he uses to describe each individual experience along the trip. Wallace also tends to exaggerate on some cases, which can be a writing effect, similar to the way the brochure only told the beautiful side of the cruise, to manipulate the audience to believe what he is trying to say. In addition, it is hard to recount many of the specific events because it is not user friendly going through the PDF file. However even though I personally did not like the length of this piece, he does do a great job of psychoanalyzing each individual experience from all points of view. For example, the cabin cleaning lady, Petra, is so good and meticulous at her job that it causes him to develop a “paranoia.” Most people would be overjoyed to have someone come in behind you and clean your room perfectly, while leaving you a fresh basket of fruit and a mint. Wallace, however, personally is freaked out by the fact that she only cleans when he goes out for 30 minutes or longer. The point of his article was to demonstrate how luxury cruises ae too perfect in the sense that they cause individuals to forget the little things in life a real responsibility. He does point out though that the cruise population is composed of almost entirely rich older folks, or their kin who benefits from their money, Mona. Personally, I did not enjoy this article very much because I found myself getting lost in all the words and I tended to begin to skim. I can see how people enjoy his writing though because it’s relatable due to his in depth analysis of his feelings and what is going on around him, I personally just hate reading.