September 2010
6 posts
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“[T]his town is an intellectual wasteland without any sense of humor. I’ve been...”
– The founder of TED complaining about Newport, RI (where he lives in a mansion often mistaken for a museum). It’s such a surreal profile, I don’t even want to spoil it—just please please go read for yourself.
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Franzen goes soft
Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom is enjoyable while you’re reading it but leaves you nothing to think about when you’re through. Compared to other great narratives of the past decade, especially Franzen’s own, it’s a cupcake.
Freedom is “sweeping,” meaning it explains characters’ personalities by sketching the biographies of their great grandparents....
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retraction
A while ago I slammed an excerpt from Jonathan Franzen’s book Freedom because it was so slanted in favor of the rape victim character. Now I’m reading the book and it turns out I was wrong to judge. Although the segment is in the third person, it’s supposed to have been written by the rape victim herself. That makes it understated and wry.
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if you work late then you are a good person
The Times has a big piece about foreclosure profiteers in Florida. One of the more humungously rich lawyers defends himself:
“Should I feel ashamed that I have built a successful practice? No one references how committed I am, how I built my firm and how I work 20 hours a day.”
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