Franzen, Baxter, David Shields...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/sep/30/his-glory-and-his-curse/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailmarketingsoftware&utm_content=889531253&utm_campaign=September302010issue&utm_term=HisGloryandHisCurse

Charles Baxter, a writers whose clean work I much like, has a piece on Franzen that looks eminently sensible, he mentions in passing one idiot by the name of David Shields saying that he wont even bother to read Franzen since he knows ahead of time what to expect. I happen to know this idiot from the UW IMA, turns out that he really liked the work of three people to whom I had been and, in one instance, still am very close: Renata Adler, the no longer with us Frank  Conroy [Stop-Times, Mid Air, of Time and Tide - now if ever there was a last book with which to fade away] and Handke's GOALIE'S ANXIETY. Turns out that by now, without of course reading, the David Shields idiot is also not interested in what Handke, the complete virtuoso of any effect you might wish for, does. Alas, I did read Shield's MANIFESTO, if ever there was a monkey, all he knows is how to bang a hollow steel drum.