Benjamin Kunkel: The Lena Dunham of Literature

The urban provincials at New York Magazine have found their new Lena Dunham, a novelist named Benjamin Kunkel who they are primping to be the next big thing no one has ever heard of. Way back in 2005, Kunkel wrote a novel no one heard of called “Indecision.” This was after he co-founded a New York-based literary journal no one heard of.

The New Yorker is gaga over Kunkel, though, and devoted a whopping  3700 words to him and his new book, “Utopia or Bust.” The magazine seems awfully excited over the fact that Kunkel is now an “unapologetic … Marxist Intellectual.”

From Rio, it was back to Buenos Aires, but only briefly. Kunkel is from Colorado and had been following the Denver Broncos’ march through the playoffs quite closely, which is one reason why he’s here in New York on Super Bowl Sunday, six weeks before the publication of his second book and first in nine years, a collection of rigorous and unapologetically Marxist essays called Utopia or Bust.

For a Marxist, Kenkel sure does seem to live the high-life with all that fancy traveling. Gawker points out that the New Yorker’s favorite Marxist Intellectual owns *gasp* property — a pied-à-terre in Union Square.

It is worth pointing out that there is no such thing as a “Marxist Intellectual.” Marxism has as much to do with intellect as an Uzi does with a banana. Marxism is navel gazing while masturbating while riding a unicorn. Marxism is a mess of egghead theories that have absolutely no basis in reality. Marxism is wholly ignorant of the real world and the human spirit. This is why Marxism always fails (see: Care, Obama) or can only come close to fruition through government oppression and terrorism (see: Stalin, Joseph).

Thanks to Kenkel’s perfectly-perfect politics, perfectly-tousled hair, perfectly-trimmed beard stubble, and perfectly-posed stare off into his own destiny, the truth doesn’t really matter. Join the collective; embrace The Next Big Thing.

 

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC