Apple Bonkers' Journal

Short Story in The New Yorker
So, again I am at a loss for words tonight, and although LJ's "Writer's Block" feature urges users to describe a perfect world, I don't much feel like doing that. I think my feelings about that can be summed up in four words: peace, love, tolerance, and equality.

Instead, I'll say that I read an interesting piece of short fiction in The New Yorker today called "Raj, Bohemian." This New Yorker is a few weeks old. Last year I was pretty good to keeping up with my New Yorkers (it's my favorite backstage reading), but this year, not so much. Being a new graduate student has something to do with that. So, the stacks are piling up, and I grabbed one for something to read on the bus to a very nice dim sum gathering at Vegi Garden in Sunnyvale, which doesn't seem to have a Web site I can link to. Anyway, that's a tangent. The story is written by Hari Kunzu, who according to the contributor page has written three novels, and his style really grabbed me. Even when I do read my New Yorkers regularly, I rarely get past two or three paragraphs of the fiction. It's an awfully cynical story, in which the young narrator starts to notice something odd about his friends sharing with him a particular brand of vodka, or having him listen to a new band, or recommending a certain massage parlor for his noticeable stress. One character in the story actually utters the phrase "monetize her social networks." We keep our friends in our lives for many, many reasons - I like to think that monetary gain doesn't make the list.

Current Mood: busy

Advertisement