Pernicious Individualism
If anything, Emerson’s transparent eyeball is now a webcam hacked by the NSA. Over at Lit Hub, Jonathon Sturgeon writes about the supposedly rampant and undying force of individualism in American…
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jonathon sturgeon
16 posts
You’d Prefer Not To
The Internet has been abuzz with grammatically incorrect chatter since the New York Times recently published an article heralding the end of the period. But Flavorwire’s Jonathon Sturgeon doesn’t expect…
Lerner, too, Dislikes It
Over at Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon gives us a write-up of Ben Lerner’s new monograph, The Hatred of Poetry: a loathful ode to that to which we are in debt. And,…
Maybe-True, Half-Hearted Hemingway in Havana
Papa: Hemingway in Cuba is a recently released film from director Bob Yari following the maybe-true misadventures of the late Hemingway and his years in Cuba, where he lived, drank,…
The Story Behind the Story
At this stoplight, you might begin to think, “I’ve been here before, there is nothing new to notice.” But it seems to me that we actually live here, and we…
Wires Crossed
By this point, the relationship between books and television is complicated enough to merit its own Netflix series. Or its own book. Or maybe both: Like lovers who share an…
Eating at the Table of Another
The critic giveth and he taketh away. In his review of Better Living Through Criticism, Jonathon Sturgeon counters A.O. Scott’s aversion to the idea of the critic as parasite: Maybe…
Imagine That
Like every other year, in 2015 we wrestled with the knowledge of our constructed selves. But rather than eschew personhood as a postmodernist might, we considered just who we’ve been…
Liberty, Justice
From Freedom to Purity, there’s no denying the man likes his themes. Over at Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon reviews Jonathan Franzen’s forthcoming novel: Does Franzen truly believe his readers need to…
It’s Time to Rethink Everything
At Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon presents an excerpt of Tim Parks’s new book, Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books. In the excerpted section, Parks questions the simple idea of…
The Joy of Knausgaard
For Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon works to define “contemporary” literature and wonders where Karl Knausgaard’s My Struggle fits into the mix. What he ultimately argues is that contemporary literature is often “project based,” and that…
Factory Fiction
For all our worrying about essay-writing robots, it’s easy to overlook the Fordist production models already in place in the publishing industry. Over at Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon considers the implications…