Jonathan Segura

Whatever. Nevermind.
May 7, 2007

So I was pretty hungover while flipping through the NYTBR this weekend, and thusly had to read twice the following bit from Ben Kunkel's review of the new Nirvana bio:

But such a voice is hard to sustain in another sense: it is difficult to hold on, from year to year, to all the strength and pain of being young. It is also difficult to remain quite so completely confused. Yet there is honor in confusion — since figuring out how you feel usually means abandoning one of your truths. And the adolescent, like the artist transformed into a commodity, is right to be confused: right to want to be popular; right to be contemptuous of popularity; right to hate the faults in himself that make his popularity undeserved; and right also to hope that winning a deserved popularity might actually redeem, for a time, the entire category of the popular.

Because the first time through, I coulda sworn it read like this:

But such a voice is hard to sustain in another sense: it is difficult for me, Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision to hold on, from year to year, to all the strength and pain of being young. It is also difficult for me, Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision to remain quite so completely confused. Yet there is honor in confusion — since figuring out how you--you, meaning me, Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision--feel usually means abandoning one of your truths. And the adolescent, like the artist transformed into a commodity (that would again be me, Benjamin Kunkel, author of Indecision), is right to be confused: right to want to be popular; right to be contemptuous of popularity; right to hate the faults in himself that make his popularity undeserved; and right also to hope that winning a deserved popularity might actually redeem, for a time, the entire category of the popular.

But, see, I was wrong.

Relatedly: Cobain and Kunkel--separated at birth?

Posted by Jonathan Segura on May 7, 2007 | Comments (0)