Tuesday, April 15, 2008

"All the Sad Young Literary Men"

2nd\NE The Approval Matrix


By Minnesota Daily\Kara Nesvig

"All the Sad Young Literary Men" is the story of Sam, Mark and Keith, three regular guys whose stories kind of intertwine and kind of don't. Sam is obsessed with Israel and writing the next big "Zionist epic" as his Google search results dwindle with every passing day, while Mark veers toward the heavy realm of Russian literature and Internet porn. Keith (not much of a stretch to imagine him as an alter-ego for the Russian-born author) has a sharp passion for politics and a failed engagement.

It's so steeped in our current culture that the stories could be taking place right now on any college-town street corner; only the faces and ambitions are shifted. These are men who spend hours in Starbucks, obsessively check their Google search engine results, and discover the ins and outs of Internet dating. Gessen could very well have been sitting in a curbside café observing the words and actions of real-life literary men. They're just like your griping grad student friends.

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