Jonathan Lethem on Edward Snowden's "Permanent Record"

Science fiction writer, essayist, and Macarthur "genius" Jonathan Lethem (previously) has excellent bona fides to write about Edward Snowden: not only has he helped make a short film about the Snowden leaks, he's also spent years on the right side of the fights over surveillance and free expression (and it doesn't hurt that he's an outstanding essayist).

In a long, beautifully written and insightful piece in the New York Review of Books, Lethem reviews Edward Snowden's memoir, Permanent Record. As with my review, Lethem focuses on the ways that Snowden's early life and his experiences with official corruption and a culture of impunity transformed him from an apolitical, hyper-patriotic, gung-ho military kid to this century's most consequential whistleblower.

Lethem's expansive piece delves into the personal blind-spots revealed by Snowden's tale (his valorizing of the early, anonymous years of the internet is contrasted with Jia Tollentino's experience of gender-based harassment) and also the blind spots that Snowden revealed in the world around him by coming forward -- particularly Malcolm Gladwell's hilariously obtuse attempt to use Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg as a standard that Snowden doesn't live up to.

Lethem is one of my favorite writers, and Snowden is one of the most interesting subjects in the mix today: Lethem's essay is a perfect Sunday read.

In Robert Sheckleys 1978 short story Is That What People Do?, a man named Eddie Quintero buys himself a pair of binoculars from an army and navy surplus outlet, because with them he hoped to see some things that he otherwise would never see.