on Franzen and literary snobbery.
Coming to us on a wave of controversy, Jonathan Franzen's new novel, Freedom, is arriving today. Are you going to read it?
I'm torn. I loved The Corrections, which I read before the Oprah controversy (and would have been much less inclined to read after), wherein Franzen publicly disdained the idea of HIS book being something so common as an Oprah book, the implication being that he was too good for that kind of mass-market pandering. Actually, I don't even think it was implied, I think he said it outright. Never mind that Oprah books have encompassed everything from the light, fun read to heavy, literary classics. Never mind that people are people and, let's face it, the point of writing books is to have people (and not just people of YOUR choosing) read them.
But Oprah's audience wasn't good enough for Franzen. So I guess I have to ask: Am *I* good enough for him? Are you?
How much of the author bleeds into his work? How much does knowing about and disliking an author affect your decision to read his books? If you believe HE doesn't like YOU, will you pay him to hear his story?
Franzen is an excellent writer, by all accounts. There were parts of The Corrections -- particularly the description of the character afflicted with Parkinson's trying to eat a meal -- that resonated with me years after I finished reading the book. I loved it. I did.
And yet.
And YET.
There's something about writing: It's so incredibly PERSONAL that when you buy a book, you are buying a piece of an author. You fall in love with that author simultaneously as you fall in love with their stories. So what happens when you find out that the person behind the words is kind of a ... jerk? Are you still able to love their words?
It's not just Franzen. Over the years, I've met some authors who behave as though they are "better", superior, too-good-for-the-likes-of-you -- as though there is a caste system inherent in literature, with literary fiction outclassing all other forms of the art, and nearly every type of writing outclassing YA and MG.
When I was at university, this point was drilled home again and again. Genre-writing? Was for uneducated hacks. Writing for kids? Wasn't even discussed. And literary fiction? Was for the elite. The upper-classes.
Us.
But here's the rub: Literary fiction very very very rarely pays the rent. (Or anything else for that matter.) Franzen, in a way that I'm guessing might be a bit misguided, thinks he is going to single-handedly "save" literary fiction. And maybe he is. I like literary fiction as much as any other type, so let's hope he DOES save it. Maybe it's the way he's doing it that's the problem. It's the whole, better-than-worse-than judging. But then again, by judging Franzen, aren't we all (who are writing these blog posts) doing the same thing? Judging something (or someone) as "not good enough"?
Maybe Franzen just isn't good enough for US.
Maybe it isn't even him. Maybe his words are being taken out of context, maybe it's nothing to do with him at all, perhaps it's just what he represents: Ye Olde Boyz Club of the writing establishment. The politics of being reviewed in the NYT. The cover of Time.
Maybe this isn't about literary snobbery at all.
At the end of the day, I come back to what I really believe is fundamentally true: I believe that fiction -- no matter how "serious" and "literary" is meant to be enjoyed. Fiction is an escape from our own mundane existences, a journey into a different life, a glimpse of something new.
In other words, it's entertainment. And all these goings-on about who said what and who is better than whom, it's not so much fun.
I read fiction because I enjoy it. I write it because I love doing it. So at the end of the day, I'd ask Mr. Franzen, What is fiction for? Your fiction? Anyone's fiction? And more to the point, WHO is it for? I'd be interested to know his answer.
What do you think?
6 Comments
Reader Comments (6)
I'm kind of lukewarm to Franzen. I read The Corrections a couple of years ago and felt kind of meh about it. The first couple of times I tried to read it, I couldn't make myself go past page one (not a flaw of the book -- I just didn't feel at those times as if what I was seeing on the first page was what I was into right then). There are parts of The Corrections that I think are very good. The eating scene you call out is one of them. But there are parts -- for example much of the stuff with Chip and the girl -- that didn't seem that good to me. I wouldn't quite say I thought it was a clumsy book, but it just didn't quite meet my expectations. (On the basis of that book, I'd rate him in terms of polish above most T.C. Boyle and some Richard Powers, for example, but below the Powers of, say The Time of our Singing, which is an outstanding book.) I've got The Twenty-Seventh City on my nightstand but probably won't open it for a while. I probably will read Freedom, but my stack's too high right now to rush out and get it.
Wasn't Franzen's stated concern re the Oprah debacle that he was afraid having his book featured would bracket him as a women's author? If he's wanting to reach a male audience and is suddenly confronted with a campaign that will almost certainly dissuade a bunch of guys from reading his book, is his concern really that out of line? Let's say some porn book club (surely such things exist?) picked up a book of Franzen's (or of yours!). Many will agree that there's nothing implicitly wrong with porn (any more than with Oprah's fans). But maybe you don't want your book stamped as a porn book because that would limit the audience that might otherwise pick up the book. Seems reasonable enough. Franzen also said that he doesn't want the corporate logo on the book he created. I guess he's happy enough to have the Picador imprint on his book, though, so why not Oprah? Of course, these may just be excuses. Maybe he was being snobbish. My sense is that Franzen is a smart guy trying to write good books and nothing more, though. What author wouldn't want his or her books to land in the hands of his or her ideal reader?
All that said, the perceived rift between literary fiction and genre fiction is real. I tend to think it's probably created more by snobbish readers than by authors (who after all should want their books to sell very well), but I have no visibility into how well-known literary fiction authors actually think. I guess I could understand a certain inclination to feel as if, given all the time and effort you've put into a book, you'd prefer that it be read by an audience that was very likely to appreciate all the nuance, all the literary-ness, of the thing. But then, who's to say that Oprah book club members wouldn't include many such people?
I bristle a little at your saying that fiction is entertainment. Often it is. Maybe it always is in the broad sense that it keeps you occupied and you derive some sort of enjoyment or satisfaction out of it. For me it's often like work, though. I'm often rewarded by things I read but not terribly entertained (in the shallower sense, at least) by them. To call fiction entertainment seems to diminish somehow the effort I put into consuming it. My idea of what entertainment is may be too narrow, though.
As for who fiction's for, I guess it's a matter of perspective. To the reader, it's for the reader, just like any other product. But for the writer, it's for the writer. I suppose you consider your audience, but don't capital-W writers who're doing it for more than a paycheck write because they have to and write more or less what they want to because it's in their heads and needs out?
I suppose I think of "entertainment" as what we do voluntarily to fill our time, as opposed to what we do because we have to (work, for example). It's what we do out of choice because we enjoy it, it's how we escape from the other rigors of our lives. "Entertainment" doesn't mean "silliness", it means "enjoyment". A lot of people read non-fiction for the same reason. But fiction, by it's very nature, is story-telling. We tell each other made-up stories and it's for the purposes of pleasure, is it not? Whether the pleasure is derived simply from the escape it provides or from the effort put into understanding or deriving meaning from it, it's still for pleasure.
I think you can only write what is in you to write, whether your motivation is money or not. I just really don't think you can choose your audience: Your audience (if you're lucky), chooses you.
Your definition of entertainment seems reasonable to me. I tend to equate entertainment with a sort of frivolity, but that's probably not fair. I hate it, but there's a little bit of the reading snob in me -- however much I may personally enjoy reading, say, a Dan Brown novel (seriously, they're fun), I feel icky about drawing an equivalence between blasting through one of those and stumbling blindly through a postmodern tome. The lighter work seems more like entertainment, the heavier more like endeavor. That said, there's pleasure all around, and I think your definition of entertainment probably flies. Thanks for clarifying.
Also: I never got the "notify me of follow-up comments via email" email. I checked back on a whim today on the off chance that there was a comment that would make me feel less stupid about graffitiing your blog with my blowhard comments. I still feel a little stupid about it, but it was a relief to see a reply. Don't know if the email feature is something you're able/inclined to check up on but thought I'd mention it just in case.
Aaaand that time I got the email notification. Must've been a glitch. Carry on.
Just ran across http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=17720 and thought you might be interested. The links within the short piece are worth a read if you're in a particular mood to be down on Franzen. A friend who grew up in St. Louis and knows a bit about the boarding school Franzen went to (and the types of snobbish people it often churns out) says she can't help thinking he's a bit snobbish, though she likes his books well enough. So maybe I've been too charitable. I don't really mean to harp on the Franzen thing and keep defacing your blog with my comments, but I thought you'd be interested in the link. And I clearly have impulse control issues.
Daryl, commenting is GOOD. It isn't defacing, it's participating! It's supposed to be a conversation. Is all good!