"—a revised version of "Perchance to Dream," Franzen's infamous 1996 Harper's essay on the novelists' obligation to social realism—and "My Father's Brain," nominated for a 2002 National Magazine Award.

[3] Globally, Complete Review saying on the consensus "Most find them impressive and illuminating, but a few aren't convinced".

[4] Janet Maslin, in The New York Times, called the book "captivating but uneven"—"this collection emphasizes [Franzen's] elegance, acumen and daring as an essayist, with an intellectually engaging self-awareness as formidable as Joan Didion's.

Scott closed, "At present, in Franzen's humane, pessimistic view, our individuality is under assault from all quarters, and the novel is part of a web of modern institutions—along with the daily mail, the industrial city and the idea of a democratic public sphere—undermined by the irresistible (that is, both unstoppable and undeniably attractive) forces of standardization and privatization.

To point this out is, inevitably, to sound like something of a crank, and the accomplishment of this book is to offer its cranky author and his like-minded readers a suitably contradictory and ambiguous consolation: we're not alone.