Franzen: s/d

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

yeah theyre vague, banal, dont really add up to any sort of cohesive portrait of the times

i wonder if she was over doing the praise just to invite him to come to the nets and talk, she seems usually much smarter

'the corrections' has moments of persuasive clarity, i still sometimes think abt his description of brooklyn in 2002 as 'just like philadelphia but with manahattan right next door' i think he does a good job of illustrating the way some kinds of people see the world as working, 'freedomland' is so much worse because his way of seeing the world in 2010 was a lot less clear and less insightful, hes way too turned inwards at this point i think, dreaming about 1910 and mistaking advertising for peoples dream lives or w/e

hes a p repulsive person tho

was just going to say how no one mentions the Corrections being v funny, checked, pinefox got there first.

its ok funny. its as funny as a medium to good terry pratchett

i thought this thread revive wd be for THE KRAUS PROJECT, BY JONATHAN FRANZEN

Want to read some Kraus. A Penguin Classic of his writings keeps being pushed back (currently scheduled for Feb 2015, aaargh). Would rather wait for this than one with Franzen blather all over it, plus him taking all the cover credit.

Compare http://cache1.bdcdn.net/assets/images/book/large/9780/1411/9780141180960.jpg
with http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00CCUB9N8.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

If he wrote persuasively about his forebears and loves I might take him seriously as a crank.

xpost otm, i've been wanting to check out kraus, but i think i'll wait for the penguin book.

what would be good is if the franzen version flopped and they decided there was no market for kraus

what's going to be in the penguin? by the looks of it the contents will be pretty different.

and neither seems to have anything that's been available in english (though i haven't cracked the one collection in a while, the one that's got 'last days' and 'in these great times' and who knows what else in it).

the franzen translations are banking pretty hard on franzen's name - a book in english with essays about heine and nestroy (!!!) is the exact opposite of a winning financial proposition

Really crying out for a decent Karl Kraus paperback. Not quite the same thing (or time) but he sounds like he could as fun as Hazlitt.

Really hilarious piece by Franzen on Kraus in The Guardian - a paper that can't stop covering Apple and Twitter and Facebook bullshit all day long. Just invalidated the whole piece, making it even more incoherent than it was.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/oct/24/karl-kraus-torch-song-vienna/?pagination=false

Excellent piece. Do trust Hofmann's judgement, by and large (he likes what I like). Not that I should be trusting anybody..

Me too, although I don't agree with his almost rage-like hatred of Stefan Zweig

“Just when you’re thinking you’re intellectually alone in the world, something like n+1 falls into your hands.”

— Jonathan Franzen

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByfW-6CIYAAFbne.png

uh didn't he already write a book that did that

sure, but now someone else is writing another one