{"id":27739,"date":"2012-03-07T13:00:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T18:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=27739"},"modified":"2014-01-26T23:20:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T04:20:19","slug":"on-the-shelf-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/07\/on-the-shelf-38\/","title":{"rendered":"#JonathanFranzenHates, Nabokoving, and Other News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/em>

Nabokoving.<\/p><\/div>\n

A cultural news roundup.<\/em><\/p>\n

  • \u201cOnce again, it\u2019s that time of year when otherwise mature adults paint their faces in the palettes of their favorite book jacket designers, and all across Facebook college kids post pictures of themselves Nabokoving<\/a>. Yes, we\u2019re talking about book awards season<\/a>.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • Happy birthday, John Updike<\/a>!<\/li>\n
  • Happy birthday, Douglas Adams<\/a>!<\/li>\n
  • Geoff Dyer<\/a> on \u201cbunking off.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • With friends like these, Saul Bellow<\/a> didn\u2019t need enemies. <\/li>\n
  • Elizabeth Bowen and Jean Rhys get the \u201cblue plaque treatment<\/a>\u201d in London. <\/li>\n
  • Stephen King:\u00a0\u201cThe idea that a writer can bring his core audience into the tent with a blurb … you might as well try herding cats<\/a>.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • The fact that Truman Capote wrote Breakfast at Tiffany\u2019s <\/em>here<\/a> is a selling point. The fact that it has eighteen rooms doesn\u2019t hurt, either. <\/li>\n
  • Footnotes upon footnotes in Footnote<\/a>. <\/em><\/li>\n
  • \u201cEggers named his journal after McSweeney<\/a> before he knew anything about the man, and didn’t discover his identity until after McSweeney died in January 2010 at age sixty-seven.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • The famously combative Ben Jonson<\/a>. <\/li>\n
  • Jonathan Franzen:\u00a0\u201cTwitter is unspeakably irritating<\/a>. Twitter stands for everything I oppose \u2026 it\u2019s hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters \u2026 it\u2019s like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring\u00a0The Metamorphosis<\/em>. Or it\u2019s like writing a novel without the letter \u2018P\u2019\u2026 It\u2019s the ultimate irresponsible medium \u2026 People I care about are readers \u2026 particularly serious readers and writers, these are my people. And we do not like to yak about ourselves.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • #JonathanFranzenHates<\/a><\/li>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A cultural news roundup. \u201cOnce again, it\u2019s that time of year when otherwise mature adults paint their faces in the palettes of their favorite book jacket designers, and all across Facebook college kids post pictures of themselves Nabokoving. Yes, we\u2019re talking about book awards season.\u201d Happy birthday, John Updike! Happy birthday, Douglas Adams! Geoff Dyer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2512],"tags":[6660,6658,6656,666,5765,6659,1761,4444,6657,615,110,2784,6655,1194,4110,126],"class_list":["post-27739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-the-shelf","tag-ben-jonson","tag-blurbs","tag-book-awards-season","tag-dave-eggers","tag-elizabeth-bowen","tag-footnote","tag-geoff-dyer","tag-jean-rhys","tag-john-dagata","tag-john-updike","tag-jonathan-franzen","tag-mcsweeneys","tag-nabokoving","tag-saul-bellow","tag-stephen-king","tag-twitter"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n#JonathanFranzenHates, Nabokoving, and Other News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"March 7, 2012 \u2013 A cultural news roundup. \u201cOnce again, it\u2019s that time of year when otherwise mature adults paint their faces in the palettes of 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