It's Time to Talk About Foer's Writing

Slate culture chief Meghan O'Rourke paired off with Ruth Franklin of The New Republic to discuss Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close this week, with O'Rourke declaring early on that Jonathan Safran Foer "intuitively 'gets' how and why a novelist should write about 9/11: to tell a story about the effects of that day on the imaginative lives of the people who went on afterward; a story in which the events of the day are not merely a lurid plot point but the engine for subtle transformation." It's a shame TNR didn't open up their digital archives to let readers see Franklin's earlier thoughts on the possibilities of the 9/11 genre, but she writes quite effectively here about her ambivalence with the novel, even as she comes to appreciate Foer's talent.

And, of course, I'm thrilled to see Slate citing The Elegant Variation when they reference "the whole Foer phenomenon," proof positive that somebody out there in Medialand is reading the blogs and paying attention. Or Mark's blog, anyway.