/lit/ - Literature

I don't know. I haven't read him but after he said what he said about DFW I cannot in good conscience read and enjoy him. I'm not interested in fat Americans anyway and that seems to be his characters and his audience so I don't care about him

>>18287184
>but after he said what he said about DFW I cannot in good conscience read and enjoy him.
They were best friends what are you talking about

I know Time magazine did that spread on him as the great American novelist, but who else is praising him? His books are fodder for suburban ladies book clubs - there’s zero testosterone in his writing

>>18287338
Afte DFW died Franzen wrote a piece where he claimed DFW killed himself as a career move, and that he was basically a predator to young women.

>>18287184
He references greats like Pynchon constantly but his writing is nothing special. I think he’s just the “in” crowd in nyc who are so knowledgeable and cool and it’s a career move to associate with great writer. He writes for the New Yorker so he’s part of that deep state libtard cabal.

I enjoyed the corrections but freedom was a slog and the same story but less engaging. His writing style is slightly more dense than a king or Patterson but not up there with pat conroy or Steinbeck. His focus on the American family is relevant to a lot of people which drives his high popularity

>>18287403
That’s how it works though. It’s about institutional praise. If you ever look up all these so-called great novelists that were writing around the turn of the millennia, they all have similar stories and backgrounds. The only real exception I’m aware of is McCarthy, who surprise surprise writes completely different books and doesn’t do interviews with Charlie Rose.

>>18287184
A better question is why are Gaddis, Pynchon, and DFW listed as masters of literature? Pynchon, okay. I can give some ground there. DFW was okay honestly and maybe his stuff was more profound a while back but reading him and watching interviews of him in 2021 is like “Yeah, and...?” I really don’t see what’s so special. I don’t know that much about Gaddis so I’ll just present the question without additional comments for him.

>>18288232
Didn't he say that he stopped enjoying Pynchon after age 22?

>>18288315
I don’t know but I read an article by him where he cites Tyrone slothrop as one of the great protagonists of literature and in freedom the cool smart guy is subtly reading V. You don’t see pop writers referencing pynch ever otherwise (I think).

He’s done a good job of marketing himself as an intellectual writer with his DFW friendship and Oprah controversy as other examples, and I do think the corrections is a strong work and social commentary. He’s very bush era, from what I’ve read

>>18288232
he's pretty much strictly midwestern and writes about the miwest. Pretty sure homeboy lives in stl

“Pynchon was still happening back in the late seventies when I first started thinking of being a writer,” said Jonathan (Earl) Franzen (b. 1959), underlining how briefly the new stays new, “though I didn’t know about him until a friend quickly pointed out that I was writing like him.” Writing like him meant writing badly, elaborately, with his and Robert Coover’s “strenuously vivid and all-knowing prose.” Pynchon was an influence to be written through. The first full exposure was at university. He had already thought up the plot of his first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City (1988), as a college sophomore. He majored in German at Swarthmore, spent his sophomore year in Munich, and went to Berlin on a Fulbright after graduation. That is when he got deeply into Pynchon, after graduation. Gravity’s Rainbow “utterly consumed me. It was like getting the flu to read that book.” So bad was it that his love letters became irritatingly inflamed: “My then-fiancée … hated those letters and made her hatred of them known,” driving Franzen away from the voice he was imitating. He was also strenuously “copying the sentence rhythms and comic dialogue of Don DeLillo.” He adjusted because he was in love. The choice was between brawny comradeship and mature relationship, “in which case that kind of boy writing, however brilliant and masterful, was necessarily subordinate.” Later on he registered debts “to various female writers—Alice Munro, Christina Stead, Flannery O’Connor, Jane Smiley, Paula Fox, to name a few,” that were more substantial and lasting than those to Pynchon.

that's how they sell books, anon. they slap "JOYCEAN SUPERMAN"
and
"PYNCHON'S JEALOUSY KNOWS NO BOUNDS"
and
"GADDIS WHO?"
on every author's book who dares attempt a maximalist approach to the novel, given that they have the backing of a prominent publisher. Lying sells, and there are plenty of fools who'll slurp whatever you put in front of them right up. I'm just thankful that there are a few that are the genuine article.

Overconsumption of s*y

>>18287184
They're all trash.

>>18288284
>Pynchon, okay. I can give some ground there

>>18288232
>>18288315
>>18288669
this >>18288898

>>18289069
Yea couldn’t be caught writing like that hack Pynchon he is so beyond that now. Christ what a publishing circle jerk

>>18288898
>“My then-fiancée … hated those letters and made her hatred of them known,” driving Franzen away from the voice he was imitating.
Amazing, an entire potential career destroyed prematurely by a w*man

>>18287432
Well...

>>18288994
I don’t even know what this is implying.

>>299
ll&prosper.
>ib4bhfuiel

>>18287184
Never heard of him

>>18289299
lol, think what you want about DFW, but even if that shit were true (which I don’t find convincing) capitalizing off revealing it after the persons death should immediately reveal Franzen as a shit friend with no loyalty.

>>18287432
Was he wrong?

>>18287184
I want to take a big runny dump all over his smug face.

>>18289357
I’d say so: the guy had severe depression, he sought ECT years before, and his suicide apparently coincided with a switch in medications.
As for being a predator, I’m sure he tried to have sex with women who played the role of his groupies, as long as he didn’t rape/molest them I don’t give a fuck, which no one claims that he did, only the classic ‘creepy vibes’ bullshit.

I don’t claim to know the guy better than his friends, but I know when an actual writer can’t come up with anything more substantial to accuse someone of they’re just posturing for attention

>>18288922
this post reeks of sour grapes

>I'm just thankful that there are a few that are the genuine article.
care to share their names?

Corrections was funny

>>18289721
I just found a copy of The Corrections today in one of those little free neighbourhood library things.
Strong Motion is a book of his I read earlier this year and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I think too many people here hate him because of the DFW and Gaddis stuff, and since no one actually discusses his books, I'm led to believe that no one here has actually read him.

>>18287184
Why did Oprah make him seethe so much?

>>18290511
he didn't was a bunch of forty-something wine moms reading his books.

>>18290740
His primary audience is fortysomething beer bellied dads

>>18287184
You can tell he is a hack even from his face