It's apparently Odd Review Day: Sarfraz Manzoor reviews the new Bruce Springsteen album alongside Philip Roth, while Rebecca Traister at Salon loses some sort of bet and has to review Springsteen alongside Susan Faludi's new book:
Both Faludi and Springsteen have always specialized in seeing the personal in the political and vice versa. Faludi tends to see dysfunction, in ways that have been exceedingly useful in the past, as they are here. Her failure this time is in her refusal to acknowledge the upside. Springsteen, of course, has always been a hope peddler, if not an optimist. Laced throughout both these texts are frustration, bewilderment, a desire to shake the country by its shoulders. With Faludi, the sense is that none of this comes as a surprise, she is just Charlie Brown kicking the football, only to have it yanked out from under her by a country that is still, yup, sexist. So it was written by Cotton Mather, so it will be post 9/11.Amazon.
For Springsteen, the realization that "this is what will be" is both more startling and more painful. He is, like Walt Whitman before him, pained at the vision of his beloved nation torn asunder.
Both writers are furious. And I sort of want to tell them: Have a little faith. But maybe this is a moment in which there is little to believe in, and a lot to fear.
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