{"id":5568,"date":"2013-10-12T16:53:27","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T16:53:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/?p=5568"},"modified":"2013-10-12T19:23:36","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T19:23:36","slug":"much-i-dont-about-franzen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/2013\/10\/much-i-dont-about-franzen\/","title":{"rendered":"Much I don&#8217;t about Franzen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/4-up-on-2013-03-08-at-14.13.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-5602\" title=\"4-up on 2013-03-08 at 14.13\" src=\"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/4-up-on-2013-03-08-at-14.13-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>I give up.\u00a0 I spent the past few days trying to write a blog that was witty and timely. I wanted it to be smart like an essay by <a title=\"Roxane Gay\" href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/writer\/roxane_gay\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Roxane Gay<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I hoped to get my thoughts together about the fuss over \u201cJonathan Franzen: What\u2019s Wrong With the Modern World,\u201d which appeared in <em><a title=\"The Guardian Jonathan Franzen: what's wrong with the modern world \" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2013\/sep\/13\/jonathan-franzen-wrong-modern-world\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian<\/a><\/em> on Friday, September 13.\u00a0 The piece named names (Jennifer Weiner, Salman Rushdie, Jeff Bezos) and was as juicy as a reality TV show, with responses by <a title=\"New Republic Jennifer Weiner Responds to Jonathan Franzen\" href=\"http:\/\/www.newrepublic.com\/article\/114762\/jennifer-weiner-responds-jonathan-franzen\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Jennifer Weiner<\/strong><\/a> and <a title=\"Nathan Bransford blog\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.nathanbransford.com\/2013\/09\/the-privileged-rage-of-jonathan-franzen.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Nathan Bransford<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Joanthan Franzen falls foul of titterati\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2013\/oct\/03\/jonathan-franzen-twitter-social-media-today\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Jonathan Franzen<\/strong><\/a> followed up with an interview on BBC Radio 4&#8217;s Programme where he continued to talk about the\u00a0 negative impact of social networking like Twitter, etc.<\/p>\n<p>I set about writing. I quoted Franzen. I quoted &#8220;The Great Hater&#8221; (Karl Kraus) who is the subject of Franzen&#8217;s latest book. The post was as clunky as a college writing assignment.\u00a0 Plus, Franzen&#8217;s essay is more than three weeks old now.<\/p>\n<p>So I give up on it.<\/p>\n<p>Instead I will boil it down to these basic ponderings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Being hip\/achieving hipness is not a meaningful goal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Is technology being used best? Who owns our information; who manages it? What about radio wave pollution? Are we so charmed by what technology can do that we haven\u2019t thought enough about what technology is doing?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Contemplating the apocalypse is like navel-gazing. \u00a0You may think the stare is outward but you are focused on self.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A writer should not use phrases like, &#8220;It [technology-driven culture] gnaws away particularly at my soul because I&#8217;m a fiction writer&#8221; unless he\/she means it ironically.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Hating\u00a0 on something can be fun; some would even say it is &#8220;enslavingly addictive&#8221; and &#8220;pandering to people&#8217;s worse impulses.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That\u2019s all I got. Slim pickings, I know.\u00a0 But much better than the conflated mess I almost posted.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Peace, love and solace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I give up.\u00a0 I spent the past few days trying to write a blog that was witty and timely. I wanted it to be smart like an essay by Roxane Gay. I hoped to get my thoughts together about the fuss over \u201cJonathan Franzen: What\u2019s Wrong With the Modern World,\u201d which appeared in The Guardian [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,27,1774,12,239,1769,1767,1775,73,13,20,1773,1500,1772,1770,1771,7,16,1776,1768,1254,32,121],"class_list":{"0":"post-5568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-anthology","8":"tag-book","9":"tag-current-events","10":"tag-ellen-wade-beals","11":"tag-j-scott-smith","12":"tag-jennifer-weiner","13":"tag-jonathan-franzen","14":"tag-karl-kraus","15":"tag-nathan-bransford","16":"tag-poetry","17":"tag-publication","18":"tag-roxane-gay","19":"tag-salon","20":"tag-self-promotion","21":"tag-social-media","22":"tag-social-networking","23":"tag-solace","24":"tag-solace-in-so-many-words","25":"tag-the-great-hater","26":"tag-the-guardian","27":"tag-twitter","28":"tag-weighed-words","29":"tag-writing","30":"entry","31":"has-post-thumbnail"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5568"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5633,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5568\/revisions\/5633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}