There seems to be a bit of a culture war going on at Time magazine. First it praised a novelist and his novel, a work containing what has to be one of the most disgusting sexual passages ever written in a work of “literature.” Then its online Newsfeed service mocked that praise.
Here’s how the magazine reviewed Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom on August 12, 2010:
Franzen isn’t the richest or most famous living American novelist, but you could argue — I would argue — that he is the most ambitious and also one of the best. His third book, The Corrections, published in 2001, was the literary phenomenon of the decade. His fourth novel, Freedom, will arrive at the end of August. Like The Corrections, it’s the story of an American family, told with extraordinary power and richness.
Hey, based on that review you might assume that Freedom is one hell of a novel. Yet there seems to be disagreement about that even within the Time family. On Friday, its online Newsfeed website said:
Jonathan Franzen has been lavished with praise — and if TIME says he’s good, he must be — so NewsFeed was ever so slightly disappointed to learn that he’s been nominated for the tongue-in-cheek prize, dished out by the Literary Review for — ahem — the most embarrassing passage of sexual description in a novel.
Our only dispute with Literary Review is that they deem the passage merely “embarrassing.” No. Accidentally leaving your fly open in public is embarrassing. Intentionally writing, in fact, taking nine years to carefully craft every word of this novel is not embarrassing, it’s an indictment of the author and any magazine that praises it.
Newsfeed notes that “Freedom, which is ostensibly about the breakdown of an American family, was singled out by judges for a depiction of a ‘phone sex’ encounter.”
CONTENT ALERT: The following passage from Freedom is graphic, disgusting and, considering that it took nine years to write, pretty poorly written. We are taking the liberty of italicizing and dyslexia-izing several words not because we want to censor it, but because we don’t want Google’s algorithyms to tag us as a porn site.
OK. Ready? Here’s the offending passage with key words italicized and dyslexia-ized.
One afternoon, as Connie described it, her excited lcitoirs grew to be eight inches long, a protruding pencil of tenderness with which she gently parted the lips of his pneis and drove herself down to the base of its shaft. Another day, at her urging, Joey described to her the sleek warm neatness of her utrds as they slid from her anus and fell into his open mouth, where, since these were only words, they tasted like excellent dark chocolate.
Literary Review said that Franzen exhibits a “propensity for innuendo which comes over a bit Benny Hill.” We say that is an insult to Benny Hill.
The tongue-in-cheek (perhaps a poor choice of words in this case) prize is awarded to ”draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.”
Is it a sign that we’re making progress in the culture war when the online edition of Time attacks the print edition of Time for praising this author and this novel? Or is the very existence of this novel a sign that we’re losing ground?
Source: Newsfeed
This post was last modified on January 26, 2021
View Comments (14)
From that Franzen written paragraph, even more offensive than that "sex act" is the writing - absolutely putrid!
Good to know. I won't be wasting my time on that feeble work.
Turns out that my lunatic liberal mother-in-law gave the book to Mrs Editor. To her credit, she read about ten pages, said "This is garbage" and threw it away. And to her credit, she did it before seeing the paragraph in question.
She clearly is smarter than about 70% of Americans. Congratulations (mrs, not the MIL)
Don't lie. She turned right to that passage because your mother in law left the sticky note on that page.
That's just nasty...
Maybe my mind's just in the gutter...
I wouldn't put it past the old wacko. The mother-in-law, that is, not the Mrs.
The American Civil War.
The French Civil War.
The Youtube Civil War.
Now we have the TIME Civil War.
From my bio: "I believe in capital punishment. In fact, I believe it should be expanded. I believe pedophiles should be shot. And spam mailers. And Paris Hilton. I believe that 99% of all TV is bullshit, and that the castaways would have killed Gilligan at some point, probably after he ruined their fourth or fifth attempts at being rescued. I believe that salads actually make you gain weight, because that's what the fat ladies in the lunch room seem to be eating all the time. I believe in cheese on burgers and cheese on pizza, but 'cheese cake' is just plain wrong. And speaking of cheese, I believe that commercials for products that help stop yeast infections, as well as all feminine hygiene products, should only be allowed on television during Oprah and soaps. That way, if any guy sees one he’s getting what he deserves."
Today, I add to the list of death penalty offenses - any hack who pens the line "protruding pencil of tenderness".
Johnathan Franzen is a vertper who needs his clestesti removed.
Bailiff! Wack his eep eep!
Remember back in the late 80's early 90's or so when Maplethorpe's photographic essay was making its rounds to cities far and wide, and all of it was about deviant gay behavior, replete with fists, objects, etc? That was a "probing" attack by the progressives to see if it was "time" to really unload the uber-gayness on the world, and to start turning the US into a modern sodom/gammorah. Well, here we are-and it is here-and it is us, and we are at fault, for not standing up all along and screaming that disgusting "shit" like this would not be acceptable.
When I was a kid, we could play outside til 11 at night-without worrying too much about reprobates driving around and abducting kids. Nowadays, I watch my kids like a hawk, gun in small of my back, when they are in my own back yard. Why? Because our society is DONE. One cannot watch the evening news in the most rural of towns in the US, and not hear about abductions, drug raids, murders, and prostitution stings.
Its over guys-especially for you guys in the west-as your voters all just said that you like it this way-and please make it worse! Same goes for some of the east.
Run, don't walk for the exits. Move your companies to off=shore locals where this kind of filth is not allowed-or be prepared for the outcome-which is stuff like this at your neighbor's house, your kids' schools, and in your own back yard when you aren't looking!
"Is it a sign that we’re making progress in the culture war when the online edition of Time attacks the print edition of Time for praising this author and this novel? Or is the very existence of this novel a sign that we’re losing ground?"
It means that documentary "Idiocracy" that came out a few years ago was on the mark.
That's it in a nutshell, secular/liberalism run amuck. This is the end result of the world veiw of the progressive left, urdsta sliding into your outhma. Oh and you will like it because its "art". Vile and disgusting, and this sort of revolting garbage that posesses not one shred of redeeming or uplifting value will be given some award by some pantywaist leftist literary critic. And we are to hail and laud these degenerate perverts as brilliant????? I don't think so.
I think I will go and throw up now.
Was this a novel length version of "The Aristocrats" ?
it was "2 girls, 1 cup" the book.
DO NOT GOOGLE THAT AT WORK.