<![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"? - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"? - Gawker Comments]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> "One day, I saw a young, heavyset woman wrapped in a small blanket with nothing underneath. Another day, I saw a scrappy-looking man with a paperback copy of "The Corrections" tucked under his arm."

-Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker

beat royalty

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> Is this Jonathan Safran Franzen, or the other one?

famousauthor

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Pope John Peeps II:
polygamous misogynist nazi libertarian pervert...

I'm not walking, I'm running to the library right now.

Botswana Meat Commission FC

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> Tired of ad hominem attacks? Here's two Helpful Hints for Homines (tm):
1) Don't write about yourself directly or thinly veiledly.
2) Don't be such a sinner, you twat.

DonPardoCalrissian

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Bell County: Well that's just it. You were talking about who gets to "identify" the canon. Nobody "identifies" it. Unless you mean that specific culture as a whole. It grows organically, identified through the work of the following artists. You identified two vague streams of people who decide on the canonical artists. I don't really think there ARE two. I think there's only one.

@Dickdogfood: Well, they aren't exactly... Criticism is an attempt to explain the mechanisms of art to others. Artists strive to practice them but not explain. But on the other hand, not all academics have the ability to write a good book, and not all artists can be worthwhile critics. So they are still separate things.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @contradicto: The dismayingly narrow channel of the self?

Koreanish

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> While it was admittedly ill-advised to criticize Kakutani, Franzen is without question a very remarkable writer.

Astrolabe

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Pope John Peeps II: What is this act of "enshrining" you speak of? My point was that it seems more like it's a process involving multiple agents.

Bell County

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @BalknChain: Perez making his film debut in the title role of "The J-Franz Story" - now we're talkin'. Featuring, with a li'l CGI, Beyonce as Oprah. And very special guest star Bruce Willis as Rick Moody.

mladen

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Dickdogfood: @Bell County: Shit howdy, you guys are on the ball today. Well done to both of you.

skahammer

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Bell County: Name an author that has been enshrined in "the canon" by academic work and not by other artists. It's quite literally impossible.

And Hesse and Kerouac were enormously influential to certain schools of writing. That's how they wound up canonized. Those two really aren't "alternative" writers.

And I refuse to admit that polygamous misogynist nazi libertarian pervert and all around retard capitalist Robert Heinlein even writes in the english language. It's some form of crazy gibberish that I happen to understand.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> How did you guys also not link to the Colin McEnroe McSweeney's bit from a while back about "I am Michiko Kakutani?" If anything else that needs to be re-posted so that we can all start using "Michiko Kakutani" as a euphamism for masturbation again.

fin de siecle

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Dickdogfood: Well they are! So there.

ian spiegelman

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Dickdogfood: Don't forget Leonard Maltin! But seriously, canon building seems obviously to be a group enterprise (leaving aside the issue of who gets to identify the "canon"). You certainly can't disregard the importance of academics and curricula, then there's also always an alternative set of authors (like Hesse or Kerouac or even Heinlein) that generations of young readers are introduced to largely outside the classroom. The way these things get preserved seems kind of analogous to, in a hypothetical grade school, the school mascot and song on the one hand and the enduring playground jokes on the other.

Bell County

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> i think his books kind of suck. they're boring. they lack a narrative arc. they are like k-mart realism in a slightly better neighborhood but with less interesting people

if_i_only_had_a_heart

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> Kakutani v. Franzen is like when Iran was at war with Iraq. Nobody likes either one of them and you hope they both wipe each other out.

bigspike

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Pope John Peeps II: That seems somewhat counter-intutive, though, because I think it's easy to establish that everything from Aristotle's Poetics to Coleridge's Shakespeare criticism to Kael's movie reviews are themselves part of one or more art canons. I guess I don't see "critic" and "artist" as mutually exclusive propositions.

Dickdogfood

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> May I just swim against the stream here by pointing out that there are no shortage of people whose work/life have not been denegrated in print by Michiko Kakutani who nevertheless consider her to be very, very stupid.

KristaJulieva

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @Botswana Meat Commission FC: Is there any other kind?

CopyofBlueboy

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> [www.nytimes.com]

rubyriver

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> His incredibly annoying portrait above looks rather Perezish.

BalknChain

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @StonedAndDethroned: LIE on the floor. You must be the stupidest person in New York.

SchmatSchmaymon

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> Franzen's list of smartest people: Adam Begley, James Marcus, Gregory Kirschling, Lev Grossman, Dan Cryer, Michael Sims, Michael Upchurch, Bob Minzesheimer and Tim Adams.

depardoo

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> I like the part in that book where Franzen and his wife lay on the floor and cry it out.

The term douche cougar was invented for this man.

StonedAndDethroned

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> Ha ha.

there's no one out there responding intelligently to the text .... So few people are actually doing serious criticism

Oh Franzen. In saying that, you've become a critic of criticism and basically made yourself look kind of foolish. "Oh poor me. This one woman's opinion is that this particular work is poor. Therefore she must be STUPID." It's the intellectual equivalent to saying "this chick won't bang me, she must be a lesbian".

The smartest thing I've read lately about the art of criticism is something Harold Bloom said. He basically pointed out that critics do not establish the canon of art - but artists do, by linking to past works of influence to them and using them to stretch into the future. Critics just do what they do. They're single people who give their opinions on art as a working mechanism. Which is exactly what artists do when they create something - they make art they way they think it should be.

Pope John Peeps II

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @SarahHeartburn: @Bell County: Bell County wins for euphemistic genius.

contradicto

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @contradicto: Maybe it creates a bottleneck; the narrative gets stuck. It doesn't go anywhere. There's no epiphany. Franzen learns nothing. I'm just guessing.

rubyriver

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> I hate self-involved memoirists.

Botswana Meat Commission FC

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @contradicto: Does it mean he doesn't tell the story in the missionary position?

Bell County

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> @contradicto: It means he talks about himself too much. Can I get paid for this?

SarahHeartburn

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> In his defense, Franzen's hat trick during Saturday's 5-1 win over the Avs was spectacular.

Clarence Rosario

]]> <![CDATA[Who Does Jonathan Franzen Think is the "Stupidest Person in NYC"?]]> "Funnels the narrative into a dismayingly narrow channel?" What does that even mean?

contradicto

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