NWR: Side argument - Jonathan Franzen, great or shit?

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Sharon Bowman

Sharon Bowman
OK, out of the starting blocks it's dead easy: he's a jerk and irritating person.

But (hold it, hold it) I thought there was talented writing in his first widely acknowledged novel, The Corrections.

I was disconcerted in trying to read his (four, I believe? two) earlier novels, which were unreadable.

Then I read his nonfiction in the interim between his blockbuster (yet "literary") novel (no Oprahs here!) and the follow-up.

Freedom was an utter, utter piece of shit. Boring, preachy dreck. Arid, uninventive. Plodding with a bucket full of concrete on each foot.

So, I've not looked into his latest release. I'm saddened, though, because

REVEAL !

I was a huge fan of The Corrections. It had verve, it had ascerbic takedowns of modern city-living, it had pockets of honesty. It had some gross throw-out trash, but it also said stuff that sounded, resounded.

So, I'm kind of crestfallen that this writer isn't all that. I haven't read anything else by him of the least interest.
 
I've always been mixed about him. I read 27th City when it first came out because Gail got it as a freebie at the ABA, back when her work took her to it. Knowing nothing about him, I thought the book was interestingly different but nothing more. The next I heard of him was the big brouhaha about The Corrections. I always have mixed feelings about authors reinventing realism, because they never quite do. The book was interestingly different, but nothing more, with added brouhaha. I agree with Sharon almost word for word about Freedom. I suppose I'll read Purity, but on the whole I suggest chucking it and reading the four Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante.
 
The Corrections is one of my all time favorite books, although the ending seemed like a cop out. It's exquisitely hilarious and painful. I have always had a fantasy of Catherine Keener playing the sister. "Mixed grill" will live in mind forever.

I guess I am less disgusted by his other books. I enjoyed Freedom, but it is no The Corrections, but then, hardly anything is. I thought Strong Motion was brilliantly foresightful in its anticipation of fracking and all its massive problems. It seemed outrageous at the time, but here we are.

I actually think Franzen is at his strongest as an essayist (The Corrections aside). His last essay on birds and climate change was absolutely nuts though - he was just dead wrong.

Have any of you read Nell Zink? She sort of takes The Corrections to the next place.
 
Oh yes, I was dismayed by his recent Terry Gross interview. A totally Irritating Person. But you can't have everything. I do think he would be a blast to bird watch with.
 
I really liked and was freaked out by the 27th city (after we discussed it, the late great carla cohen asked me to write a review for her store but i never felt like doing the work) so i bought the corrections as soon as it came out. But i could not stand to be in the company of those characters and put it down after 80-100 pages and have read no more of his work. So much to read i can't bother with him.
 
I vaguely remembered his name from when I was in college (we were a few years apart at a smallish school) so I read 27th City when I found it on a remainder table and thought it was interesting if flawed. The whole cultish thing about him later on kept me from the subsequent books.
 
Corrections was for the most part good. I'm not entirely sure of the whole, but I did get through it and enjoyed it. I didn't get very far with Freedom before giving up. I still feel that Richard Powers is most consistently great from the living US authors (perhaps I'm a bit biased because he so often has science and classical music themes).
 
I follow Powers religiously. I regularly feel that there is too much aboutness to his art and not enough embodiment. But in his best books, he is capable of making ideas moving, and that's a rare talent.
 
originally posted by BJ:
The Corrections is one of my all time favorite books, although the ending seemed like a cop out. It's exquisitely hilarious and painful.
Click to expand...

That is very much my feeling. I tried to tune out the copro-leaning things involving the father's dementia, but much of the rest of the book was quite compelling, as was the prose, to me.

Have any of you read Nell Zink? She sort of takes The Corrections to the next place.
Click to expand...

No! Have not. On the list.
 
originally posted by Cole Kendall:
I vaguely remembered his name from when I was in college (we were a few years apart at a smallish school) so I read 27th City when I found it on a remainder table and thought it was interesting if flawed. The whole cultish thing about him later on kept me from the subsequent books.
Click to expand...

Hilarious, I went to Jay McInerney's school (though wider apart), and read "Bright Lights, Big City" for that reason. But I don't know that public acclaim should shy one away from reading something.

I mean, sure, if it's the acclaim of train station books, but if you'd been in, say, David Foster Wallace or Jeffrey Eugenides' cohort, would you shun them for having actually penetrated popular awareness?
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
I still feel that Richard Powers is most consistently great from the living US authors (perhaps I'm a bit biased because he so often has science and classical music themes).
Click to expand...

Interesting. Also need to check him out.

I once hung out with a French woman who was a professor of American literature, and she said that to her, the best writer in the US was Russell Banks. I regret to admit that I still haven't read Banks.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by BJ:
The Corrections is one of my all time favorite books, although the ending seemed like a cop out. It's exquisitely hilarious and painful.
Click to expand...

That is very much my feeling. I tried to tune out the copro-leaning things involving the father's dementia, but much of the rest of the book was quite compelling, as was the prose, to me.

Have any of you read Nell Zink? She sort of takes The Corrections to the next place.
Click to expand...

No! Have not. On the list.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the writing is drop dead gorgeous.

One of my favorite things about the book was the particularity of the details, especially across the generations.

I am guessing you'll enjoy The Wallcreeper. It's quite a romp.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
I still feel that Richard Powers is most consistently great from the living US authors (perhaps I'm a bit biased because he so often has science and classical music themes).
Click to expand...

Interesting. Also need to check him out.

I once hung out with a French woman who was a professor of American literature, and she said that to her, the best writer in the US was Russell Banks. I regret to admit that I still haven't read Banks.
Click to expand...

Read Continental Drift immediately.
 
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