Franzen: s/d

/He would be one of the writers mentioned under the title favorite novelist/

let's just stare at this sentence for a bit

LOL Franzen 2016:

Have you ever considered writing a book about race?

I have thought about it, but—this is an embarrassing confession—I don’t have very many black friends. I have never been in love with a black woman. I feel like if I had, I might dare.

[I adjust the microphone, which he stares at for a moment.] Good, good, good. The mic. Got the mic pointed toward me. I am doing all the talking here. [Pauses.]

You were saying you have never been in love with a black woman.

Right. Didn’t marry into a black family. I write about characters, and I have to love the character to write about the character. If you have not had direct firsthand experience of loving a category of person—a person of a different race, a profoundly religious person, things that are real stark differences between people—I think it is very hard to dare, or necessarily even want, to write fully from the inside of a person.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/interrogation/2016/07/a_conversation_with_novelist_jonathan_franzen.html

"I feel it’s really dangerous, if you are a liberal white American, to presume that your good intentions are enough to embark on a work of imagination about black America."

Franzen pretty otm here in my opinion

well, yeah, if the reason you are writing something is because you have good intentions, than definitely try not to do that. unless you are an amazing writer. than it probably wouldn't be that dangerous. it just might not be great. and i am thankful that franzen is not writing about race. his next novel should really be about a white novelist who writes a lot of e-mails and then goes bird-watching.

- Do stupid comments on social media get to you? What about a long and thoughtful review? Do you engage with that sort of thing?

- No. I don’t even read positive reviews unless they are absolutely certified by eight different people to not contain one thing that could upset me.

- Really?

- Yes.

as much as franzen has said a lot of dumb stuff - and his comments are worded really badly, i can kind of sympathise with the tendency for a white writer to avoid trying to write about other races or other experiences besides his/her own. isn't it kind of arrogant for a white male writer to assume he can talk freely from the mouth of a character from any background you choose?

i mean, the onus is more on society to promote and talk about writers from different backgrounds than it is for existing successful white male writers to lead the way by writing about characters they so far haven't written about. i don't know why we would expect them to do that or even want them to.

also, writing fiction is really really difficult - creating things is really really difficult. if a writer hasn't done xyz thing it's probably because they can't.

well he says he doesn't do much research on stuff he's not that interested in. and i think it shows. every time i read him i just picture a guy at home writing.

a great writer can make me forget about the guy at home writing. and a good writer can and should write about whatever they want. or write in any voice that they want. which is hard work to get right.

i've never read his books, but i agree with all of that, i'm just not sure that writing about other identities is a prerequisite for achieving those things. the written word is p powerful in many directions with many possibilities.

a good writer can and should write about whatever they want. or write in any voice that they want. which is hard work to get right

again, i agree. but whatever they want is not the same as what others feel they should.

Anyone who can avoid being written about by Franzen should feel grateful.

amen.

most white american writers don't even bother. cuz they know they would suck at writing about anyone not like them or from their tiny world. journalists who write fiction (like crime fiction) don't seem to think its a big deal. probably because they have met more than 4 people in their work as journalists.

mostly people just take a tip from t.v. and have everyone talk and act the same no matter who they are. which is the safest bet if you don't know how to create living breathing fictional characters who differ from each other in substantial ways.

p sure many, many of the authors i've read you mention on the reading threads don't write about people who aren't the same race as them, and that doesn't make them bad writers. you can write about what you don't know without it being another race.

i wanna be really clear. there isn't anything that anyone HAS to write about. but i also don't think that anything should be "dangerous" to write about. even if its a misguided polemic on race written by an outsider. it will live and die on its own merits. i also think that there are a LOT of current white american fiction writers who write what they know and it often turns out that they don't know that much. or know much about people. most of the (white) writers i love know a lot about people. inside and out. if people is their thing. and not the process of terraforming distant planets. sometimes that is their thing. and knowing something inside and out is one way a minor writer can become a major one.

can we talk about his choice of jeans

i wanna be really clear. there isn't anything that anyone HAS to write about. but i also don't think that anything should be "dangerous" to write about. even if its a misguided polemic on race written by an outsider. it will live and die on its own merits. i also think that there are a LOT of current white american fiction writers who write what they know and it often turns out that they don't know that much. or know much about people. most of the (white) writers i love know a lot about people. inside and out. if people is their thing. and not the process of terraforming distant planets. sometimes that is their thing. and knowing something inside and out is one way a minor writer can become a major one.

fair enough. i guess i think even within an ostensibly narrow frame a writer can achieve a lot. even when writing about people they might feel they know, they discover things they don't know. a lot of writing seems to be based on this idea. like if you took a synopsis it would be easy to dismiss but the discoveries within are more than the subject might suggest. there are interesting things in every life.

i feel like "write what you don't know" is as valuable or maybe moreso than "write what you know" - i'm not sure fiction writing is ever done from a position of knowledge and comfort and confidence, but i don't know.

you can totally be narrow and achieve a lot but you have to be really talented and compelling and interesting and you should know that narrow space you live in like the back of your hand.

write what you don't know is definitely valuable. that's why i like sci-fi. i wish all the normal nerds of lit fic would read more sci-fi.

i just like being in good hands. reading those ferrante books was so cool because i was in such good hands. she totally owns her world. no hesitancy. no fraidy-cat self-consciousness. it's law. not a tentative stab at some vaguely interesting insight about some vaguely interesting subject that someone read about in the new yorker or the new york times.

i might even go so far as to say that i don't trust a writer who says there is something dangerous to write about. but i am glad that he's not planning to go all tom wolfe on the race issue...

i wish all the normal nerds of lit fic would read more sci-fi.

this seems like a weird thing to say, i feel like all the major lit fic people now have read a lot of SF and have that as part of their world, while this is less true of last century's big white novelists like Roth/Bellow/Updike

maybe they didn't read the right sci-fi books...

i don't think people should be looking at the U.S. for fiction now anyway. ain't no ferrantes around these parts as far as i can see. i'm not really the best judge though. since i'm usually hanging out with the out of print moldy figs.

I think it is telling, though, that franzen basically isn't interested in black people or their experiences. He doesnt need to write about them, and im sure hed do a shoddy job if he did, but it seems as though he gives not 1 shit.

It's a pretty shocking revelation, a bombshell even.

Indeed. Though the idea that you can only write about what you have loved explains why franzen can write so much about himself and people just like him.

blink·ered
ˈbliNGkərd
adjective
(of a horse) wearing blinders.
having or showing a limited outlook.
"a small-minded, blinkered approach"
synonyms: narrow-minded, inward-looking, parochial, provincial, insular, small-minded, close-minded, shortsighted; hidebound, illiberal, inflexible, entrenched, prejudiced

which is different than being in a narrow space. zane grey and the ventures were really cool. so were p.g. wodehouse and j.j. cale.

how did this thread get so far w/o anyone making the 'he cant write effectively about white ppl either' joke?>?

I really do not understand the mindset which suggests that a contemporary writer has a duty to cover all major social issues. Should he be taken to task for failing to address creation science being taught in schools next?

Are the characters in his books explicitly described as white? Are the experiences they have not available to people of other races?

franzen basically isn't interested in black people or their experiences.

I guess I don't see this. I presume he's plenty interested in black people and their experiences -- how can you live in the United States and not be? But he doesn't feel qualified to write about them.

jfc

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DsEjOJHXQAAjW3o.jpg

He would get along just fine with Springsteen

the only thing worse than a temporarily embarrassed millionaire is a permanently embarrassed millionaire

there are ways to become truly poor, you know

This is from Jonathan Franzen's flap copy. "The" doing a whole, whole, whole lot of work there... pic.twitter.com/lGfUJ7dijw

— Rebecca Makkai (@rebeccamakkai) April 26, 2021

Reviews are praising the new novel (no surprise there) but, as oppose to his other books, it seems the public will love it too. If Goodreads reviewers is a good representative sample.

A writer friend of mine said it's actually really good.

("actually" intended)

Just like him to write a good book after everyone has already decided he's over.

Lots of the public have liked several of his other books. Aren't they bestsellers?

They're good books.

This sounds dreadful.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/10/04/the-church-of-jonathan-franzen

Crossroads is so good

enjoyed it

not sure why it had to be so long

it contains this hilarious sentence:

He lingered to push his tongue as far into her as it would reach, to taste what his penis couldn’t

but also this decency

The dream of a novel was more resilient than other kinds of dreaming. It could be interrupted in mid-sentence and snapped back into later.

I really don't understand why the guy is so popular, kinda like Elon Musk it seems more like he won the lottery than went out and achieved

but much more fun than Purity that's for sure

If you mean Crossroads, it's too long and kinda fizzles at the end, I thought -- the other novels have had stronger endings.

I actually enjoy his celebration of awkwardness in free indirect speech (like the penis line - it's funny! and deliberately so, I think). I like that he's unembarrassed to explore the more doltish aspects of our inner monologues without getting all inane and Nick Hornbyesque about it.

(This is probably an overcharitable reading, but I'm a fan, so yeah)

hehe indeed, good defense

I'm not that critical, mostly find it funny, similar to rap music's memorable banalities

and yes, was referring to Crossroads

Really liked The Corrections and Freedom, everything I read about Purity put me off so I never looked at it, will read Crossroads at some point

It's weird how in many corners of the internet it's taken as a given that "everybody hates Jonathan Franzen" when in fact he is widely praised by critics and his books sell hundreds of thousands of copies

sorry ive been overcome by a vision of an alternate universe where penises can taste

I think his non-fiction is insufferable in a way his fiction largely isn't, but not really sure Actual Franzen that closely resembles Internet's Approximation of Franzen.

He is certainly capable of bad, thoughtless writing when he wanders out of his "male sadsack" safe space, but I'm a fan and large uncritical. They're all fun to read, even Purity and Strong Motion. The new one is maybe his best until it sags for the final fifth.

What the Penis Can't Taste: Essays

It did strike me while reading Crossroads what kind of massive confidence it must take to write those standard issue Franzen sex scenes, go through the whole revision and editing process, know that thousands of people are going to read them, and still feel comfortable leaving them in as is.