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Reading the Paris Review interview I was pretty shocked by this statement: “ I don’t know if it’s a biggest fear, but I think everything is really boring right now. I find it hard to muster the energy to write about contemporary culture anymore. There is also a lot of droning competence—work that is pretty good but that lacks a sense of purpose or strangeness, or any reason to actually look at it. Nor does any of this work seem to represent some horrible trend or tendency that it’s nevertheless fruitful to discuss, as bad writers of the very recent past did. Everyone seems to be going through the motions.”

That is so wild and unbelievable to me when I’ve been reading the most purposeful thoughtful expansive books and writing of my life. Contemporary literature is pushing the novel so far ahead, our era of storytelling is at the START of a renaissance, that’s what I see when I put my critiquing hat on, and despite the capitalism of it which will always be there as long as money is. It really makes me doubt she is reading enough books by people of color, queer people, indigenous people and especially Black women, and books from other countries. Or even by authors named Paul, cuz three Pauls were up for a Booker which surely is a record. If you just read David Foster Wallace over and over again no wonder you think our culture is stagnant. Yo, we are light years from David Foster Wallace. (No offense)

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