How To Be Alone

Just back from the city, where I saw Gloria Deluxe play and Anne Carson read with Christine Hume at the Poetry Project. I also wandered around used bookstores to stay out of the rain, almost bought a book called "Never Let Me Go" but was prompted by my date to buy the aforementioned book of essays by Jonathan Franzen instead, the irony of which seemed to be lost on him. The date that is, not much is lost on Franzen, although he admits to not reading all that much himself. There are moments when I felt less "isolated" by his "intellectually engaging self-awareness" as the Times Review touted, but I ultimately felt a little more lonely reading him because he reminded me of the smart, self-absorbed men I've gone out with in the past, who go on just a little too long about a subject, who are a little mad at me for their desire, a little too interested in their own intellect and self awareness, and who ultimately failed to never let me go. I almost wrote him a letter once, after his remarkably self-absorbed review of Alice Munro's Runaway, in which he seemed to think it was sufficiently interesting to the reader to proclaim that he liked her books, and didn't seem to feel a need to talk about the books themselves. I wanted to tell him that if he turned some of that awareness and intellect to the actual content of her writing, he'd say that her genius is in articulating the complex inner life of women, which is the element decidedly missing from his own writing, good as it is.

Now, back to nursing my cold and making another damn syllabus. I'm too lazy to link right now, but at least you know I do have thoughts beyond literary scandals and abc mini-series.