Your Moment of Bobo

Apparently, David Brooks’ ability to disguise propaganda as literary criticism might exceed his ability to disguise propaganda as restaurant criticism:

Whereas Myers only tells one major lie about the book’s content and characters—stating that “of the four main characters, only Walter has a real job” (when in actuality Franzen’s characters main and minor are universally not only gainfully employed, but unusually industrious and devoted to their jobs)—Brooks manages to pack nine material misstatements about the book’s plot into a mere 73 words…

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Now, what is truly brilliant about the above is that every single one of those things is either a dominant theme or a conspicuous subtext of Freedom (and you can scroll down to see my detailed annotations if you really care.) It makes you wonder why Brooks didn’t just go ahead and add “the inimitable joys of semi-functional family life” to the list! (Maybe someone’s editor actually read The Corrections?) It’s as if the guy read a Candace Bushnell novel just so he could tell his readers that, “important new book” though it may be, the leaden plot was woefully lacking in references to female friendship, casual sex, meals consumed in trendy restaurants, ludicrously expensive anti-aging ointments and/or cosmetic surgery procedures, homosexuals, frivolity in general, and even more disappointingly he found no instances of product placement or the word “fabulous” in any of its 256 pages (and also what was up with everyone in the book insisting on going barefoot everywhere?)

It’s not exactly news that Brooks the Hack won a 1st-round knockout years ago, but…