Of civic and literary unrest.

A couple things have caught my attention this week. One is this article in The Economist about thugs taking on protestors that was told from the perspective of a reporter who also ran into trouble with the local government enforcers. The original piece was interesting but it became even more so when this article appeared in The Chicago Tribune yesterday that centered on the exact same situation only this time it was centered on the translator who was working for the reporter who wrote the Economist piece. Holy crossing streams Dr. Venkman!

Another piece that I finally read in my effort to (and I’m almost there) catch up on all my reading of the periodicals that march without pause through my mail-slot was Ben Marcus’ response to Jonathan Franzen’s recent “attacks” on expiremental fiction in Harper’s. While I’ve read just about all the essays Marcus is responding to, I’m not so certain that Franzen is really hell-bent on some mission to destroy fiction that isn’t firmly in the realist mold. Franzen does certainly prefer realism, and I know I’ve referenced his philosophy vis a vis difficult writers (in particular Gaddis) on this site previously so maybe I’m a bit biased in Franzen’s favor.

However I do think Marcus makes a number of excellent points – especially about Franzen’s mean little piece about the FC2 collective – so I guess my internal jury is still out on this debate. I’ve linked to an excerpt and will certainly clue you in when a full transcript appears but I really do recommend shooting out and picking up the latest issue of Harper’s to read the whole thing for yourself. We don’t get that much “scholarly” back-and-forth in the “popular” press these days so it’s kind of fun when someone throws down the gauntlet.

Extra credit goes to folks who glean a little more background by studying up on this on-line “debate” – though it might be better termed as a mutual masturbation session in which neither party gets any relief -- between Franzen and New Yorker editor Ben Greenman.

Okay, you’ve all done enough work for today, now it’s time to go have fun (trust me and read this whole fictional account in which I make an appearance with quite the DJ set-list and it's pretty hee-larious) and I’ll see you tomorrow.