Dmitri Nabokov, requiesact in pace ...

[Paul Mackin]

On 2/25/2012 5:01 PM, Dave Monroe wrote:
> http://en.ria.ru/culture/20120224/171497586.html
>
Interesting, Dave. Jonathan Franzen is quoted on Wallace and I think JF 
might be a good clue to what has been happening to literary writing in 
the past ten years or so.  I remember reading somewhere that JF titled 
his latest "Freedom" to reflect a resolution he had made for himself.  
This is probably inaccurate paraphrasing, but the gist of of it was that 
he was tired of what the critics has made of his previous novel, and 
from then on he was going to write exactly the way it felt right to HIM.

More broadly it seems like the idea is that that it is no longer 
necessary (if it ever was) to be ironic all the time (a Wallace 
complaint)--sincere and literal are OK now and then.  Similarly the 
postmodern/modern distinction is passe--mix and match is quite 
acceptable.  In critical circles now, oscillation seems to be the 
descriptive word.  According to Widipedia, the derivation of 
metamodernism is metaxy and Franzen may be an example.

P