“I was interested enough in WikiLeaks, state transparency, and emergent opposition networks to do five years in prison over such things, but I wasn’t interested enough that I would have voluntarily plowed through 500 pages of badly plotted failed-marriage razzmatazz by an author who’s long past his expiration date simply in order to learn what the Great King of the Honkies thinks about all this.” Barrett Brown reviews Jonathan Franzen’s Purity from prison. Pair with our own Lydia Kiesling’s review of the book.
Purity from Prison
Record-A-Poem
Celebrate National Poetry Month by recording a poem for the Poetry Foundation.
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Dial G
“Genius” is a loaded term. Its application usually says more about the person making the judgment than it does about the genius in question. In The Guardian, Sophie Hannah argues that the term isn’t used enough to describe one writer in particular: Agatha Christie. You could also read Daniel Friedman on the terrible secret of all crime fiction.
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Longshot Magazine
Longshot is an online magazine with quite an interesting concept: “Over a 48 hour period from noon July 29, 2011, through noon July 31, 2011, thousands of writers, editors, artists, photographers, programmers, videographers, and other creatives from all around the world will come together via the Internet to make a magazine from start to finish.” This issue’s theme is “Debt” and you can follow its progress via Tumblr.
Gigantic Film News
The Big Friendly Giant is coming to the big screen. Steven Spielberg will direct a live adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic book The BFG about a little girl and a friendly giant trying to stop his friends from eating children. If you had any doubt that Spielberg could bring sympathy to a mythical creature, he’ll be pairing up with E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison again.
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It’s Not You, It’s Me
What to do when you and your best friend don’t like the same books.
Literary Real Estate
Test your knowledge of famous settings and / or fantasize about living in a “secluded picturesque manor with history” or a “palatial long island home” perfect for parties: “Classic Houses in Literature Go on the Imaginary Real Estate Market – a Quiz.”
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“King of the Honkies” is such a good title I may have to steal it. And that’s exactly what Franzen is, isn’t he? What he always wanted to be, anyway.
Oh, wow, another jealous nobody virtue-signaling his contempt for Franzen and his audience, how brave and iconoclastic. Casual racism, too! Of all the thousands of identical pieces you can find like this around the web, this is easily my favorite.
Thanks for this link. The review made me laugh out loud.