Jonathan Franzen’s 10 Rules
for Novelists
Number Eight Just Makes Us Sad
The few lessons I’ve learned about writing essays all came from my editor at The New Yorker, Henry Finder. I first went to Henry, in 1994, as a would-be journalist in pressing need of money. Largely through dumb luck, I produced a publishable article about the U.S. Postal Service
https://us.macmillan.com/excerpt?isbn=9780374147938
How had the short-fingered vulgarian reached the White House? When Hillary Clinton started speaking in public again, she lent credence to a like-goes-with-like account of her character by advancing a this-followed-that narrative. Never mind that she’d mishandled her emails and uttered the phrase “basket of deplorables.” Never mind that voters might have had legitimate grievances with the liberal elite she represented; might have failed to appreciate the rationality of free trade, open borders, and factory automation when the overall gains in global wealth came at middle-class expense; might have resented the federal imposition of liberal urban values on conservative rural communities. According to Clinton, her loss was the fault of James Comey–maybe also of the Russians.
NEVER MIND SHE WON THE POPULAR VOTE
and it was the fault of those things
this essay is all over the place and not particularlly insihgtluf or even knoweldgaebl. the shirky stuff is bonkers.
he just contradicted himself on cimate change and hte left.
the end of literature, novels, essays is an evergreen.
Posted on November 16, 2018