Once again I have to remove myself from civilization for a few days to write a paper. This time, it’ll be the longest paper I’ve ever written, and it’ll be on a subject I don’t feel I’ve adequately researched.
Really, this is just to let you know I’m still here, but I’ve been too harried to blog lately. Things will return to normal after Tuesday.
In the meantime, speaking of Tuesday, all y’all need to go to Park Tavern on Tuesday night to see a free showing of Taken for a Ride.
I came across your blog after finishing The Twenty-Seventh City, by Jonathan Franzen. I was looking to see what other people thought of the novel, and although it appears that you read it over two years ago, the novel, I hope, should still have some meaty relevance to your particular disposition. For me, however, I only became aquatinted with the novel just recently, through the massive popularity of Franzen’s Corrections novel. Needless to say, I was (and am) a big fan of The Corrections and ultimately proceeded to search out other books Franzen had written.
The Twenty-Seventh City is better than good Š it is incredibly ambitious, beguiling at turns, and cast in the mold of an epic grander than reality would ever bear out. Unfortunately, for me at least, it was also bloated; so heavy was its narrative enterprise that it began to sag at its edges, nearly making its conclusion indecipherable and, retrospectively, its beginnings fugitive. What made Jammu tick? A question that will forever remain elusive.
But before I bore you, for fear that I may already have, I have a book recommendation: The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro. In your life time, with your professional aspirations, this book will be indispensable. It is the Biography of Robert Moses, the man that built New York. (I capitalize Biography because this book is an achievement) Though, I doubt that you havenÕt already heard his name.
Comment by Frank Gehry — July 30, 2005 @ 3:03 pm
Thanks, Frank, for your recommendation. You’re the second person to recommend the book to me.
I just finished watching the PBS series “New York,” which featured Robert Caro prominently among the folks they interviewed. I had previously known about Robert Moses, Le Corbusier, and Jane Jacobs, but it hadn’t all been put together before, especially not in quite the way the series did.
I look forward to reading “The Power Broker” someday
Comment by Joe Winter — July 31, 2005 @ 7:31 am