interesting anecdote
"The world of the present is a world in which the rich lateral dramas of local manners have been replaced by a single vertical drama, the drama of regional specifity succumbing to a commercial generality. The American writer today faces a cultural totalitarianism analogous to the political totalitarianism with which two generations of Eastern bloc writers had to contend. To engage with it, however, is to risk writing fiction that makes the same point over and over: technological consumerism is an infernal machine, technological consumerism is an infernal machine...."
Jonathan Franzen in his updated Harper's Essay, now titled, "Why Bother?"
It's all about the impossibilities of writing fiction in our society, and about depressive realism and it's isolation. I feel like I was born at the wrong time.
-edit- now that I reread it, it seems that one must read the entire essay to get the feel of it. i'm gonna go eat an empanada.
Jonathan Franzen in his updated Harper's Essay, now titled, "Why Bother?"
It's all about the impossibilities of writing fiction in our society, and about depressive realism and it's isolation. I feel like I was born at the wrong time.
-edit- now that I reread it, it seems that one must read the entire essay to get the feel of it. i'm gonna go eat an empanada.