In Search of Lost Vibes

by Matilda Lin Berke

This essay appears in Issue 2 of the Mars Review of Books. Visit the MRB store here.

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Living and Dying with Marcel Proust

by Christopher Prendergast

Europa Compass, 256 pp., $17.00

The Novelist: A Novel

by Jordan Castro

Soft Skull, 208 pp., $21.36

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Marcel Proust would’ve been on Twitter. There’s a lot to observe. You can do it from your bedroom, from your parents’ basement, from outer space. It’s all on epistolary record—neo-Catholics in London, pool rentals in Queens, something going on with Doja Cat and one of the kids from Stranger Things, Simone Weil bot, crypto bros, shirts that go hard, academics, hockey stans, a Shakespeare truther ball, a girl from your high school lifeguarding class, schizzed-out downtown reactionaries and the psychos who chronicle their weird little lives, WORLDSTARHIPHOP, Tetsuya Yamagami’s Uniqlo boxers, normies.

What’s interesting about Twitter is what’s interesting about the Internet: You never have to show your face. Even when you’re showing your face, you’re not showing your face. You’re shouting through a megaphone, firing a gun with an unlimited range. When things get embarrassing, it’s okay, because at your most personal, you’re just an avatar of yourself. When things get really embarrassing, you can delete your account. You can write about social life—any kind of social life, which is to say all of it—without ever seeing anyone IRL. This is perfect and beautiful because writing about social life has always been an exercise in estrangement: estrangement as aesthetic experience.