nothing I can do except die or, I suppose, retire and never write again.

August 21, 2015 7:54 AM

Jonathan Franzen 'considered adopting Iraqi orphan to figure out young people'. [The Guardian]

In a setup that would not look out of place in fiction, Jonathan Franzen, the bestselling American novelist, has said he once considered adopting an Iraqi war orphan to help him understand young people better, but was persuaded against it by his editor. Franzen said he was in his late 40s at the time with a thriving career and a good relationship but he felt angry with the younger generation. “Oh, it was insane, the idea that Kathy [his partner] and I were going to adopt an Iraqi war orphan. The whole idea lasted maybe six weeks.”

Related:

- Jonathan Franzen's Postcard from East Africa [Travel Essay]

“When I was home and talking to my bro­ther Bob, he asked me whether an East African safari was something a person had to do. Certain well­-traveled friends of his— competitive vacationers; proponents of the Bucket List—had assured him that it was. Did I agree? I certainly share Bob’s irritation with the Bucket List thing. We’re put off by the bla­tancy of its consumerism, the glibness of its realism. If you were truly, depressively re­alistic, you’d recognize that checking boxes on a list won’t make death any less final or undesirable; that none of the experiences we’ve racked up in life will matter when we’ve kicked the bucket and returned to eternal nothingness. Bucket Listers seem to imagine that death can be cheated by strategic vacationing.”

- Jonathan Franzen's Bird-Watching Trip to Jamaica and St. Lucia [Photo Journal]

Jonathan Franzen wrote his story “Missing” (from our September issue) about a trip to Jamaica and St. Lucia, the goal of which was to see all endemic birds on both islands. In less than a week he was able to add 51 species to his life list of birds. See which birds he has yet to spot, and check out a few photos from his trip…

- Jonathan Franzen Strikes Again, His latest targets: web sleuths and feminists. [The Atlantic]

For a number of years now, Jonathan Franzen has forsworn the most obvious ways of showing off intellect in fiction. In “Perchance to Dream,” an essay published in Harper’s in 1996, he wrote of giving up what he called “the burden of newsbringing”—the duty that he had formerly felt to instruct readers about what was wrong with their world. And in “Mr. Difficult,” an essay published in The New Yorker in 2002, he disavowed formal experimentation, asserting that novels ought to be “conservative and conventional” and should aspire to induce feelings of “pleasure and connection” in a democratic audience. Despite these renunciations, however, Franzen’s prose is alive with intelligence, and on the first page of his new novel, Purity, a reader can see his mind at work on a task at which he excels: showing the way people think. He’s introducing one of his protagonists, Purity Tyler, a 23-year-old who goes by the nickname Pip.

- Who is that woman on Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Purity’? [Washington Post]
- Is Jonathan Franzen Sexist? 5 Times He's Made Questionable Comments About Women [Bustle]
- Is Purity author Jonathan Franzen the new Dickens? [Evening Standard]

posted by Fizz (95 comments total)

Relevant to this conversation [via: NPR]:

"Franzenfreude is taking pain in the multiple and copious reviews being showered on Jonathan Franzen." ~ Jennifer Weiner

posted by Fizz at 7:59 AM on August 21, 2015 [8 favorites]

Because what the world really needed was Jonathan Franzen's views of feminism immortalized in book format.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:00 AM on August 21, 2015 [9 favorites]

Jonathan Franzen has got to stop. Why, Lord, does he say the things he does?
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 8:00 AM on August 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

That Dickensian ambition — always present in his work — is cheekily explicit in “Purity,” which traces the unlikely rise of a poor, fatherless child named Pip. When we meet Pip — short for Purity — she is buried beneath $130,000 of student debt and working at a marginally fraudulent business in Oakland that sells renewable energy. Her pride is further strained by squatting in a filthy group home suspended in foreclosure. Her roommates — Marxists and dumpster divers — spend their days theorizing about the imminent jobless utopia. Equal parts earnest and sarcastic, Pip has few close friends, no siblings, no one at all except her mother, a hermit who can’t help her financially and won’t tell her who her father is.

Franzen’s novels have never been appropriate Mother’s Day presents. But the matriarchs in this one are particularly toxic, an encyclopedia of Oedipal horrors: grasping, seductive, delusional, trumpeting their “moral victimhood.” Not that fathers get a pass — they abandon and abuse children, too — but somehow the guys inspire nothing like the blistering rage these mothers do. Although Pip’s mom isn’t the biggest narcissist we run into, she’s repellently manipulative, swinging erratically from lavish praise to pouty complaints, extravagant declarations of devotion and melodramatic claims of illness — and Pip loves her.

Sometimes one just gets so tired.

Doris Lessing already wrote this novel - it's called The Good Terrorist - and although it's a piece of fascist-symp reactionary junk, at least it's by a woman and someone with actual movement credentials instead of a "the left is dreadful, dreadful" persecution fantasy.

What happened was that we didn't realize how good we had it with David Foster Wallace and now we're stuck with the old original first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce. Good old DFW - whatever his failings on gender and feminism, he wasn't so consumed with ressentiment as to write a whole novel about it, plus he had at least some skepticism about himself.
posted by Frowner at 8:00 AM on August 21, 2015 [19 favorites]

None. None more contemporary white guy author than Franzen.
posted by Kitteh at 8:01 AM on August 21, 2015

I have to say I'm sort of enjoying watching Franzen's slow transformation into Lucille Bluth:

“Oh, it was insane, the idea that Kathy [his partner] George and I were going to adopt an Iraqi war orphan. The whole idea lasted maybe six weeks.”
posted by griphus at 8:01 AM on August 21, 2015 [96 favorites]

I used to feel like an outlier in disliking this guy; maybe I was blinded by my own prejudices or lack of enthusiasm for this type of writing (privileged white guy lit). Sometimes I do take irrational dislikes to people, I'm human after all. Maybe I just didn't "get" the genius that was going on here.

Feeling better about myself now. Thanks Franzen!
posted by emjaybee at 8:07 AM on August 21, 2015 [17 favorites]

Self-absorbed author adopts traumatized child in order to re-connect with the younger generation. How could it possibly go wrong? It's like Anne of Green Gables except he's ordering an "imported orphan" for emotional labor instead of farm work.
posted by Daily Alice at 8:08 AM on August 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

I thought about David Brooks adopting Jonathan Franzen as a way to understand young people. The whole idea lasted about six seconds. That's when I realized MeFi would die of snark over it. Also that Franzen is slightly older than Brooks.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:11 AM on August 21, 2015 [16 favorites]

Jennifer Weiner's Twitter battle
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:12 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

None. None more contemporary white guy author than Franzen.

Kitteh, I agree with you absolutely. He is very condescending in his ".....get off my [literary] lawn."

And I hate to admit it, but his writing is quite good. About a third of a way through Purity and it's a phenomenal read thus far. He is one of those authors that I am able to divorce from the text. But the more he talks the more difficult that becomes.
posted by Fizz at 8:12 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

What a colossal collection of privilege, entitlement, self-aggrandizement, and obliviousness. Are we sure he's not the true work of fiction?
posted by nubs at 8:13 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Is Purity author Jonathan Franzen the new Dickens?

What's interesting about that link is that despite being an utter handjob, it completely fails to establish any way in which Franzen is remotely comparable to Dickens, other than naming a character "Pip."

So I'm going to go with "no." If even your fanboys can't make the case, it's not there to make.
posted by emjaybee at 8:13 AM on August 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

I read The Corrections and Freedom a few years ago--thanks, library!--and while they weren't bad books, I couldn't understand why people were going ape-poopy over them. I mean, the study of a white usually Midwestern family? This is not breaking new ground here.
posted by Kitteh at 8:15 AM on August 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Is Purity author Jonathan Franzen the new Dickens?

No, he's the new Norman Mailer, in a time when publicly acting out your persona in physically violent ways has been replaced by publicly acting out your persona in cerebrally irritating ways. He won't stab someone at a party, but he'll annoy the shit out of them.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 8:16 AM on August 21, 2015 [28 favorites]

I did enjoy The Corrections, but I get a little tired of writers feeling the need to lecture other writers on what is worth writing about and how to write about it. Franzen has been guilty of this patrician behavior for entirely too long now, with a side order of some kind of literary engineer's disease.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 8:16 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I enjoy his writing, but he's really starting to turn into a sort of intellectual version of Donald Trump.
posted by freakazoid at 8:17 AM on August 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Pip — short for Purity

Wait, what? How does that work?

Nicknames you can feasibly derive from "Purity:" Pūr, Purr, Pity, Purty, Party, Big P, Li'l P, La Puridad, Purity Control, Commodore Ritty.

Nicknames you cannot feasibly derive from "Purity:" Rhino, Alcatraz, Repeat, Thresher, Stiv, Pip, Bud, Spud.
posted by Iridic at 8:18 AM on August 21, 2015 [30 favorites]

Also, I'm pretty sure Franzen wants to be the next Halldór Laxness more than anything else, as The Corrections attests.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 8:18 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Obviously there's plenty of other examples, but I still think of Franzen as the ur-Guy In Your MFA.
posted by kmz at 8:29 AM on August 21, 2015 [17 favorites]

I do not understand why this dude is so full of rage, and I always think to myself, "You know what would have really improved this guy's life? Going to Dartmouth, playing lacrosse, and joining a frat."

He's just so pissed off about such trivial things. I feel like his life would be dramatically improved if he were drunk about them instead, and ostentatiously rolling in his privilege, and then going off to be an investment banker and have a lot of extramarital sex and spend a lot of time congratulating himself about his money and abs and the fact that he bought a midlife Audi instead of a midlife Porsche.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:29 AM on August 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

Jonathan Franzen 'considered adopting Iraqi orphan to figure out young people'.

I'll take "Real Life or Fictional Sitcom in the BoJack Horseman Universe?" for 500, Alex
posted by prize bull octorok at 8:30 AM on August 21, 2015 [27 favorites]

Also, I feel like "franzenfreude" doesn't quite do justice for my complicated feelings on the subject of Jonathan Franzen.

"franzening" - when you dislike the author but appreciate the quality of their writing:

“He experienced a deep franzening while reading at work in between the various duties he was responsible for. A realization that this author writes some of the most effortlessly crafted fiction and yet retains the personability of a dog that knows its living in a mansion and expects to be treated as such."

posted by Fizz at 8:31 AM on August 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

I've come to think of him as the Shrike of white-male privilege, come from the future to punish us for our manifold sins of the flesh and spirit.
posted by Tevin at 8:36 AM on August 21, 2015 [15 favorites]

Oh man, you can't link his birdwatching wank without mentioning that time he royally pissed off the Audubon Society.
posted by Amberlyza at 8:37 AM on August 21, 2015 [7 favorites]

Fizz: ""franzening" - when you dislike the author but appreciate the quality of their writing: "

Maybe he IS the modern Dickens, Dickens was an absolute douchelord!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:37 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've come to think of him as the Shrike of white-male privilege...

Instead of impaling you on a tree of spikes or whatever, he forces you to read all the sections of his book excised by his editor with the note "Jonathan you're just trying to piss me off at this point."
posted by griphus at 8:37 AM on August 21, 2015 [9 favorites]

Well, you'll never go broke assuring the American public that feminists are shrieking harpies who want to force men to pee sitting down (which, of course, is the most emasculating thing one can imagine, writes the man who apparently has never heard of serious medical issues which make it difficult to stand). You'll also never go broke assuring the American public that white men are actually really great allies, it's just that women and people of color have the wrong expectations. Also, you'll never go broke reminding the American public that you can't discuss a woman writer without deciding if you consider her bangable or not, even if she's been dead for the better part of a century.
posted by Frowner at 8:39 AM on August 21, 2015 [57 favorites]

As author Laila Lalami tweeted just now:

"Jonathan Franzen may not be on social media, but no one is better at using them to get free book publicity."
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:41 AM on August 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

Oh man, you can't link his birdwatching wank without mentioning that time he royally pissed off the Audubon Society.

Yes! Please, please, nobody take their cues about birdwatchers from Franzen - we are not all like him - very few are, really. The culture (while not perfect) is seriously not as Franzen-y as you would think from listening to him.
posted by dialetheia at 8:41 AM on August 21, 2015

James Poniewozik has an excellent plan, "If we do not someday get a Jonathan Franzen biopic written by Aaron Sorkin, both men’s lives will have been wasted.
posted by gladly at 8:45 AM on August 21, 2015 [12 favorites]

I do feel like JF is like Donald Trump in that he has mini-spasms of ecstasy when his name is typed in disgust.
posted by Tevin at 8:46 AM on August 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

I really liked his article in the New Yorker about David Foster Wallace. I read it in the month after a friend committed suicide, an action with extremely complicated consequences considering he was also engaged to one of my best friends from college and did it in a spectacularly horrific fashion for everyone involved. In the year they were to be married, a wedding my wife and I were supposed to be a part of. I definitely was more receptive to that piece as a result, but I've come back to it multiple times since then and it's one writing I felt was honest, heady and challenging. It helped me capture some of the intangibles I needed to deal with in the aftermath, and at different points.

And yes, I liked Freedom, too.

I personally get the sense there's an unfair piling on here of Franzen, and the "franzenfreude" christening has created an expectation that there needs to be outrage or rampant discussion of everything he says publicly. The knives were sharpened for the purpose of "exposing" him and knocking him down, but what does this accomplish? What actually happens when every interview he gives sparks numerous social media discussions?

People who are so personally aggrieved by his comments and feel he gets too much attention...should stop then giving him more attention by calling out everything he says, if their ultimate goal is to limit his influence and impact.

Beyond that, I think this article is trying way too hard, and it looks as if the goal is to drive page views more than anything. Perhaps I'd take it a bit more seriously if it didn't look like a Buzzfeed/Clickhole article.
posted by glaucon at 8:50 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

roomthreeseventeen: "Jennifer Weiner's Twitter battle"

“Franzen believes he's locked in a no-win situation. He promotes women writers! And still we hate! "Because a villain is needed." WELL.”

He's like a charmless Seymour Skinner: "No, it's the women who are wrong."
posted by boo_radley at 8:51 AM on August 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

Well, you'll never go broke assuring the American public that feminists are shrieking harpies who want to force men to pee sitting down (which, of course, is the most emasculating thing one can imagine, writes the man who apparently has never heard of serious medical issues which make it difficult to stand).

Actually, this is a real thing in Europe. The German word "sitzpinkler" means "man who sits down to urinate", and it's used in the same way that some low-brow Americans might use "f-ggot" and some low-brow Brits might use "tosser".
posted by theorique at 8:52 AM on August 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

People who are so personally aggrieved by his comments and feel he gets too much attention...should stop then giving him more attention by calling out everything he says, if their ultimate goal is to limit his influence and impact.

This strategy has never, ever worked.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 8:53 AM on August 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

On the other hand, I can't wait to gift my daughter a copy of Franzen's forthcoming Summerwhy for her graduation in fifteen years.
posted by Tevin at 8:53 AM on August 21, 2015 [9 favorites]

James Poniewozik has an excellent plan, "If we do not someday get a Jonathan Franzen biopic written by Aaron Sorkin, both men’s lives will have been wasted.
posted by gladly at 11:45 AM on August 21 [1 favorite −] [!]

Even though they're nothing alike in personality (at least as far as I know), I could see Paul Rudd playing the part of Jonathan Franzen and doing a damn good job of it.
posted by Fizz at 8:53 AM on August 21, 2015

Mauthor: straight, rich, white, male author who boringly writes about his own simmering rage, barely disguised.

Maybe its time to just read some books by some other people with more interesting perspectives?
posted by goneill at 8:57 AM on August 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

Sweet, sweet, absurd, slightly-terrifying schadenfranzen. Happy Friday, everyone.
posted by sparkletone at 8:57 AM on August 21, 2015

I found a hardcover copy of Freedom abandoned in SF recently.
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:06 AM on August 21, 2015

I don't think there's anything wrong with liking Franzen's writing/books. We like what we like. Most people here haven't said he's a shit writer. He's not my thing, but I don't get angry if he's someone else's, in terms of writerly style.

But every time he opens his mouth, he says really asinine, clueless, things, reeking of sexism and privilege. Nobody is making him do that. But if he's going to do that, then yes, he will be called out on it. The fact that his only response, so far, has been "well I can just die then!" is frankly juvenile. You can engage. You can learn about feminism and classism. You can examine yourself and your privilege. But this very concept is just beyond him.

Since I didn't connect with his writing, I can't speak from my own experience as to whether his personal opinions would color my enjoyment of it. Sometimes it's possible to separate the artist from the art, sometimes it isn't.

One way he is like Dickens is that I wouldn't want to be married to either of them.
posted by emjaybee at 9:08 AM on August 21, 2015 [25 favorites]

Actually, this is a real thing in Europe. The German word "sitzpinkler" means "man who sits down to urinate", and it's used in the same way that some low-brow Americans might use "f-ggot" and some low-brow Brits might use "tosser".

But... how would you know if your SO was peeing standing up or sitting down? Unless they had horrible aim?

I expect the stupidity from Franzen at the point, but I am so confused by the logistics.
posted by dinty_moore at 9:11 AM on August 21, 2015

Judging how he seems to be trending on twitter every week for some stupid shit or other, I'd say he understands young people just fine.
posted by naju at 9:12 AM on August 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

But... how would you know if your SO was peeing standing up or sitting down? Unless they had horrible aim?

I expect the stupidity from Franzen at the point, but I am so confused by the logistics.

Nobody said that quirky insults that men and boys use make a lot of sense. The goal is to take each other down a peg during the performance of masculinity.
posted by theorique at 9:14 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I get the sense that Franzen is just trolling everybody, all the time, 24/7/365.
posted by newdaddy at 9:20 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm surprised he didn't propose eating said adoptee at age 18, when said utility expired.
posted by mrdaneri at 9:27 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

This article just hit The Guardian:

‘There is no way to make myself not male'.

The American novelist has upset everyone from Oprah Winfrey to bird lovers to women writers. Is he sorry? Far from it: Franzen’s arguments with young people, social media and feminism fuel his latest book
posted by Fizz at 9:28 AM on August 21, 2015

*buys boxes of tiniest violins to hand out to everyone*
posted by Kitteh at 9:36 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I get the sense that Franzen is just trolling everybody, all the time, 24/7/365.

#TrumpFranzen2016
posted by theorique at 9:38 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think he's pulling an Upper West Side version of Joaquin-Phoenix-as-rapper.
posted by gottabefunky at 9:41 AM on August 21, 2015

Interesting guy. A master at getting people to pay him any attention.
posted by repoman at 9:42 AM on August 21, 2015

Growing Up Franzen

For the orphan, a plaintive refrain to encapsulate the drudgery of growing up the Franzen way. ”I Don’t Care What Kind of Bird It Is, Father.” It will be playful like “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd, but instaid of canibalistic puns, it’s just a bunch of birds.
posted by emjaybee at 9:48 AM on August 21, 2015

I don't get it. He said he thought about it and then realized that it was, in his own words, "insane." So he gets that it was a dumb idea. So. So yeah I don't get what's happening or why people are saying things like "of course he would think this was a good idea!" when he himself is saying that it was a crazy idea.

I love lamp.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 9:51 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think his fiction is a bit over-rated. I like his non-fiction pieces in the New Yorker. I noticed people start to get really worked up about him when he did The Krauss Project, and made some deprecating statements about over-reliance on social media. People will get really grumpy when you diss their new smart-phones.
posted by ovvl at 9:56 AM on August 21, 2015

Jonathan Franzen 'considered adopting Iraqi orphan to figure out young people'.

OH JOHN RINGO JONATHAN FRANZEN NO
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 9:56 AM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

From a fairly distant perspective – I'm neither up on Franzen or literature – he seems very much like the new Michael Crichton! He's a successful writer who winces at criticism from what he thinks of as the left and becomes increasingly obsessed with that. In this book, he's put models of his enemies in to show the world how unfair they are. Perhaps this is his Disclosure? Perhaps in future books, he will name specific terrible characters after his most pronounced critics.
posted by ignignokt at 9:56 AM on August 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

I don't get it. He said he thought about it and then realized that it was, in his own words, "insane." So he gets that it was a dumb idea. So. So yeah I don't get what's happening or why people are saying things like "of course he would think this was a good idea!" when he himself is saying that it was a crazy idea.

I think people that have normal connections to humankind would figure out that this is a bad idea in a matter of seconds rather than six weeks.
posted by ignignokt at 9:57 AM on August 21, 2015 [9 favorites]

but why do we all know about the dumb idea? because he told us. it's not like we've tapped his brain and are mocking him for thought crimes.

also i reject the idea that we can only point out the things that assholes say when they've risen to the level of raping 30+ women over a period of decades. it seems like if he wants to keep saying dumb shit, people will keep reacting to it.
posted by nadawi at 10:01 AM on August 21, 2015 [7 favorites]

I get the sense that Franzen is just trolling everybody, all the time, 24/7/365.

From the Guardian article I linked above:

As for social media, “it feels like a protection racket. Your reputation will be murdered unless you join in this thing that is, in significant part, about murdering reputations.” There is a long pause. “Why would I want to feed that machine?”

Troll Level: Master
posted by Fizz at 10:03 AM on August 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

WAIT
WAIT
I'VE GOT IT
posted by Shmuel510 at 10:38 AM on August 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

Everyone knows you use social media to remember birthdays and post maudlin love songs at 3AM when you're drunk and lonely.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 10:39 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

A few people have questioned why we care or why we can't just look away when Franzen starts spouting off in a ridiculous manner.

The reason that it matters is pointed out by Jennifer Weiner in her tweets. The amount of space given to books in major publications is irritatingly small, and at any given point a huge amount of it is going to him. The point isn't that some idiot said he wanted to adopt a small child for his literary experiments. The point is that the Guardian and NYT continue to interview him and print his drivel when we have established that there's a systematic bias in the amount of publicity given to authors depending on their race and gender.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:43 AM on August 21, 2015 [17 favorites]

I'm waiting for Oprah's hot take on this.
posted by srboisvert at 10:45 AM on August 21, 2015

How is it that in the year of our lord 2015, lots of people don't consider judging young people because reasons to be one or more of the following:

-Trite
-Hypocritical
-Boring
-Cliché
-Done to Death
-Indicative of a certain lack of mental maturity
-Jealous
-Trolling

Not that Franzen is even close to being alone in all of this, though he certainly comes off as a bit whinier than some. But, really? Complaining about self-censorship while at the same time deliberately trolling people?

Must be nice to have all that author cred to keep people from rejecting him as a troll.

I'd say he earned it, but I always get the distinct impression that in any creative field, success is more random than ability. We'll never know how many people of equal ability languished unpublished, unknown, or unseen.

We should probably stop feeding his trolling. I wouldn't say stop reading his books, but stop going out of our way to publish his supposedly profound opinions in newspapers and online. He's not using social media much, right? Problem solved? Maybe?
posted by Strudel at 10:52 AM on August 21, 2015

I've never considered myself a Franzen fan, but then I read pieces like this one and I must say, he's making me one, the crafty bastard.

As an aside, the frequency with which I get "Has anyone ever said you look like Jonathan Franzen?" has increased lately, even as the old "Has anyone ever said you look like Stephen King?" has decreased. My mom will be reassured, if nothing else. Remarking to her once that I got a lot of comparisons to Stephen King, she replied "Oh, dear, don't say that. He's ugly."
posted by octobersurprise at 11:00 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Jonathan Franzen as the new Michael Crichton is such a perfect comment that we could just close this up and go home.

(And if Franzen ever read it I think he'd spontaneously combust.)
posted by sallybrown at 11:08 AM on August 21, 2015 [8 favorites]

From a fairly distant perspective – I'm neither up on Franzen or literature – he seems very much like the new Michael Crichton!

i very strongly urge you to tweet this to him and then laugh a supervillain laugh
posted by poffin boffin at 11:09 AM on August 21, 2015 [11 favorites]

Mr. Franzen I just wanted to tell you I'm a huge fan of your books and have all of them on my shelf right between the Dan Brown and Dean Koontz novels.
posted by griphus at 11:13 AM on August 21, 2015 [17 favorites]

Sweet, sweet, absurd, slightly-terrifying schadenfranzen.

I ate all the Franzen Glädjé!
posted by octobersurprise at 11:15 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I will say, I loved and still love The Corrections, but Freedom made me classify him alongside Wolfe and Eugenides in the subset of "serious" writers using their fiction to try and work out some major issues and misogynistic confusion about young women, particularly with regard to young women's sexual thoughts and behaviors. (Weird especially for Eugenides because I found The Virgin Suicides to ring really true with me, but The Marriage Plot was just horrible.)

And it's not because they're male writers. There are some fabulous mainstream male writers out there who do this REALLY well -- John Irving, Chad Harbach, Stephen King (most of the time)...the key seems to be accepting that every woman, like every man, is complicated and weird in her own way (even women who "look" not all that complicated, even young women who are perfect-looking -- oh and by the way, not every perfect-looking young woman has some burning desire to fuck a sad middle-aged man in a position of semi-authority over her, FYI guys).
posted by sallybrown at 11:25 AM on August 21, 2015 [15 favorites]

The thing I don't have is the hair. And I gotta say, that's some good damn hair. I'm talking to my stylist about that.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:28 AM on August 21, 2015

I don't get Franzen. Plus he sounds like a general ass. Team Jennifer Weiner for me, thanks.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:41 AM on August 21, 2015

You're not wrong Jonathan you're just an assh... no wait, you're wrong too.
posted by fullerine at 11:52 AM on August 21, 2015

Hmmm. My mental files picked up on parallels to Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons", however he was of an earlier generation and I processed that work as exposing some liberation, but failing on so.many.points. that it reads fantasy about rape myths, with lots of trolling and cynicism. I read BotV, and recalled some nuance for race, gender and SES that just wasn't coming through. It was more "jumped the shark" than "magnum opus" for the book that had me saying "I'm done" with his writing.

Is this JF's moment? He has a readership. This will push some away and attract new attention. Is it navel gazing for his demographic peers that can't think their way out of hegemonic social programming? Maybe. There are times when Conspiracy Brain wonders if media trolls like the Westboro Baptist Church are getting in front of cameras because they want to challenge the Old Way Things Were and encourage people to crystallize their beliefs in contrast to the hyperbolic vomit in front of them dressed up in Freedom of Speech. As a hate group, they likely accelerated social and military change by making hate-zealotry disrespectable, making room for tolerance.

Franzen hasn't hit hard enough on entrenched ignorance in his writing to flip the table on all of the hypocrisy and social ills that he decries, so his writing can come across as condoning or perpetuating the harm. White Middle Class Society is a theme in his writing so he's going to be a lightning rod for all sorts of flack, and he seems ill-equipped to get off his current trajectory.

If I could pair him up at the table with writers like we pair wine and food, i'd suggest Andrew Solomon for depression and family dynamics, including generational transitions, Tim Wise on the context of being white in our diverse society, Adiche for feminism, American assimilation and expatriate-ism and post-colonial experience. If he's not ready for Adiche, perhaps Jackson Katz, Russell Strand or David Lisak can recommend some writers that incorporate gender norms that inspire hope for the 21st and 22nd century because I just finished reading Missoula and feel like Pabst could be a Franzen character if he decided to re-write Jane Smiley's novel on life in a college town, "Moo". People evolve, and I suggest these collaborations because it's a win when we get men like Jimmy Carter and the current Pope to add their voices to The Overcoming, encouraging people to step away from what their Farenheit 451-esque screens promote, including inertia.

I am leaning away from reading his book, even if it's written with ironic intent to provoke conversation. Other writers are more worthy. Wendy Shalit's "A Return to Modesty" from 2000 is a better critique of American culture in this complex area of sexual behavior and the cultural context of clothing choices in a world that runs the gamut from asexual to pansexual.
posted by childofTethys at 12:18 PM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Vox imagines the conversation:

Henry Finder: So when this child asks, "How did we become a family?" you are going to tell him what, exactly?

Jonathan Franzen: I will explain to him that sometimes even great men who are great writers need help understanding things, and that is the role that he, my Iraqi war orphan, is to play. And then I will make him explain The Selfies to me, and we will laugh together, we will grill, and I will tell him why typewriters are superior to computers.

Henry Finder: I’m not going to lie, it feels pretty strange that you keep referring to him as your "Iraqi war orphan" and not your son.

Jonathan Franzen: That hurts me and my Iraqi war orphan, Henry.

posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:23 PM on August 21, 2015 [6 favorites]

Hey, instead of supporting good authors, I got an idea: let's dwell on that one author we can all agree is bad with a minimum of research.

There are so many more retweets this way, and there's no chance of displaying a shred of vulnerability. It's perfect.

posted by Rustic Etruscan at 12:30 PM on August 21, 2015 [5 favorites]

JF is a very good but not a great American author; I've liked all his books, though I thought Freedom was about 30% longer than it needed to be. I should admit I'm not usually very interested in the persona of the people who write the books I like (nor do I obsess about the show runners of various TV series I binge-watch).

But when it comes to Franzen I can't help thinking that if his books were shorter/quicker reads there would be about 1/10 the amount of snarking about the things he says, which, let's be honest, really aren't much different from the crackpot things a great many authors say on a regular basis.
posted by aught at 1:12 PM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

but why do we all know about the dumb idea? because he told us.

Oh I've shared many dumb ideas with you lot. Remember when I wanted a Christian? Right, so that wasn't the most fully-baked idea. And after a week or so I abandoned it, realizing, correctly, that it wasn't ever going to be all smells and bells.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:29 PM on August 21, 2015

Franzen said he was in his late 40s at the time with a thriving career and a good relationship but he felt angry with the younger generation. “Oh, it was insane, the idea that Kathy [his partner] and I were going to adopt an Iraqi war orphan. The whole idea lasted maybe six weeks.”

Why are people getting so fired up about this? It seems like a sort of "magic pixie dream writer" thing to do - "ooh, look at how I am being very creative and humanitarian and quirky at the same time!" (Assuming it's literally true and he's not just saying it to be clever and quirky and writerly.)
posted by theorique at 1:36 PM on August 21, 2015

(just noticed that he had to be talked out of it by his editor ... so maybe it's more serious than I originally thought!)
posted by theorique at 1:37 PM on August 21, 2015

just noticed that he had to be talked out of it by his editor ...

In the next world over, where Franzen has a different editor, comes an essay that starts with "I didn't notice that the Iraqi orphan I adopted had died until the neighbors started complain about the smell..."
posted by happyroach at 2:27 PM on August 21, 2015

Why are people getting so fired up about this? It seems like a sort of "magic pixie dream writer" thing to do - "ooh, look at how I am being very creative and humanitarian and quirky at the same time!"

Because using another human being, especially one who's gone through the trauma of loosing both parents in a war, as a prop is generally considered a bad thing to do. Even if you're a writer.
posted by Gygesringtone at 2:35 PM on August 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

Why are people getting so fired up about this? It seems like a sort of "magic pixie dream writer" thing to do - "ooh, look at how I am being very creative and humanitarian and quirky at the same time!"

Twitter user to Jennifer Weiner: I wonder if he'll do an interview explaining how that idea isn't insanely racist too.

Jennifer Weiner: Are you saying Iraqi war orphans don't exist solely for the education, moral edification of white men?

Thanks to this exchange, I now follow Jennifer Weiner on Twitter, and I might just read one of her books too.
posted by orange swan at 2:48 PM on August 21, 2015 [9 favorites]

We needn't squabble over this. I'm sure there are enough imaginary Iraqi war orphans for everyone's edification.
posted by octobersurprise at 3:14 PM on August 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

Quick, someone post on AskMe about good white male authors that help future generations and might balance out Franzen. I have a few: Mo Willems, Lemony Snicket (shares dysthymia with Franzen), Roald Dahl, Chris Crutcher.

I haven't read Stephen King in a while - he worked things out with Carrie. Fire starter and The Stand have powerful women. He's a keeper for the list. Krakauer is promising, Cormac McCarthy writes well but does not Get It.

Terry Pratchett?

The Mists of Avalon and Ahab's Wife get written because it's good writing but the original story easily speaks to only half of the readership and the resulting midrash expands appreciation for the original work as a period piece. Franzen's work won't get this translation. He's like the college professor that forgets he visually resembles his students' parents, even if there is Great Hair, which feeds someone's quote about not trusting people over 40.

On Preview, Rustic Etruscan is on to my author name-dropping.
posted by childofTethys at 3:24 PM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

The German word "sitzpinkler" means "man who sits down to urinate

I'm going to out myself as a frequent sit-down-pisser here - and defend the practice, goddamn it, from those who reflexively inveigh against it.

It's the middle of the night, I'm 3 out of 10 on the consciousness scale, as the chamomile tea I consumed as leverage against salty pizza makes its presence known. I stumble to the bathroom, hopefully only ramming my shins against the bed, clothes basket, walls, door frames, and some other things I don't even know 6 or 7 times, tops.

I've made it to the toilet. My eyes have been predominantly closed for this journey. I am tired , tired and busting.

I have two choices here (only one, really): to pee sitting down, or standing up.

The sit down pee: Light stays off; eyes stay closed; body relaxes into the glorious feelings of somnolent release with arms resting obediently by my side; loud tinkling sound does not pierce my midnight reverie; reader I am happy. I silently trudge back to my bed and Morpheus' sweet embrace moments later.

Stand up pee: Unless you have a penis with the homing ability of an expensive icbm missile, the light goes on; my eyes are open, resentful, squinting; I am standing up and still kind of disorientated, I'm weaving like a punch drunk amateur at the end of round six; I fumble with my drawstrings and attempt to concentrate; a loud tinkling assaults my ears like an f22 landing poorly on a runway made of Waterford crystal; urine is going everywhere, I mean everywhere; I'm painting the floor like the tiles offend me, there's a suspiciously dark patch forming on my pyjamas, I forgot to put the seat up and now it's glistening like a dewy meadow; oh god, I just pissed on my own hand, my beautiful hand I'll have to wash that now and the water will be freezing; the act is finished, and now I'm ripping off toilet paper and hopelessly dabbing at things, pathetically trying to cover up the evidence of my crime; job finished, I walk back to bed. The light, the noise, the generous appplication of urine, the cold water on my hand: I an now alert, if not alarmed, and lying in bed awake for the next half hour.

Is my masculinity so fragile I have to cover myself, and all I hold dear, in piss just to preserve it? No, no it is not. I am a Man, and I am Man enough to admit I sit down to pee when the whim strikes me.
posted by smoke at 4:27 PM on August 21, 2015 [14 favorites]

Seen on Twitter: "Can someone please adopt Jonathan Franzen so he can finally get some home training and act like he got some sense."

I retweeted it with the addition: "The place for wanking is IN YOUR ROOM WITH THE DOOR SHUT."
posted by orange swan at 4:31 PM on August 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Oh, God, I thought I couldn't loathe Franzen more. I was wrong!
posted by sarcasticah at 5:05 PM on August 21, 2015

I had a boyfriend who sat down to pee, and while he turned out to be an utter shitbag in other ways, the sitting down to pee was great - he never left the seat up in the middle of the night, and he didn't piss all over the floor, which was, of course, my responsibility to clean as the the woman in the relationship.

Men, if someone else in your home cleans the bathroom floor, you should all consider sitting to pee too.
posted by Squeak Attack at 5:13 PM on August 21, 2015

I am proud to say I disliked Franzen before it was cool, ever since I read The Corrections (when it first came out, natch). Shallow, insipid, and his face should be next to the word backpfeifengesicht in the dictionary.
posted by mrbigmuscles at 5:58 PM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

orange swan - I highly recommend Jennifer Weiner's Good in Bed. In Her Shoes is also great.

(Not to snark but I feel like someone purposely edited her Wiki to put an awkward photo of her there...)
posted by sallybrown at 9:28 PM on August 21, 2015

He's taking a page from Marilyn Manson's playbook.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:31 PM on August 21, 2015

Maybe Franzen is just a huge Flaubert fan and he's into Bouvard & Pécuchet reenactment/cosplay. One month birdwatching, then childrearing... he'll probably get into programming or agriculture next.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 10:29 AM on August 22, 2015

Sitting to pee freely ... uh, maybe that doesn't sound so good ... sitting to pee by individual choice is a fine thing. Sitting to pee as part of some broad based injunction would probably incite push-back from irritated men. That being said, every time I've actually seen news items about this it seems to be part of some obscure, vaguely-but-not-really feminist initiative somewhere in Northern Europe. And used as a straw man to argue "look, men - the feminists are taking over.

In other words, I think standing to urinate is not going away any time soon.
posted by theorique at 2:09 PM on August 22, 2015