quote · Legacy record
In order to justify their claim on our attention, the organs of mass culture and information are compelled to offer something "new" on a daily, indeed hourly, basis. Although good novelists don't deliberately seek out trends, many of them feel a responsibility to pay attention to contemporary issues, and they now confront a culture in which almost all of the issues are burned out almost all the time. The writer who wants to tell a story about society that's true not just in 1996 but in 1997 as well can find herself at a loss for solid cultural referents. What's topically relevant while she's planning the novel will almost certainly be passé by the time it's written, rewritten, published, distributed, and read.
In order to justify their claim on our attention, the organs of mass culture and information are compelled to offer something "new" on a daily, indeed hourly, basis. Although good novelists don't deliberately seek out trends, many of them feel a responsibility to pay attention to contemporary issues, and they now confront a culture in which almost all of the issues are burned out almost all the time. The writer who wants to tell a story about society that's true not just in 1996 but in 1997 as well can find herself at a loss for solid cultural referents. What's topically relevant while she's planning the novel will almost certainly be passé by the time it's written, rewritten, published, distributed, and read.
Approximate author period: c. 1959 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Jonathan Franzen
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1959 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from documented birth year 1959; activity date not established; Wikidata Q316607, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q316607 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 166596; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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