New feature! A periodic update on the lives (professional, that is, with perhaps the occasional emphasis on personal style) of the Jonathans, defined at present as Franzen, Lethem, Safran Foer, and Ames. For today's Illuminated, courtesy of the always worthwhile L.A. Weekly, Safran Foer talks to Brendan Bernhard about the vast internet conspiracy against him. Throughout the interview, Bernhard notes, the novelist is inexplicably "not wearing an outrageously expensive suit, designer sunglasses and a silk T-shirt bearing the legend 'Brooklyn’s Richest and Most Critically Acclaimed Young Novelist.' " Among other tidbits:

If Foer sounds a bit paranoid about the social status of art and artists, one can more or less understand. True, his paychecks are handsome and he was recently the subject of an adoring profile in The New York Times magazine, but he was also the object of a withering parody in the New York Observer [archived, sorry!], and he claims to be a regular punching bag for envious literati on the Internet.

"I get made fun of very widely," he says. “I'm a favorite target of bloggers. I mean, really. I don't look for it, but my little brother is generous enough to forward me the meanest stuff! What can you say? It's fine. Somebody once said the world is full of petty 'resentniks'—I love that word, 'resentniks.' There are a lot of angry people, and thank God they don’t get their voices out there too much."

The movie rights to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close have already been sold, but Foer says he has no interest in adapting his novel for the screen. “I did it. I have nothing more to say about it, and I certainly don't want to get involved in a process with 4,000 shitheads who’ll think everything I do and say is stupid," he says firmly. "I don’t like committees."