This & That: Farther Away

Full disclosure: I liked Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" even though all the characters were terrible people and I generally share his sentiments about the overuse of technology and its amplification of narcissism (Exhibit A: this site). His book of essays, "Farther Away," is something I stumbled upon while browsing the shelves. It doesn't reach the heights of Wallace's "Consider the Lobster" but it's an approximation. And I'd be lying if I said I read this and had no interest in what he says about Wallace.  (Because it's like talking about Eric Clapton without mentioning Jimi Hendrix; see: Do Not Mention David Foster Wallace) 

Winners:
I Just Called to Say I Love You

 The cell phone came of age on September 11, 2001. Imprinted that day on our collective consciousness was the image of cell phones as conduits of intimacy for the desperate.

Farther Away

Substantial swaths of my personal history were going dead from within, from my talking about them too often.

Pain Won't Kill You:

The prospect of pain generally, the pain of loss, of breakup, of death, is what makes it so tempting to avoid love and stay safely in the world of liking.

Loser:
The Ugly Mediterranean -- Seriously, I cannot deal with bird-watching, I don't care how elegant your prose is, I just do not care.

So, of these, I guess "I Just Called to Say I Love You" would qualify as a "typical" Franzen essay that goes off against technology and how the world is falling into disarray because of iPhones and the internet and whatever else. But why does everyone always pile on and criticize him for writing about that!? Because it's complaining? Because it's pretentious to not like Twitter and ebooks? (Jonathan Franzen Still Doesn't Like the Internet) All things in moderation here. Yes, technology has done great things and connected the world and kickstarted Reading Rainbow, but let's also all agree that technology's given us a bajillion twerking videos and duck-face instagrams. It's entirely possible I would've wasted that minute of my life doing something equally unproductive and banal, but the pervasiveness of techno-entertainment today makes it difficult to do things in The Real World, In Real Time, With Real People.

Bottom line: Preferred "The Corrections" to this collection.