Test Driving Novels, In This Case “Purity”

I enjoy reading short stories in The New Yorker and then commenting on them – if and when I think I have anything to say. But some New Yorker stories are not really stand-alone fiction. Rather, they are excerpts from forthcoming novels.

For instance, back in March, I wrote about “Sweetness,” a story by Toni Morrison that was taken from her novel “God Help the Child,”  published soon thereafter. In that case, I wasn’t focused on sampling the book, but rather on the story's take on racial prejudice. 

 

Jonathan Fanzen, often hailed as the latest Great American Novelist, recently published “Purity,” a sweeping, 563-page tale of personal angst, inter-personal strife and great events. Reviews have been generally positive, but clearly, this isn’t a book for everyone.

Hand-Wringers, Conversation and the Future of Fiction

In a recent post, I wondered whether contemporary digital culture, and the short attention spans that seem to go with it, are a threat to serious fiction.  That, in the view of novelist Jonathan Franzen, puts me in the category of “literary hand-wringers.”  Well, all right, maybe just “hand-wringers.”

I came across the category in Franzen’s extensive review of “Reclaiming Conversation,” a new book by MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who is described as having close ties with the world of technology and thus launches her latest critique of the tech world’s impact on society with more credibility than might otherwise be the case.