Franzen: s/d

local apples

the whole northern spie religion of things coming to an end.

wait, northern spy/spie wouldn't be local to a prairie. nevermind.

i read that paragraph and it makes me think the person who wrote it has only read about going outside. or only seen pictures of outside.

I don't know, I feel the problem may be obscurely connected with wanting to do this:

The madness of the trees ripening in the mortgage of a minor light. You could feel it: gust after gust of disorder. The cold front restless in the sky: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low on the autumn prairie, termperatures falling, storm windows shuddering in empty bedrooms. No red oaks in the yard here. The children rained acorns on houses with no gasoline. The nasal contention of a clothes dryer, the drone of a leaf blower, paper apples in a local bag, the autumn prairie coming to an end. A cold front lengthened on yellowing zoysia. The smell of the whole northern religion of things with which Alfred Lambert had made morning love to the wicker seat after a paintbrush. HIccuping.

dude, that is friggin' brilliant. would read your book any day.

Maybe I shd go get myself a copy of the corrections. I cd do something like Averroes' The Incoherence of The Incoherence. The Corrections of The Corrections

do it!

"Body warmth was hanging in the air, faint smells of Enid's White Shoulders perfume, and something bathroomy, something old-persony."

That is a much, much better paragraph, Fizzles.

would read a 500-page Cheever-inspired novel about a man in suburbia who has a torrid threesome with a chaise and a paint brush.

I also would read.

Thank you, Scott. I'm totally with you on this. The farthest I've gotten is about ten pages in, and that was a painful ten pages. All those images that have some kind of profound meaning that can be sensed but never truly KNOWN.

the beginning is the worst part iirc

Never read Franzen--everything I've read about him, and his various holy pronouncements, make him seem incredibly humourless, which is one of my main turn-offs. Can anyone who knows his work confirm my prejudice?

"the nasal contention of a leaf blower" WTF

hey how come nobody has posted franzen's rulez fur ritin' on here?

In February 2010, Franzen (along with writers including Richard Ford, Zadie Smith and Anne Enright) was asked by The Guardian to contribute what he believed were ten serious rules to abide by for aspiring writers. Franzen's rules ran as follows:

1. The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.
2. Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money.
3. Never use the word "then" as a ­conjunction – we have "and" for this purpose. Substituting "then" is the lazy or tone-deaf writer's non-solution to the problem of too many "ands" on the page.
4. Write in the third person unless a ­really distinctive first-person voice ­offers itself irresistibly.
5. When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.
6. The most purely autobiographical ­fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than "The Metamorphosis".
7. You see more sitting still than chasing after.
8. It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction [the TIME magazine cover story detailed how Franzen physically disables the Net portal on his writing laptop].
9. Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.
10. You have to love before you can be relentless.

3, 4, and 6 are actually shrewd comments. otoh wtf is "an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown"?

i believe that refers to having no internet connection.

4 is sorta ridiculous--i can't think of a single first person voice that isn't "distinctive"

1. The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

i actually want anyone reading my stuff to be an adversarial spectator. i have enough friends.

I think he's warning MFA students stuck for material

xpost

so tired of this fucking guy

i found three copies of the corrections in my sisters house

burn them

i have made the proper 'corrections' *crazy eyes*

http://s21.theawl.com/awl/up/2012/02/Screen-shot-2012-02-20-at-7.08.06-PM.jpg

someone should interview him and half way through his schtick abt why contemporary writing and the internet is bad just slide that photo across the table

^^^^

why denim shirts are bad by jonathan franzen

what the film kicking and screaming took from us by jonathan franzen

"When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You'll Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You Know That You're Right", the new novel from Jonathan Franzen

Never read Franzen--everything I've read about him, and his various holy pronouncements, make him seem incredibly humourless, which is one of my main turn-offs. Can anyone who knows his work confirm my prejudice?

The man himself seems like that, but The Corrections is pretty funny in parts

This summer, from Pixar studios: Jonathan Franzen's Talking Poop

Jonathan Franzen presents: American Gladiators

The man himself seems like that, but The Corrections is... throws internet out window by jonathan franzen

THE MASTER(BATER) by Jonathan Franzen

http://i.imgur.com/r1sRk.png

can't even give them away...

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/552843_10152207500432137_1179324956_n.jpg

i saw this was revived and i was coming here to post 'should i throw out my copies of freedom and the corrections'

It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction

one of the snottiest and most obnoxious things he's ever said, and that's saying something

I kind of agree a little bit! and I never agree with that guy.

yeah what about Tao Lin?

I just know that for me personally the less wired I am the more i actually think. and get creative. i'm better off in all kinds of ways when i'm off the internet.

i read it as him dismissing the idea that anyone could just write fiction in their spare time at work (like george saunders did), but now that i think about it he probably did just mean that internet time saps your creativity, which i unfortunately know for a fact is otm.

maria bustillos thinks franzen is one of the world’s most most talented writers http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/09/jonathan-franzen-come-join-us.html

i wouldn't mind franzen's anti-everything diatribes so much if he were at least cranky in an entertaining, over-the-top way -- his rants always come off as passive-aggressive and kind of unpleasant to me, with way more contempt than outrage. it's quite possible to hate facebook and twitter or whatever and still not sound like an asshole about it.

I enjoyed the Corrections as much as anyone but he probably holds the title of most overrated author in the world right now.

‏@colsonwhitehead
What do you call it when someone has a horrible public persona, and but when you meet them in person, they are actually horrible?

ha everyone is asking if this is about franzen

the quotes in the bustillos article do not seem particularly OTM to me