fiction files redux discussion

Okay, I've never read a word of this chap's work before but this weekend I did read an interview in The Guardian. He seems a bit of a grumpy bugger - so my kind of man!

He also takes him time writing books, again this is something I like and respect. It took him nine years to write his new one 'Freedom'. So I might check this one out.

Jonathan Franzen Interview

I think that's his allure. He seems like a writer. He looks like a writer. He denies Oprah the first time like he's a writer and that's his controversy as a writer. He acts like a writer in between books - by writing article after article. But I don't see it. I almost want to defend Jodi Picoult and that other chick who wrote an article about a bias towards male writers b/c he was featured on the cover of TIME magazine, but I've already argued so much against female writers...

I'll try and copy and paste it from the HuffingtonPost...

The Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-p...

Article on Oprah perhaps being a sexist:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lev-rap...

. . . the guy can write like hell, no doubt . . .but what bugs the fuck out of me is that he just covering the same old ground american white males writers have been covering for sixty years-- yates, cheever, o'connel, updike, etc . . . i think that's incredibly weak . . . his first book, 27th city, showed a little ambition theme-wise, but in the last 20 odd years it's just the same suburban dysfunction "realism" that puts me to sleep . . . i can relate to picoult's lament-- the industry has totally ghetto-ized women in fiction, although the argument would be much more persuasive coming from, say, l. moore or alice hoffman . . .

I've never read him before but the girls in my local book club have chosen Freedom as our next book. I must admit I am very, very curious after all this brouhaha.

a few random thoughts

1) I've just started reading Freedom (my first Franzen) and it's big and ambitious (in an old fashioned breadth of scope kind of way) and deftly textured - it's a novel of the old school it seems to me

2)huffpost: Why do you feel that commercial fiction, or more specifically popular fiction written by women, tends to be critically overlooked?

Jennifer Weiner: I think it's a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance, or a beach book - in short, it's something unworthy of a serious critic's attention.


me: Jennifer it's not the subject matter that makes it literature, it's the way the author handles the subject matter - doesnt matter if it's Edith Wharton or Henry James

3) Jodi's responses actually sound more reasoned and sane - she seems to be grappling with 'commercial' vs 'literary' not (or not just) gender v gender

4) no one, man or woman, has gotten the amount of attention Franzen has gotten with this book - it's silly to use him and his book as exemplary of anything

5) Room,Donoghue - check out the raves, look at the coverage - it's by a chick, nominated for the Booker - breaking out all over the place - just as much coverage as your Foer's or you Shteyngart's - point being how many people of either gender occupy that sphere? is it equitable? need it be?

Hm. I know someone who likes his stuff because, as he puts it, no one skewers white upper class America like Franzen. This is true. And it's amusing, sure.

Or, in the example of The Corrections, the way he captures the moment to moment hops a manic person might take internally, or the way the father feels in an aging body.... this is also true.

And while I agree with all that -- it's skillfully done -- the work lacks what I would call heart. I don't think it's a woman or a man thing. It's just that when I'm reading a novel, I'm looking for something not just superficially true, but emotionally true as well. Something that tells me what it means to be human. When the proper time is to purchase a Volvo is amusing but it's not how I get through the day.

Maybe that just says something about me as a person needing redemption or a big hug or some joy at the end of a difficult book, but if it does so be it.

For my money, DFW had both the skill and a huge heart. His heart is what makes his stuff live and breathe... and Franzen's heart is eensy weensy.

Why Jonathan Franzen is the wrong face for "Franzenfreude"
Yes, white male writers are too dominant in highbrow literature, but the "Freedom" author is one of the good guys
By Ester Bloom This originally appeared on Ester Bloom's Open Salon blog.
Having finally released three books back into the wild of the Brooklyn Public Library system -- "Freedom," "Catching Fire" and "The Passage" -- I feel the time is right to weigh in on the literary meme of the moment, "Franzenfreude," a term that, loosely defined, indicates that author Jonathan Franzen represents all that is wrong with the contemporary highbrow book world.

Is that stupid? Quite! Except there's a caveat. The phenomenon referred to by "Franzenfreude" -- the idea that the highbrow book world reserves its highest praise and most fawning attention for the works of men -- is absolutely true. It just happens that Jonathan Franzen is a terrible poster boy for that problem.

Franzen writes gorgeous women. Fleshed-out, interesting, three-dimensional, vivid women, women with brains. He writes for them, too, and perhaps most important of all, he reads them. When, at a Brooklyn Book Festival panel, someone asked him what he was reading, he replied, "Edith Wharton." To the follow-up question of what should we, his audience, be reading, he listed several books, all by female authors, including the "Ms. Hempel Chronicles," of which, up to that point, I hadn't even heard. (Then I read it. It was good!)

A friend and I cornered him after the panel to ask whether he'd realized he'd been promoting work by ladies. He blinked for a moment, then laughed and said it honestly hadn't occurred to him.

Thus, "Franzenfreude" is the wrong label for this particular can of worms. (As a language nerd points out, it's also stupid for other reasons.)

That said, let's address the can of worms itself. Yes! Fiction by women is customarily and routinely dismissed by the intelligentsia in favor of fiction by men. Because why should fiction be any different than anything else? The most exalted spaces in any pantheon are reserved for men. So it has been, so it will be. This is because women can have babies, whereas men can only have egos, and also testicles, or something.

...

http://www.salon.com/books/salon_read...

blah blar blech. i am bored by this garbage. you like franzen or you don't, you like picoult or you don't. "white male taste makers" is a stupid term, and is dismissive of all of us women out here who also make taste. i wish these women would just stop. they identify something they think is a problem and then they just complain about it. hey women! that's not helpful! it gets us exactly no where. shut up and write, or shut up and "make taste"! do something about it besides whinning, if you think the status quo is messed up.

Yeah, pretty soon the National Women Basketball Association would actually expect to have real fans in arenas instead of recorded applauses.

and of course one of the most prominent 'white male taste makers' of our times is an asian woman:

from NYT

"...Writing in prose that is at once visceral and lapidary, Mr. Franzen shows us how his characters strive to navigate a world of technological gadgetry and ever-shifting mores, how they struggle to balance the equation between their expectations of life and dull reality, their political ideals and mercenary personal urges. He proves himself as adept at adolescent comedy (what happens to Joey after he accidentally swallows his wedding ring right before a vacation with his dream girl) as he is at grown-up tragedy (what happens to Walter’s assistant and new beloved when she sets off alone on a trip to West Virginia coal country); as skilled at holding a mirror to the world his people inhabit day by dreary day as he is at limning their messy inner lives.

In the past, Mr. Franzen tended to impose a seemingly cynical, mechanistic view of the world on his characters, threatening to turn them into authorial pawns subject to simple Freudian-Darwinian imperatives. This time, in creating conflicted, contrarian individuals capable of choosing their own fates, Mr. Franzen has written his most deeply felt novel yet — a novel that turns out to be both a compelling biography of a dysfunctional family and an indelible portrait of our times."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/boo...

(ha ha in just two paragraphs she said 'lapidary','limning'(sweet!) 'deeply felt' and 'an indelible portrait of our times')

Matt wrote: "(ha ha in just two paragraphs she said 'lapidary','limning'(sweet!) 'deeply felt' and 'an indelible portrait of our times') ..."

If she hasn't done it yet, I predict that someday Kakutani will use the phrase "deeply indelible lapidary limning."

it could be a drinking game - shots on 'lapidary'!

Patrick wrote: "Yeah, pretty soon the National Women Basketball Association would actually expect to have real fans in arenas instead of recorded applauses."

I like WNBA, actually.

I was just kidding. I don't watch sport but think it's funny in a sad way how sport fans don't watch WNBA with the enthusiam of NBA.

. . . yikes, a bookseller in KC told me he recently put west of here in franzen's hand recently and told he must read it . . .

blah blar blech. i am bored by this garbage. you like franzen or you don't, you like picoult or you don't. "white male taste makers" is a stupid term, and is dismissive of all of us women out here who also make taste. i wish these women would just stop. they identify something they think is a problem and then they just complain about it. hey women! that's not helpful! it gets us exactly no where. shut up and write, or shut up and "make taste"! do something about it besides whinning, if you think the status quo is messed up.

COULDN'T agree more, Patty. The more we point out the "unfairness" and talk about how we're on the sidelines as women, the more it feels like what my son says of the girls in his class: If they don't get their way, (or they are going to get in trouble for something they did) all they do is turn on the waterworks or "make up some story" to get what they want.

I get the argument about the unfairness and I understand that there will always be hoops I have to jump through that others may not, but I don't think we solve it by standing there, holding our nose, pointing and yelling "But it's not fair!". Life's not fair.

But after reading how the women writers get stuck with books covers that are soft toned and 'feminine', I could see how the establishment like the publishing world are pushing their luck with them even if the novels like Lotus Eaters (An example used on Three Guys and One Book) are softened and just use a picture of a pretty woman on a beach. It is like a hearing person who knows sign language and being put in charge of deaf staff in the deaf community even though that person may not be fully experienced in the deaf culture.

It is also an outrage when both members of the establishment use their precieved notion that females are soft and delicate when since the beginning of mankind, they had to labor and push their babies out of the wombs, along with the placenta, and urine and shit flying out of their vaginas and assholes.

. . .wow, thanks for the vivid childbirth sequence, patrick . . . goes great with my morning coffee . . .

Jonathan wrote: ". . . yikes, a bookseller in KC told me he recently put west of here in franzen's hand recently and told he must read it . . ."

Franzen had an odd response when asked by an interviewer if he liked your novel.

Franzen comments on West of Here

B. R. Myers, the bloodthirsty hatchet man at The Atlantic, has attacked.

"...the novel is a 576-page monument to insignificance"

Smaller Than Life

did anybody hear about the first editions being recalled because of massive errors in grammar and spelling? Apparently the publishers sent an earlier draft to the printers. doh!

Adrian wrote: "B. R. Myers, the bloodthirsty hatchet man at The Atlantic, has attacked.

"...the novel is a 576-page monument to insignificance"

Smaller Than Life"

This article brings up all kinds of non-linear howling fantods. It started with all the dark and complicated reasons why I have never been on Facebook and ended with how depressing it is that political candidates brag about how regular they are.

Earlier in this thread I found myself wishing there was an equivalent of a mental tongue scraper that could make me completely forget Little Earthquakes and My Sister's Keeper.

My to read list is so stacked with power novels, I'll never have to subject myself to lifetime channel book club fodder ever again! YAY, you people.

ok. i'm about midway through franzen's opus. & i had no idea who B.R. Myers was until today, but i'm feeling his pain.

wondering if i should forfeit my freedom and chase down some weiner??

Adrian wrote: "B. R. Myers, the bloodthirsty hatchet man at The Atlantic, has attacked.
"...the novel is a 576-page monument to insignificance"

Smaller Than Life"

Wow.... I haven't loathed a review from its first sentence in I don't know how long.

One opens a new novel and is promptly introduced to some dull minor characters....

Oh, does one? Outside of the pompous "one doesn't DO such things..." tone of the whole damn piece, what I find most loathsome is the idea that there is ONE KIND OF GREAT NOVEL.... which is, of course, the kind B.R. likes.

I get that parts of this book reminded me of the three word takedown for the old TV show 30-something: Whiny White People.

I get that some folks dislike the tone (and apparently the intelligence) of the narrator Franzen has chosen.

But what Franzen does (brilliantly, in my opinion) is examine the life of a particular social class. B.R. may not LIKE that class. B.R. may want to have tea and crumpets with his Tea Party friends who are so tired of hearing the word "suck" and "fuck" that they resort to bilious rants of their own. But, like most of the people being skewered in this book, B.R. certainly knows what he doesn't like.

B.R. writes: Franzen uses facile tricks to tart up the story as a total account of American life: the main news events of the past quarter century each get a nod in the appropriate chapter. Brands are identified whenever possible; we go from Parliament butts in the first chapter to Glad-wrapped cookies in the last.

(Jesus, really? "Tart up the story"? I bet he gave a giddy shudder of delight and readjusted his ascot as he typed that phrase.) I suppose this is the same reason why he hates DeLillo too.... Anything that smacks of the quotidian, of what we see on TV everyday, or pass by in billboards is out-of-bounds for this B.R. It's as if he wants to be sealed in a sensory deprivation tank so that he can sip his very, very particular brew of literature.)

B.R. writes: One keeps waiting for something that will make these flat characters develop in some way

Again, does one? What, exactly? No, honest -- exactly, what? Because for me, Franzen's characters were pretty fully realized. (Now, you may not LIKE all of them....)

But the most inane line was this one:

Either way, she is too stupid to merit reading about.

"Too stupid?" What does this Scarlet Pimpernel of the English language mean by "stupid" -- again -- exactly? Huck Finn illiterate? Or more like Faulkner's Benjy Compson? Interestingly, B.R. allows that Franzen might be trying to achieve the same effect that Salinger does with Holden Caulfield -- but he so far down the path of righteous indignation, he's not willing to explore that thought.

No, from the review clearly what B.R. means by "stupid" is morally reprehensible. He hates these characters because he cannot (or will not) empathize with a single misstep, foible or flaw... which is what Franzen is all about.

What must totally suck for B.R. is that Franzen is the master of rug-pulling, of showing the comic side of hubris. Each of the characters in Franzen's novel are -- at various points of their stories arc -- absolutely convinced of the Rightness of their particular Moral Authority... even when that evidence is being dangled in front of them and their lives continue to fall apart.

Yes -- to skewer the hubris and moral indignation of those who peacock about their own Rightness and Moral Authority (on the left AND right) -- that must really piss off ole B.R.

I find the second section - Patty's 3rd person diary entries - problematic

in this me and ol' B.R. agree and for many of the same reasons

Matt wrote: "I find the second section - Patty's 3rd person diary entries - problematic

in this me and ol' B.R. agree and for many of the same reasons"

Me too. But B.R. is all about tossing out babies, bathwater AND bathtub. Seems a bit to Glenn Beck-like, calculated to be spectacle.

I found Franzen's authorial voice really distracting. and wearisome. there is no arguing that he can write. and i found the characters, for the most part, compelling. but the narration, for me, was a problem.
as mentioned by others, Patty's "diary entries" don't really work as such, nor is the voice of those sections that much different than the rest of the book.

for me, the voice, was like having a somewhat manic benshi, standing in front of the characters and the action reading the lines, contextualizing, and occasionally adding commentary. franzen offers us really rich, provocative characters- i just wanted him to get out the way.

and i'm usually one to defend a bit of authorial intrusion. but this just didn't work for me.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/pa...

So, hi everyone. Um, I finished Freedom and I kinda hated it. I had never read Franzen before and I don't know, I just couldn't deal with the miserableness of it all. All the characters were miserable people doing miserable things to one another and it was just tiring for me to read. I admit that Franzen is a great writer, I did enjoy his prose, which is what ultimately kept me reading, but I am just one of those, I don't know, maybe the term I'm looking for is "old-fashioned," readers that likes to have someone to root for in a novel. I wan't rooting for anyone in Freedom. And I understand that most champions of Franzen like that the most: that all his characters are flawed, there is no hero, but I just found it depressing.

sounds like you got it

Matt wrote: "sounds like you got it"

HA! I think the thing I got out of it the most is never wanting to read another Franzen novel....

It's very hard for me to deal with the fact that I have not read the last two Franzen novels. I am working on being ok with it, but it is taking some energy.

you're not missing much

I suspect as much, but I feel a need to find out why he is so well regarded in certain quarters. And explore my resistance. I enjoyed his first book, The 27th City, but felt the same thing happened with it with DFW's first novel--that a lot was in motion, but the novel didn't end so much as trail off. Pynchon did that too, but it always makes sense in his work to me. But I have a had problem with getting around to reading Franzen since he wrote the essay about his frustration with the novel and the position of the writer in the US. I should let it go, but I think I need to let it go understanding what my block is, rather than just dismissing it. Ah, but too many other books call, all more satisfying company.

He is interviewed in The Paris Review this month.

http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...

I read it. I liked it. He's an interesting guy. Lots to say about Pynchon (well, that's the part I paid attention to, anyway).

Slowrabbit wrote: "http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/pa..."

No offense, but I don't think the Stranger is really qualified to critique Franzen...it's basically a hipster rag that spends its time shitting on all that is popular and elevating that which is unknown to sainthood. I wouldn't be surprised to see the next review touting Tao Lin as the new hope for the future of American literature.

. . .um ry, funny you should mention that, but they already did that:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/gr...

. . .also notice that it's a satire of the time/franzen cover . . .

. . .i'll say this: i'm not a TL fan, but stranger book editor paul constant is a prince, and a pillar of book culture in our region . . . dude is a good reader and a fair critic . . .

Jonathan wrote: ". . .um ry, funny you should mention that, but they already did that:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/gr...

. . .also notice that it's a satire of the ti..."

It's kind of funny. 10 months after defending Franzen here, after reading his piece about DFW's suicide and his comments about quite a few different things, I'm now of the opinion that he seems like a huge asshole. Maybe not as a writer, but as a person for sure. This article didn't do much to change my opinion of him, but it's very interesting considering all the fuss that's being made about Eugenides' new book.

http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/...

Ry,

I think the verdict is in that Franzen is whiny. And after saying no to Oprah, he said. McCarthy was not as conflicted. What's weird about Franzen is his need to explain himself. Say what you will about Pynchon or DeLillo, they have never indulged in the histrionic throat clearing that Franzen has, starting with an extremely dim piece about the place of the novel in Harper's years ago. All the wanking on how misguided pomo is by young men, and the forefathers have never ventured into NYTimes to call these young men on their naked acts of selfpromotion. Which is what the sniping is, especially in the age of Google (more hits). They can't say, Trust the song, not the singer. Franzen can write a sentence, but I agree with Jonathan that suburban angst is mostly done. I'll spend my time elsewhere.

Robert wrote: "Ry,

I think the verdict is in that Franzen is whiny. And after saying no to Oprah, he said. McCarthy was not as conflicted. What's weird about Franzen is his need to explain himself. Say what yo..."

Yeah, you make a good point, Robert. I think the thing that finally turned me off Franzen as a person is his attitude, specifically toward the book and where it is heading in general. I thought I was a Luddite, but in addition to being a Luddite, Franzen is so damned negative that I can't stand to listen to anything he has to say if it's not fiction. His last two books were pretty good, but when I hear him say things like that DFW's suicide was calculated to inflict pain on everyone who loved him or that anyone with an internet connection can't be doing very good writing, I just want to smack him in the head and tell him that not everything is about him.

Before sinking into the tar pits, at least one of the dinosaurs, Norman Mailer, sniffed at the new meat and found The Corrections a bit rancid.

Mailer on Franzen

He no pomo, and he no count. Besides Mailer pioneered the snide attacks on his contemporaries to clear the field for himself. But in his defense, he is clear about his aims. Franzen is not.

Adrian wrote: "Before sinking into the tar pits, at least one of the dinosaurs, Norman Mailer, sniffed at the new meat and found The Corrections a bit rancid.

Mailer on Franzen"

what a great link, adrian. now i want to read that norman mailer book. i keep saying i am going to read one, and maybe i'll start here. i love the nouveaux riches analogy. :)

i think mailer nailed him, and is actually quite generous, all things considered even if he says he's not keeping his hopes up. i've avoided this thread because i think it's pretty clear by now that i have no use for franzen, and had no desire to read another book by him after the corrections because i not only didn't care about these people, i was annoyed by them and their lives, and how little pay-off there was for me after so many pages. if you're going to make me hang around for hours, you'd better charm the pants off me. or give me some meat to chew on. something!!!

Aww, the Franzen hate here sort of warms the cockles of my black, wizened heart. I dragged through about fifty pages of Corrections and after that said Never again, I don't care whose talk show he does or doesn't go on.

Moira wrote: "Aww, the Franzen hate here sort of warms the cockles of my black, wizened heart. I dragged through about fifty pages of Corrections and after that said Never again, I don't care whose talk show he ..."

ha! it is nice to see that not everybody loved it, isn't it? i remember when i first read and loathed it many people were really angry about my inability to enjoy it as much as they had. meanwhile, i was angry at the book, and practically flung the door open and shouted "out! out of my house!" when i finished and was able to toss it aside (well, honestly? out. one of two books i've thrown in the garbage in the course of my life). i was pretty sure i was going to hate it fifty pages in, but i was annoyed enough to stay the course until the end so i could feel entitled to my irritation. :P

I think that's the way it is with Franzen, love or hate. I have a dear friend Megan who I talk books with endlessly, we are completely compatible in the books department, we started our own book club together and everything, and it irks me to no end that she LOVES Franzen. LOVES him. We read Freedom in our book club and it was the first time that she and I really disagreed and ARGUED over a book. She'll never be able to turn me into a Franzen lover (or even liker for that matter) and I will never be able to turn her off him.

Love or hate.

Maureen wrote: "ha! it is nice to see that not everybody loved it, isn't it?"

Oh, it really is. I've had people try to force Franzen on me with scary JW-like zealotry. Not even Harry Potter fans were that relentless.

Kerry wrote: "I think that's the way it is with Franzen, love or hate."

I think DFW strikes people the same way (except I LOVE DFW). Heh.

Moira wrote: "Kerry wrote: "I think that's the way it is with Franzen, love or hate."

I think DFW strikes people the same way (except I LOVE DFW). Heh."

Me too! Definitely my favorite writer since Ken Kesey.