I recently read through The New Yorker’s Fiction Issue. Reading Jonathan Franzen for the first time, I was completely taken by A Talent For Seeming. In 10,000 words, he took me back to the trailer park behind my house in college, full of stories, some dreams shattered, others resurrecting, many dead on arrival. A few more pages, and I was back at the Shattered Globe, a few feet from Alfieri as he trudged with the weighty voice of having knowledge but the sullenness of being unable to do anything with it. Both memories had registered deeper than I knew, and had surfaced thanks to Franzen.
So I looked up Crossroads on Goodreads
4.06 Rating
I read the second review
“OMG, too LOOOOOOONG!!!”
I went to B&N and found White Teeth with a buy one, get one half off sticker. No such sticker was on any Franzen novel. Didn’t stand a chance.
Kane Parsons! What a story! What grit! What originality! What talent and verve and luck and circumstance! Joy be to those who venture! I never watch horror films, but my god I must support this man. This boy! For the love of film and everything else.
Letterboxd 3.4 stars Hmmmm
The ratings. The feeds. The aggregated score and the algorithm. All people you’ve never met, never will meet, will never care to meet. Instead — text your boyfriend. Text your ex? Text your mom. Call your mom! Maybe she’ll confess to you that she doesn’t understand Miranda July’s spiel. Take her back to 924 Gilman. Ah, you remember — you’ve been meaning to watch Kajillionaire.
If you want to know if something is good — don’t open an app.
If you want to remember something you noted worthwhile — open your Curation.
