Hate in the Homeland

February 16, 2015
This essay collection from Princeton professor Nunokawa (Tame Passions of Wilde) provides an uneven but winning look at how people connect, or attempt to connect, in person and online. The essays, selected from postings Nunokawa has made using the Facebook Note app, are short and typically inspired by quotations from, among others, Virginia Woolf, George Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nunokawa’s mother, and Nunokawa himself, as well as song lyrics and dialogue from TV shows and movies. Nunokawa often discusses his mother and father, old friendships and relationships, and his impression of himself. Other selections deal with literature, looking at what it can teach us. Not every essay is successful; some are overwritten, others are insubstantial, and several are repetitive. Sometimes, the inspiration seems more meaningful than the essay it inspired. But Nunokawa’s emphasis is on process rather than product, and on continuing to attempt to connect with the reader—regardless of whether Nunokawa succeeds. The sheer number of essays—about 250—might put off some readers, but there’s a pleasure to be found in simply picking up this book and taking a chance that any given entry might hit the mark.

April 15, 2015
Literary-based reflections on and of the virtual age. Nunokawa (English/Princeton Univ.), whose professional interests run the gamut from George Eliot and Henry James to Oscar Wilde (Tame Passions of Wilde: The Styles of Manageable Desire, 2003, etc.), here excerpts favorite musings on random topics that happened to cross his mind daily from August 2007 through July 2014. Over this time period, Nunokawa used Facebook's notes feature to post a daily entry consisting of a title or inspirational quotation, a brief personal reflection, a footnote, and an accompanying photo, all with the aim of communicating "some version of 'me' to some version of 'you, ' as near and far as the closest heart." For example, "3095. 'Why this overmastering need to communicate with others?' / Virginia Woolf, 'Montaigne' / I used to think it was because I was good at it. Now I think it's because it may be my only shot at being good." Though not deeply wedded to their chronology, Nunokawa's posts have both an episodic and journalistic feel to them. Though best read in several sittings, the collected notes convey an urgency for audience, whether it be through deep existential contemplation or identification of common interests like soccer and Joni Mitchell. Because Nunokawa is quite introspective and revelatory about the unusually public medium selected for his diarylike, more typically private enterprise, one takes at face value his somewhat Whitmanesque belief that "the loneliness at the heart of my project is not mine alone" but "the hunger for a feeling of connection" that "flows from a common break in a common heart." Looking to befriend the reader yet not exactly open a conversation, Nunokawa draws one in with these temptingly lyric essays while resisting the larger buffers of narrative or explicit chronological context. An engaging multimedia project offering even more food for thought when translated to the linearity of the printed page.

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