the bookstore seems like a good place to meet people, yeah? and by people, i, of course, mean GIRLZ. because, if yer like me, and lookin' for smart chix or, at least, wimmen lookin' to expand their horizons, that does seem to be the place, though in these days of the bookstore cafe, who can say for sure? i mean, really. beyond judging them on their face and bodies, you can also tell if she's "the one" or not by what she reads (and if it's magazines, she needs to be really hot.) tonight, i was looking for a gurl who's turned on by men who read jonathan franzen novels, whose the corrections i purchased this eve. i'd read a number of reviews brimming with praise for the book -- it's this year's "it" book, or so "it" seems -- but when i saw blurbs from don delillo and david foster wallace on it, i was sold (the oprah's book club seal for postmodern heads). i'll report back on this when i've finished it.

oh, speaking of franzen, here's a link to an essay he wrote in harper's several years ago called "perchance to dream: in the age of images, a reason to write novels." prior to the corrections, it's what made his name in the lit world. it bemoans the death of the socially engaged novel, which he believed was done in by television, that medium leading people to want pure entertainment from their novels

at the other end of the spectrum is b.r. myers' "a reader's manifesto." while franzen is in mourning, myers is dancing on the grave of the "literary" novel. he attacks many of the people mentioned (and lauded!) in franzen's essay for being pretentious and for obfuscating the language needlessly. he calls for readers to rise up and call a spade a spade and hopes to see a return to the days of james joyce and virginia woolf.

so...who's right?