Like, I don’t know you, Jonathan Franzen, so you could be a really nice guy. You could also be a complete dick.

I don’t mean to shit on your work. Maybe I missed something. Maybe it somehow flew over my head.

The thing is, I have a really good bullshit detector. When someone’s full of it, I pick up on it pretty damn fast. I called Donald’s rise to fascism the day he rode down that fucking escalator.

So when I see pretentious bullshit being lauded as genius, I get a little pissed.

It’s not that you can’t be a little pretentious. Look at Chuck Palahniuk or Radiohead. The difference there is that they’ve infused depth and meaning and real heart and guts into their work. It’s not just an intellectual exercise to give the appearance of infinite genius, like modern art or Moulin Rouge.

There’s a reason I’ll take the Vandals over Rush any day. And I’m Canadian.

(Rush is bullshit – there’s like two good songs, the rest is show-offy prog rock borefests. Sorry, other Canadians. You’ve got shit taste. Fuckin’ Nickelback, for Pete’s sake).

Anyway, maybe I missed the heart and guts and fun and investment and meaning of this book. Maybe you had a real vision you were passionate about.

Unfortunately, it still comes across like a rough idea that you tried to flesh out in the middle of writing it, but couldn’t keep track and then realized a lot of shit didn’t matter, characters didn’t behave how you needed them to behave and rather than going back and editing to make it all work, you just got bored of it and said fuck it. You even put your lack of care and abandonment of the idea in the book.

You were the voting public, who barely turned up and didn’t give a shit.

So why should we?

Did I just crack the riddle of what people saw in it?

Five hundred pages of poorly written setup, just to give up?

This reminds me of the time I watched No Country For Old Men and it was all build up, and then just ended, abruptly, pointlessly, in a monstrous letdown.

And the Coen brothers I like.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 436 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Comics: Gen 13 v2 45-47, Gen 13: A Christmas Caper 1
Music: The Fallout, Default