Why Bother?

Why Bother? may refer to:

Why Bother? (essay)

"Why Bother?", originally published as "Perchance to Dream: In the Age of Images, a Reason to Write Novels", is a literary essay by American novelist Jonathan Franzen. It is often referred to as "The Harper's Essay". First published in the April 1996 issue of Harper's magazine, the essay concerns the persistence of reading within the context of technological growth and distraction. Franzen recounts his meditations on the state and possibility of the novel form, often against the backdrop of his personal experience, eventually concluding that the novel still has potential cultural agency in the United States, and often gains it by paradoxical drives of both culture and author.

Background

The essay was initially published in the April 1996 issue of Harper's between the publication of Franzen's novels Strong Motion (1992) and The Corrections (2001). Franzen expanded and revised the essay, re-titling it "Why Bother?", and published it in his 2002 essay collection How to Be Alone. In the introduction to the collection, Franzen explained his changing the title as a response to the many interviewers asking about the essay but failing to understand its intention, believing the essay to be an explicit promise on Franzen's part of a third "Big Social Novel" featuring a good deal of local detail and observation. Franzen, instead, thought of the essay as a defense of reading and writing literature for its own sake in a modern world, expanding the essay later in response. Humorously, Franzen notes that the original title was chosen by a Harper's editor hoping for easy recognition with Hamlet's soliloquy, but frequently referred to by interviewers as "The Harper's Essay." The essay makes frequent reference to the Paula Fox novel Desperate Characters, the work of linguistic anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath, Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 as well as previous literary manifestos of Philip Roth, Flannery O'Connor and Tom Wolfe.

Pinkerton (album)

Pinkerton is the second studio album by the American rock band Weezer, released on September 24, 1996 on DGC Records. After abandoning plans for a rock opera titled Songs from the Black Hole, Weezer recorded Pinkerton between songwriter Rivers Cuomo's terms at Harvard University, where he wrote much of the album.

To better capture their live sound, Weezer produced Pinkerton themselves, creating a darker, more abrasive album than their 1994 self-titled debut. Cuomo's lyrics express disillusionment with the rock lifestyle; the album is named after the character BF Pinkerton from Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera Madama Butterfly, whom Cuomo described as an "asshole American sailor similar to a touring rock star". Like the opera, the album contains references to Japanese culture.

Pinkerton debuted at number 19 on the US Billboard 200 and fell short of sales expectations after the success of Weezer's debut. It initially received mixed reviews, but went on to achieve cult status and wide acclaim years later; the 2010 "Deluxe Edition" reissue holds a perfect score on aggregate review website Metacritic. The album produced three singles: "El Scorcho", "The Good Life" and "Pink Triangle". It is the last Weezer album to feature bassist Matt Sharp.