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Jonathan Franzen's 10 rules for novelists

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Alma, Nov 15, 2018.

  1. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Postmodernism does not equal leftism. At least not artistically. The word has been co-opted by political conservatives as an indictment against . . . something.

    Interestingly, though, postmodernism as an approach to fiction is largely dead because it led nowhere. It was a strategic and tactical cul-de-sac.

    I think what Woods is writing about there is the aftermath of that discovery, how writers have struggled to find their way back from the dead end of winking authorial self-awareness.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2018
  2. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    I’d agree. Or, at least, he was writing about that 18 years ago, when he wrote about it.

    And you’re right - about postmodernism. I gave a culture talk at one the churches in our little group, I’m gonna say 2013 or so - this was a pretty conservative congregation, that was pretty worked up about, as I recall, gay marriage rights, and I remember saying postmodernism didn’t belong to the left, that the right was just as capable of tearing down “norms,” such as they were, and institutions, and Fox News was proof. I suppose now Trump is.

    As for novels, a lot of that whole aura around them is dead. The big move is to non-fiction.
     
  3. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Agree.

    I read it when it came along, and remember feeling it was written at least in part as an oblique slap at Tom Wolfe and his billion-footed beast essay.

    There's certainly no better defender of the novel and its possibilities than James Wood.

    But I also remember thinking that the novel is a pretty dynamic form, elastic and strong enough to accommodate whatever present culture and social practice throw at it. In fact, I think that's the very point of the form. It's responsive to what precedes and surrounds it.

    So you don't get Hemingway without Dreiser, anymore than you get DeLillo without Gaddis.

    "Postmodernism," at least in the way it was applied by Barth and the Barthelmes and those winking ironists of the 1960s, is essentially a comic device. It fails as an overall approach to story because it keeps nudging the reader in the ribs and asking "see what I'm doing here?"

    That strategy might work in architecture or painting, where pastiche can be a kind of commentary on convention.

    But it turns out readers - as they have since the beginning of language - want immersion, not authorial wisecracks on the nature of falsity.

    The generation that followed, the one Wood is addressing, had to find their way back from there.

    In many ways we're still at it.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2018
  4. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

  5. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    I'd add here that postmodern mechanisms for criticism are as a valid as any preceding them. Especially in literature.

    But as the name implies, deconstruction - while a terrific approach to understanding art - is antithetical to creating any.
     
  6. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    It was more of a commentary on daemon's line -- " ... in an age that seems to prize the Great Gay/Minority/Immigrant Novel, Franzen is still held up as the standard bearer of American fiction ... " -- that the liberal/woke'ism crowd won't stand for such a thing much longer, based on your predictions of a "hard left turn" the country will be taking in the next 5-10-15 years. I'm not deep enough to dive headlong and knee-deep into the "postmodern" portal of literature philosophies; I still enjoy Taibbi's dig at the horror of being locked up in Abu Ghraib with nothing for company except a Jonathan Franzen book.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2018
  7. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    Desert island reads:

    Franzen? Or Chabon?


    Bonus question:

    Who is the best novelist of the 21st century?
     
  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    This is easy as anything for me. Chabon. Maybe it is because I am not that refined or that I go for crowd-pleasing stuff more than I do more subtle, non-fantastical stuff. But I will put a streak of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys and Kavalier and Clay into any contest of 3 books in a row. I am sure there are several better trios, I can probably come up with one or two, but. ... damn.

    For me, Kavalier and Clay is one (unlike The Corrections) that DID live up to billing. ... and then some. As I finished it, I had that sunken feeling of, "It's done. Damn. I don't want to have to stop reading."

    As for best novelist of 21st Century, you mentioned Chabon kind of randomly, but he would certainly get a bid from me. The thinking part of me thinks there have been a few better novelists during that short time period. And I haven't read everything I probably should have to have a strong opinion. But Chabon just really writes stuff I like. A lot.
     
    BartonK and Azrael like this.
  9. Big Circus

    Big Circus Well-Known Member

    I’d probably plump for the aforementioned Donna Tartt if her best work wasn’t written in the 20th century.
     
  10. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    I don't dispute any of this, except the importance of the Weiner/Franzen dustup in regards to it all. That's a small world in a universe ruled by Oprah. I don't even remember it and doubt it made a dent in the people's consciousness. Not like the Oprah thing at least. Weiner doesn't even show up on his Wikipedia page. And, though Franzen and Oprah buried the hatchet right away, I thought it took until Franzen published Freedom for him to appear on Oprah. It did lead many to wait for everything Franzen says and writes and pounce on it and mock it, like the Thoreau-like dispatching himself to a cabin in the woods devoid of human contact and the Internet.

    Anyway, I love The Corrections. It's brilliant. It did take me a couple tries to get into it, but once I plowed through whatever the roadblock was I couldn't stop. I did read Freedom and Purity and was very glad I read The Corrections first. Neither Freedom nor Purity would have inspired me to read anything else by Franzen.
     
    Azrael likes this.
  11. CD Boogie

    CD Boogie Well-Known Member

    He was a douche before he was massively popular. He's also tone deaf. I've interviewed him a few times, including once when he sent me a late-night email (and I suspect he was in his cups) throwing major shade at Philip Roth. I now had a good get, something to hang my interview on and perhaps get some traction in the wider net. But he emailed back first thing the next morning and said he regretted his comments -- written, mind you -- not said off the cuff; and he wanted it purged from the record. I said no go, so he went around me to my editor, who caved like a weenie and said we weren't in the gotcha business.

    I have enjoyed all of his novels except "Purity," which I abandoned. I really enjoy his essays, too. He's such a good writer that it's easy to look past his annoying personality traits. You can't say that about every good writer.
     
    britwrit, Azrael and Double Down like this.
  12. CD Boogie

    CD Boogie Well-Known Member

    Telegraph Avenue was a mess. I re-read Mysteries of Pittsburgh every few years, if only to remind myself that this guy cranked this out as his MFA dissertation. Conversely (to Franzen), I've met Chabon a few times and he's a really nice guy. He used to really like the pot, but gave it up.
     
    Azrael likes this.
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