FArTHER

Product Information

Overall, I couldn't connect with Franzen's writing style. His prose is usually devoid of emotion and sentimentality. Even in 'formal' writing, I prefer a bit of heart and a sense of nostalgia to come across in essays and speeches. At times, I felt like a crusty English teacher, urging her student to make me feel why saving endangered bird species or whatever other cause is meaningful. In questa raccolta Jonathan Franzen ( considerato uno dei romanzieri più promettenti del panorama americano) raccoglie una serie di riflessioni avvenute dal 2007 ad oggi sugli argomenti più disparati, ma che si possono riassumere nel suo impegno ecologico a favore negli uccelli, in una serie di recensioni a grandi romanzi contemporanei, a riflessioni sulla letteratura e sul ruolo dello scrittore. when he goes to China to investigate the factory where his puffin golf club cover is made, because he loves birds sooo much... To deserve the death sentence he’d passed on himself, the execution of the sentence had to be deeply injurious to someone. To prove once and for all that he truly didn’t deserve to be loved, it was necessary to betray as hideously as possible those who loved him best, by killing himself at home and making them firsthand witnesses to his act."

This new collection of essays from Jonathan Franzen, now one of the grand men of American letters, covers mostly the later half of the 2000s. There are a number of essays here that prefigure themes latent in his novel, Freedom, and illuminate and contrast some of the thinking in that novel. Farther than Any Man does have a bit of an annoying habit of putting thoughts into people’s minds without support. For example, “The Hawaiians truly thought Cook was a god — the one thing the farm boy had always ached to be.” But had he? Had Cook ever ached to be a god? I don’t see any evidence of it, and this seems to just be something that Dugard says for dramatic affect as he pumps up his hero’s hubris to prepare him for his fall.Sabbath’s theater” и е започнал да приема Рот като приятел, а не като враг (в смисъл на литературно влияние). It was fascinating to learn through the authors words and quotations extracted from Cook's logs the experiences that both the explorers such as Cook and the many indigenous populations experienced as they encountered one another. He hits the nail on the head again in "What Makes You So Sure You're Not the Evil One?" Instead of simply listing why Alice Munro is a fantastic writer, he chooses to suggest why the Canadian author isn't a household name. He also brilliantly describes why short stories -- Munro's bread and butter -- shouldn't be dismissed by the general reading public. For instance, I was living in Seattle when his novel Freedom came out, and Time magazine put Franzen on the cover. Seattle’s weekly magazine, The Stranger, didn't like that. It ran a parody cover at Franzen's expense, and in its review section called Freedom a bloated pretentious turd (more or less). Then there was the whole Oprah debacle, which branded Franzen as an ingrate. In James Cook geval is hij de grote ontdekker van wat er niet was (terra incognita) sinds hij op zoek was naar het zuidelijke continent wat uiteindelijk niet bestond. Antarctica bleek heel klein en hij voer er rondom heen, en Nieuw Zeeland en Australie waren deels al ontdekt (Abel Tasman) en zelfs Tahiti waar Cook’s naam bijna synoniem mee is was al door een Fransman ontdekt. Paaseiland was ook al een keer bezocht (Roggeveen). Op zijn derde reis ontdekte hij hij wel de Hawai eilanden waar hij bij een tweede bezoek spijtig ook gedood werd door de lokale bevolking.

Still, Cook is a fascinating individual. The son of a pigslop, he enlisted in the Royal Navy at seventeen as a young man with no experience and no connections. Through application and ability, he rose to the rank of post-captain and became something of a media superstar. Through it all, he was a family man who rarely saw his family, a Sailor who pined for home but, when at home, found himself pining for the sea. On his voyages, of which there were three major ones with him in command, he began as an admirer of the Pacific cultures he discovered. His admiration grew into fascination, such that some in the Admiralty began to fear he'd "gone native." By the time of his last voyage, however, he'd begun to believe his own legend and started brutalizing both his own men and any islanders who defied him.I suspect that people less encumbered by loyalty have an easier time being fiction writers, but all serious writers struggle, to some extent, at some point in their lies, with the conflicting demands of good art and good personhood." Rarely, if ever, have I read a history book as compelling and as human as 'Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook'. Many people in the 1920s were convinced they were on the verge of a 'New Era', where all normal rules were suspended, and new technologies would lead to another 100 years of dazzling ultraprosperity, not unlike the 'New Economy' of the 1990s tech bubble. Franzen's first essay dissects modern technology/internet trends, in particular FaceBook's (and now others') 'Like' feature. He pulls apart the desire to be likeable, and the need to be real, contrasting having many 'likes' to being genuine. This stunning picture book by significant author Grahame Baker-Smith won the Kate Greenaway medal in 2011 and explores the relationship between a father a son. Close inspection of the text and illustrations provides subtle links to World War One and ancient Greece, in particular the story of Icarus, as well as strong links to the DT curriculum. There are many opportunities to discuss family relationships, memories and following your dreams. Links and themes:

We've all heard of him but to most, he's just a name. The introduction here casually explains why this is so. I think a brilliant example from my own experience is Captain Cook's restaurant at the Polynesian Resort in Disney World. Many people think it's just a play on words. Few put together that the real Captain Cook explored large areas of Polynesia. It's a clever, subtle nod. I don't think elitism is the same as arrogance. Oddly, his elitism would sell better if he was genuinely arrogant. Christopher Hitchens was arrogant, astoundingly so, and that was half his appeal.He (Wallace) was loveable the way a child is lovable, and he was capable of returning love with a childlike purity. If love is nevertheless excluded from his work, it's because he never quite felt that he deserved to receive it. He was a lifelong prisoner on the island of himself..." (p. 40) One of the most humiliating aspects of friendship with a genius - and again, Franzen never quite says this, although he sort of implies it by some of his anecdotes - is the fact that a genius is bored most of the time, and that includes most of the time he is with you. Like I said, this is a humiliating realization. All those years I tried - the way Franzen admits that he did with Wallace - to be smart and funny - only to have my friend find far more of interest in the non-literary, the non-intellectual, the non-sober. Because, well, those people were intrinsically more interesting than my frantically patched-together quasi-intellectual-Bohemian posturings and half-baked, half-educated "opinions." It took me years to get over my own snobbery and bombast and bullshit that obscured the fact that, yep, a guy who is really good at vehicle electronics is almost always more interesting and enjoyable to spend time with than someone with an MFA full of bureaucratic (i.e. academic) or corporate ambitions - more interesting than me, I mean. Not forever, not to be roomies, but in the mere moment-to-moment encounters with other people, a genius finds those people with a grasp on the actual are far more...something. Real? Lovable? Interesting? Real lovably interesting? I don't know what, but to some extent, I do understand it now, if a bit late in the game. The author presents Cook as being somewhat caring for the indigenous parties with whom he interacted, at least on some instances . Sad to see reasonable intentions on both sides devolve into mistrust and violence. Coincidentally, I listened to this introduction while watching one of my sons' baseball game in a tiny, historic stadium in downtown Newport. Needless to say, it hooked me from the beginning.

Oh I forgot there are also some hilariously crotchety thoughts in here about technology, like literally he is mad when people end cell phone conversations with "Love you!" The biggest reason why this is so tough to review is that it's impossible not to compare this with the incomparable essayist/novelist, the late David Foster Wallace, close friend of Franzen's and the subject of two of the "essays" in this collection. In the titular "Farther Away" (easily the best of the bunch) Franzen discusses his quest to observe a rare bird on a remote island off tbe Chilean coast, then (quite effectively) shifts the focus to his friendship with DFW. It's a truly heartbreaking story, and it (along with a speech given by Franzen at a memorial service for DFW) is a fitting tribute to one of the best writers of our generation.

Give AI a Try!

Then there's love. Wallace, apparently, didn't know what love is, just like that singer from Foreigner: