+7.1: The American Scholar Smacks Down Brooklyn
Finally someone takes at the literary hipster scene and tells it like it is: one giant emo-boys-only club on a non-spiritual journey to find their inner selves. Or, as The American Scholar coins it, “something gentle this way comes.”
The American Scholars laments the “neuroses” of these young writers and remembers fondly a time when angst had more to do with living through war, living in poverty, dealing with sexual perversion, and truly dire circumstances than the events that “trigger the ‘Awww’ reflex of narcissistic empathy.”
Sure I loved Everything is Illuminated. I also loved A Heartbreaking Work when i read it back in high school (after reading a profile of Eggers in People magazine), but I also love female protagonists and crisis and feeling overwhelmed by where a story is taking me. I need the “something wicked this way comes,” too. And that’s just not something you’re likely to get from McSweeney’s.