FArTHER

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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.

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." Spelling Seeds have been designed to complement Writing Roots by providing weekly, contextualised sequences of sessions for the teaching of spelling that include open-ended investigations and opportunities to practise and apply within meaningful and purposeful contexts, linked (where relevant) to other areas of the curriculum and a suggestion of how to extend the investigation into home learning. Jonathan Franzen is a man of specific interests: birds and books. These essays are about various bird watching trips, and specific plays or novels that normal people have never heard of. Listened to the audiobook on my commute to and from work this week. It still strikes me as very much a mixed bag--"I Just Called to Say I Love You" especially is a very profound and moving meditation on technology and our interpersonal relationships, and the Christina Stead essay is very good as well. Otherwise, meh.

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 second essay of note is on autobiographical fiction and contains an interesting and informative insight into Mr. Franzen's working methods. The book is worth reading for this essay alone, especially if you're a writer or interested in the art of writing. Franzen brings up Wallace's lying and betrayals. This too was a humiliating aspect of my friendship with a genius. Many's the time I waited for him to show up to our little "writer's group" only to have him not. Something else came along. Or he forgot. Or, later on, he started drinking. The lying, not so much perhaps, but, perhaps more because of the drinking than anything else, it too came up. Dismaying! One of the most ruthlessly intellectually and emotionally honest people I've ever known would resort to lying and cheap excuse-mongering. His girlfriends suffered far more than I did from these things, but it was still dismaying. Lizbeth got arrested on her second trip to Greece the following year due to legal complications. In a horrible turn of events, on May 20, 1996, the Greek courts reversed their previous judgment and temporarily granted the girls’ custody to Grigorios. Lizbeth discovered that he had filed a petition to prove her an unsuitable mother and hence the decision changed. Later, after a lot of push and pull with the government officials and legal bodies and with some support from authorities, Lizbeth finally gained rightful custody of Meredith and Marianthi.

Cook was a very appealing character (at first anyway). He was an ambitious lower class farm boy who, with nothing but his wits, work ethic, courage, and excellent character, rose to become one of the most famous sailers of all time. Martin Dugard is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of the Taking Series — including Taking Berlin (2022) and Taking Paris (2021).I do recommend this book for the historical content and the understanding of the machinations and political intrigue that underscored such adventures which was surprising to me.

A version of this unique book was the winner of Best Animated Short Film at the 2011 Oscars. A boy is out walking on the beach, when he spots a weird looking thing - it looks lost. The boy asks around, but nobody seems to know where it came from, so the boy begins a quest to find the thing somewhere to call home. This memorable picture book can be enjoyed on…

Title piece “Farther Away” documents Franzen’s pilgrimage to Alejandro Selkirk Island (where the real-life Robinson Crusoe was stranded) to experience solitude, find some rare birds, and scatter his friend David Foster Wallace’s ashes. Franzen believes Wallace was right to posit “fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude. Fiction was his way off the island.” I particularly enjoyed Franzen's rants on literary interviews, then grammar (read it to get the in joke). Whatever the topic Franzen writes with enjoyable fluid prose that prevented me from putting the book down (OK figure of speech, closing the kindle on my laptop) It must have been hard for Cook. I know how I am. I'll take the admiration without the effort. The minute I actually have to earn admiration from someone, then I feel it's over. You should admire me *more* because of my effort. My ego is unbearable. Cook wanted to be a legend. He wanted to be in the history books. Yet his third voyage at the height of his fame was disastrous. Here is a man with all the pressure hanging over his head thinking he's returning to greatness while the world itself has been in constant change. There's a moment where, after resorting to brutality finally, he is invited to a grand feast. It was actually a plot to kill him and his men which didn't pan out. He was oblivious to the danger.