Althouse: "Brooklyn principles can be found anywhere that young people gather to share their search for love and meaning..."

October 6, 2007

"Brooklyn principles can be found anywhere that young people gather to share their search for love and meaning..."

"... a search that they alone are qualified to pursue by virtue of their pristine vision of the deep oneness of things. Whereas physical danger or emotional grief leaves most people lonely or ruined or dead, they triumph over adversity."

Melvin Jules Bukiet — peering from Manhattan — looks down on the Brooklyn writers like Jonathan Safran Foer, Myla Goldberg, Nicole Krauss, and Dave Eggers -- and "everything McSweeney’s." (Via A&L Daily.)

8 comments:

rhhardin said...: That doesn't explain why they say ``on line'' instead of ``in line.''; 10/6/07, 8:37 AM
Trooper York said...: -[last lines]
Rooney: [narrating] Me? I went to beautician's school where everybody graduated except me, but I got a job as a shampoo boy at Marisa's House of Hair in Bensonhurst. The hours suck; the pay sucks; I'm surrounded by 'funny guys,' but the tips are great. Thank you, God!
(Heavan Help Us 1985); 10/6/07, 8:54 AM
KCFleming said...: Damn, but that was a helluva good article.; 10/6/07, 1:30 PM
Wade Garrett said...: "Melvin Jules Bukiet is the author of seven books of fiction and the editor of three anthologies. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Manhattan, where bad things never happen."

Nothing about New York bothers me more than douchebags in one neighborhood writing masturbatory articles about how their peers in another neighborhood are douchier. It goes both ways, Brooklynites making fun of Manhattanites, Manhattanites making fun of Brooklynites, some people in Harlem making fun or one or both of the others. (Yes, I know Harlem isn't a seperate borough, but still.)

I recently blogged about this phenomenon here.; 10/6/07, 2:40 PM
Wade Garrett said...: Sorry, I know the article claims to say nice things about Brooklyn and its residents, but I can't ignore the smell of its condescension; 10/6/07, 3:00 PM
Roost on the Moon said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/6/07, 4:47 PM
Roost on the Moon said...: The paragraph-long summaries/dismissals of the books discussed, the pretend commonsense ("The only thing suffering teaches us is that we are capable of suffering."), and the naive simplicity about the nature of Serious Writing (it sharpens reality, natch)...

Crap like this article flatters its readers as surely as Eggers's wild kindness does.; 10/6/07, 4:48 PM
former law student said...: The principal problem with this article is that McSweeney's, and Dave Eggers himself, are located not in Brooklyn but in San Francisco.

Of course to Market Jule's Bucket, it's all Brooklyn, which demonstrates once again that there is no one more parochial than a Manhattanite; life endlessly recapitulates Saul Steinberg.; 10/7/07, 2:23 AM