The New Criterion
The New Criterion is probably more consistently worth reading than any other magazine in English.
- The Times Literary Supplement
Fiction ChronicleNovember 2010 Speak for yourself by Stefan Beck On Freedom, 03, A Visit from the Goon Squad & Dogfight, A Love Story. The advance copy of Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom came with a bonus CD.[1] I’m not sure what was on it. Perhaps Franzen reading his novel’s twenty-six-page prologue? A “book trailer”? A Sims™ module in which you, too, can alienate your neighbors while helping to gentrify St. Paul’s Ramsey Hill neighborhood? I’ll never know. I threw it out, to subtract a few ounces from the tare weight of this 562-page boxcar of a novel. But, as we now know, that CD was the least of the extratextual fanfare trailing Freedom into the public eye. First there was an accidental endorsement when President Obama was photographed with the book on vacation. Then came the critic ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 29 November 2010, on page 30 Copyright © 2013 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Speak-for-yourself-6418
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by Stefan Beck Reviews of Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho, Fight Song by Joshua Mohr, The Fun Parts by Sam Lipsyte, and The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud. by Stefan Beck Coverage of Lionel Asbo: State of England by Martin Amis, A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers, The Lower River by Paul Theroux, and Voss by Patrick White. by Stefan Beck On The Vanishers, by Heidi Julavits, Hope: A Tragedy, by Shalom Auslander, Gods Without Men, by Hari Kunzru, and Varamo, by César Aira. by Stefan Beck On The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta, Zone One by Colson Whitehead, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco & Cain by José Saramago. by Stefan Beck On The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Slim by Jonathan Coe, Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell & The Pale King by David Foster Wallace.
Webcasts
Poet George Green reads from his award-winning Lord Byron's Foot
Celebration of the Life of Robert H. Bork, 1927–2012
James Panero on price gouging at the Met, with Fred Dicker |
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