{"id":11,"date":"2001-11-08T15:03:28","date_gmt":"2001-11-08T20:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/wordpress\/highart_literary_tradition"},"modified":"2001-11-08T15:03:28","modified_gmt":"2001-11-08T20:03:28","slug":"highart_literary_tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/2001\/11\/highart_literary_tradition.html","title":{"rendered":"High-Art Literary Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nApparently Jonathan Franzen has decided that he is not<\/em> above marketing
\nhis literary masterpiece,
\n“The Corrections<\/a>“,
\nto the middlebrow Oprah plebes.\n<\/p>\n

\n“Franzen says he feels ‘awful’ about feud<\/a>”\n<\/p>\n

\nMy first reaction was HAHAHAHAHA.\n<\/p>\n

\nThen I tried sympathizing with him. Maybe he was surprised by the announcement
\nhe was going to be in the Book Club. I figure they would have asked his permission
\nfirst before going public with it. But maybe it went something like this:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n(Franzen’s cell phone rings)<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\n“Johnny! Guess what!” his breathless agent exclaims. “You’ve been picked as
\nthe next member of Oprah’s book club!”\n<\/p>\n

\n“Oh shit,” Johnny thinks. “There goes my street cred.”\n<\/p>\n

<\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n

\nSo, a bit panicked, Franzen ends up saying that the Oprah logo makes him feel
\n“uncomfortable”, and that “I feel like I?m solidly in the high-art
\nliterary tradition.” As opposed to all those other schlubs on the list who
\naren’t.\n<\/p>\n

\nNow, why exactly does one turn down an award?\n<\/p>\n

\nYou do it because you find the award so offensive<\/em>, that you would
\nrather insult the people granting you the award than accept it even
\ngrudgingly. That’s a pretty strong statement. I mean, can understand rejecting
\nan award from, say, the National Alliance book club. But why waste your
\nammunition on all those nice ladies who watch Oprah?\n<\/p>\n

\nSo far Oprah is refusing to speak with Franzen, and is presumably moving on.
\nAll I have to say is, you go, girl.\n<\/p>\n

\nOne last unrelated bit: Par Botes forwarded me a link to
\nOddTodd.com<\/a>. Maybe the funniest thing I’ve
\nseen in a couple of months. Be warned, there’s sound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first reaction was HAHAHAHAHA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goer.org\/Journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}