{"id":50231,"date":"2013-04-09T14:40:37","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T18:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=50231"},"modified":"2013-04-09T16:10:43","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T20:10:43","slug":"paula-fox-fighting-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/","title":{"rendered":"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Our Spring Revel will take place tonight! In anticipation of the event, the <\/em>Daily is featuring a series of essays celebrating Paula Fox, who is being honored this year with <\/em>The Paris Review\u2019s Hadada Prize<\/a>. The following is excerpted from an essay that originally ran as the introduction to <\/em>Desperate Characters<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

A book that has fallen, however briefly, out of print can put a strain on even the most devoted reader\u2019s love. In the way that a man might regret certain shy mannerisms in his wife that cloud her beauty, or a woman might wish that her husband laughed less loudly at his own jokes, though the jokes are very funny, I\u2019ve suffered for the tiny imperfections that might prejudice potential readers against Desperate Characters<\/em>. I\u2019m thinking of the stiffness and impersonality of the opening paragraph, the austerity of the opening sentence, the creaky word \u201crepast\u201d: as a lover of the book, I now appreciate how the formality and stasis of the paragraph set up the short, sharp line of dialogue that follows (\u201cThe cat is back\u201d); but what if a reader never makes it past \u201crepast\u201d? I wonder, too, if the name of the protagonist, \u201cOtto Bentwood,\u201d might be diffi cult to take on first reading. Fox generally works her characters\u2019 names very hard\u2014 the name \u201cRussel,\u201d for instance, nicely echoes Charlie\u2019s restless, furtive energies (Otto suspects him of literally \u201crustling\u201d clients), and just as something is surely missing in Charlie\u2019s character, a second \u201cl\u201d is missing in his surname. I do admire how the old- fashioned and vaguely Teutonic name \u201cOtto\u201d saddles Otto the way his compulsive orderliness saddles him; but \u201cBentwood,\u201d even after many readings, remains for me a little artificial in its bonsai imagery. And then there\u2019s the title of the book. It\u2019s apt, certainly, and yet it\u2019s no The Day of the Locust<\/em>, no The Great Gatsby<\/em>, no Absalom, Absalom!<\/em> It\u2019s a title that people may forget or confuse with other titles. Sometimes, wishing it were stronger, I feel lonely in the peculiar way of someone deeply married.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As the years have gone by, I\u2019ve continued to dip in and out of Desperate Characters<\/em>, seeking comfort or reassurance from passages of familiar beauty. Now, though, as I reread it in its entirety, I\u2019m amazed by how much of the book is still fresh and unfamiliar to me. I never paid much attention, for example, to Otto\u2019s anecdote, late in the book, about Cynthia Kornfeld and her husband the anarchist artist\u2014how Cynthia Kornfeld\u2019s salad of Jell- O and nickels mocks the Bentwood equation of food and privilege and civilization; how the notion of typewriters retrofitted to spew nonsense subtly prefigures the novel\u2019s closing image; how the anecdote insists that Desperate Characters be read in the context of a contemporary art scene whose aim is the destruction of order and meaning. And then there\u2019s Charlie Russel\u2014 have I ever really seen him until now? In my earlier readings he remained a kind of stock villain, a turncoat, an egregious man. Now he seems to me almost as important to the story as the cat is. He\u2019s Otto\u2019s only friend, his phone call precipitates the final crisis, he produces he Thoreau quotation that gives the book its title, and he delivers a verdict on the Bentwoods\u2014\u201cdrearily enslaved by introspection while the foundation of their privilege is being blasted out from under them\u201d\u2014 that feels ominously dead- on.<\/p>\n

At this late date, however, I\u2019m not sure I even want fresh insights. A serious danger in long marriages is how excruciatingly well you come to know the object of your love. Sophie and Otto suffer from their knowledge of each other, and I now suffer from my knowledge of Desperate Characters.<\/em> My underlining and marginal annotation of it are getting out of hand. In my latest reading I\u2019m finding and flagging as vital and central an enormous number of previously unflagged images involving order and chaos and childhood and adulthood. And, because the book is not long, and because I\u2019ve now read it half a dozen times, I\u2019m within sight of the point at which every sentence will be highlighted as vital and central. Th is extraordinary richness is, of course, a testament to Paula Fox\u2019s genius. There\u2019s hardly an extraneous or arbitrary word to be found in the book. Rigor and thematic density of such magnitude don\u2019t happen by accident, and yet it\u2019s almost impossible for a writer to achieve them while relaxing enough to allow the characters to come alive and the novel to be written, and yet here the novel is, soaring above all the other American realist fi ction since the Second World War.<\/p>\n

The irony of the novel\u2019s richness, however, is that the better I grasp the import of each individual sentence, the less able I am to articulate what grand, global meaning all these local meanings might be serving. There\u2019s fi nally a kind of horror to an overload of meaning. It\u2019s closely akin, as Melville suggests in \u201cThe Whiteness of the Whale\u201d in Moby- Dick<\/em>, to a total whiteout absence of meaning. It\u2019s also, not incidentally, a leading symptom of diseased mental states. Manics and schizophrenics and depressives often suff er from the conviction that absolutely everything in their lives is fraught with significance\u2014 so fraught, indeed, that tracking and deciphering and organizing the significance can overwhelm the actual living of life. In the case of Otto and especially of Sophie (who is urged by two different doctors to seek psychiatric treatment), the reader is not the only one who\u2019s overwhelmed. The Bentwoods themselves are highly literate, thoroughly modern characters. Their curse is that they\u2019re all too well equipped to read themselves as literary texts dense with overlapping meanings. In the course of one late- winter weekend they become oppressed and finally overwhelmed by the way in which the most casual words and tiniest incidents feel like \u201cportents.\u201d The enormous suspense the book develops is not just a product of Sophie\u2019s dread, then, or of Fox\u2019s step by step closing of every possible avenue of escape, or of equating a crisis in a marital partnership with a crisis in a business partnership and a crisis in American urban life. More than anything else, I think, it\u2019s the slow cresting of a crushingly heavy wave of iterary significance. Sophie consciously and explicitly evokes rabidness as a metaphor for her emotional and political plight, while Otto, in his last line, even as he fi nally breaks down and cries out about how desperate he is, cannot avoid \u201cquoting\u201d (in the postmodern sense) his and Sophie\u2019s earlier conversation about Thoreau and thereby invoking all the other themes and dialogues threading through the weekend, in particular Charlie\u2019s vexing of the issue of \u201cdesperation\u201d: how much worse than simply being desperate it is to be desperate and also to be aware of the vital questions of public law and order and privilege and Thoreauvian interpretation that are entailed in that private desperation, and to feel that by breaking down you\u2019re proving Charlie Russel right, though you know in your heart he\u2019s wrong. When Sophie declares her wish to be rabid, as when Otto hurls the ink bottle, both seem to be revolting against an unbearable, almost murderous sense of the importance of their words and thoughts.Small wonder that the last actions of the book are wordless\u2014 that Sophie and Otto have \u201cceased to listen\u201d to the words streaming from the telephone, and that the thing written in ink which they turn slowly to read is a violent, wordless blot. No sooner has Fox achieved the most dazzling success at fi nding order in the nonevents of one late- winter weekend than (with the perfect gesture!) she repudiates that order.<\/p>\n

Desperate Characters<\/em> is a novel in revolt against its own perfection. The questions it raises are radical and unpleasant. What is the point of meaning\u2014 especially literary meaning\u2014 in a rabid modern world? Why bother creating and preserving order if civilization is civilization is every bit as killing as the anarchy to which it\u2019s opposed? Why not be rabid? Why torment ourselves with books? Rereading the novel for the sixth or seventh time, I feel a cresting rage and frustration with its mysteries and with the paradoxes of civilization and with the insuffi ciency of my own brain, and then, as if out of nowhere, I do get the ending, I feel what Otto Bentwood feels when he smashes the ink bottle against the wall; and suddenly I\u2019m in love all over again.<\/p>\n

Excerpt from \u201cNo End to It\u201d from<\/em> Farther Away<\/a><\/em> by Jonathan Franzen.\u00a0 Copyright \u00a9 2012 by Jonathan Franzen. Used by permission\u00a0 of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n

CAUTION: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited.\u00a0 The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Spring Revel will take place tonight! In anticipation of the event, the Daily is featuring a series of essays celebrating Paula Fox, who is being honored this year with The Paris Review\u2019s Hadada Prize. The following is excerpted from an essay that originally ran as the introduction to Desperate Characters. A book that has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":512,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[489],"tags":[478,10521,2825,9683,20540],"class_list":["post-50231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","tag-criticism","tag-desperate-characters","tag-excerpt","tag-paula-fox","tag-the-revel"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPaula Fox, Fighting Perfection by Jonathan Franzen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"April 9, 2013 \u2013 Our Spring Revel will take place tonight! In anticipation of the event, the Daily is featuring a series of essays celebrating Paula Fox, who is being\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection by Jonathan Franzen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"April 9, 2013 \u2013 Our Spring Revel will take place tonight! In anticipation of the event, the Daily is featuring a series of essays celebrating Paula Fox, who is being\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-09T18:40:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-04-09T20:10:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"290\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"450\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jonathan Franzen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jonathan Franzen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jonathan Franzen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/68e0e8aba1eeedfe88cb76905b898f84\"},\"headline\":\"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-09T18:40:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-09T20:10:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/\"},\"wordCount\":1537,\"commentCount\":5,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"criticism\",\"Desperate Characters\",\"excerpt\",\"Paula Fox\",\"The Revel\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Books\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/\",\"name\":\"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection by Jonathan Franzen\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-04-09T18:40:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-09T20:10:43+00:00\",\"description\":\"April 9, 2013 \u2013 Our Spring Revel will take place tonight! In anticipation of the event, the Daily is featuring a series of essays celebrating Paula Fox, who is being\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/68e0e8aba1eeedfe88cb76905b898f84\",\"name\":\"Jonathan Franzen\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ee4e168d0efd61b13d42a41355f61d4b16fa8cbeb02fcec98c05b2a63e5bee5c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ee4e168d0efd61b13d42a41355f61d4b16fa8cbeb02fcec98c05b2a63e5bee5c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jonathan Franzen\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jfranzen\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection by Jonathan Franzen","description":"April 9, 2013 \u2013 Our Spring Revel will take place tonight! In anticipation of the event, the Daily is featuring a series of essays celebrating Paula Fox, who is being","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection by Jonathan Franzen","og_description":"April 9, 2013 \u2013 Our Spring Revel will take place tonight! In anticipation of the event, the Daily is featuring a series of essays celebrating Paula Fox, who is being","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2013-04-09T18:40:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-04-09T20:10:43+00:00","og_image":[{"width":290,"height":450,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jonathan Franzen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jonathan Franzen","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/"},"author":{"name":"Jonathan Franzen","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/68e0e8aba1eeedfe88cb76905b898f84"},"headline":"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection","datePublished":"2013-04-09T18:40:37+00:00","dateModified":"2013-04-09T20:10:43+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/"},"wordCount":1537,"commentCount":5,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg","keywords":["criticism","Desperate Characters","excerpt","Paula Fox","The Revel"],"articleSection":["Books"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/","name":"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection by Jonathan Franzen","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg","datePublished":"2013-04-09T18:40:37+00:00","dateModified":"2013-04-09T20:10:43+00:00","description":"April 9, 2013 \u2013 Our Spring Revel will take place tonight! In anticipation of the event, the Daily is featuring a series of essays celebrating Paula Fox, who is being","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/tn_290_600_Paula_Fox_Jerry_Bauer_07112010.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/paula-fox-fighting-perfection\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Paula Fox, Fighting Perfection"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/68e0e8aba1eeedfe88cb76905b898f84","name":"Jonathan Franzen","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ee4e168d0efd61b13d42a41355f61d4b16fa8cbeb02fcec98c05b2a63e5bee5c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ee4e168d0efd61b13d42a41355f61d4b16fa8cbeb02fcec98c05b2a63e5bee5c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jonathan Franzen"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/jfranzen\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/512"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50231"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50253,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50231\/revisions\/50253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}