I’m going to post three short things regarding the NY Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani. They are mostly lies and venom, except one, the third, which is God’s truth. All of my recent posts, including this one, are part of a 2,000 page (very much hypothetical, or 3/4 hypothetical) mega-novel/memoir/meditation. I am so irritated by [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Jonathan Franzen’
From the Barbaric Heart: Michiko reviews my unwritten book!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, Michiko Kakutani on May 17, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Touching on Grief: On the Story “Dreaming Before Sleep,” by Kathryn Chetkovich, and Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Jonathan Franzen, Kathryn Chetkovitch on April 6, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Due to a violent death in my family, I found myself unable to read or write for about five months. It’s as if being robbed of a person wasn’t enough: I was also robbed of the things that made up my identity, that gave me joy. I could sleep, loaded on booze and other drugs, [...]
We Know Best What’s Nearest (Living Art Backwards)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Céline, David Foster Wallace, Don DeLillo, Jackie Wang, James Joyce, Jonathan Franzen, Kurt Vonnegut, Lydia Davis, Symbolist poetry, Thomas Pynchon, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Ulysses on December 13, 2010 | 28 Comments »
A quick follow-up to Tim’s post here, which was itself in response to Jackie Wang’s post here. Wang had asked: Do you feel a duty to read and acknowledge your literary, theoretical, and musical foremothers? I’d argue that most people have no idea who their artistic forebears are. For example: students tell me all the [...]
Show yourself!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alec Soth, Alice Munro, Jonathan Franzen, Marion Ettlinger on February 4, 2010 | 12 Comments »
This is from Alec Soth’s blog: It is interesting how the cover images affect our reading of the book. But equally influential is the author photograph. In discussing the under-appreciation of Alice Munro in the New York Times, Jonathan Franzen wrote, “her jacket photos show her smiling pleasantly, as if the reader were a friend, [...]