Jonathan Franzen's 10 rules for novelists

[Alma]

5 and 8 may **** people off.

I agree with 5.

I think 8 is poorly worded and thus pretentious.

Jonathan Franzen’s 10 Rules for Novelists

 

[Vombatus]

5 and 8 may **** people off.

I agree with 5.

I think 8 is poorly worded and thus pretentious.

Jonathan Franzen’s 10 Rules for Novelists

The “best” comments are glorious.

The leading one at the moment, with 10 up carets (not arrows) is:


The answer to the question, "Is Franzen still an unbearably arrogant, pretentious ****?"

It is indeed a resounding YES!

 

[Azrael]

Mr. Franzen is certainly one of our best novelists.

The list is harmless. Generic. It's the kind of thing you'd see posted in the commons room of your local MFA program.

 

[britwrit]

Disappointingly sound. Even 10 - You have to love before you can be relentless - is too little too late.

I wanted to hate. I could not.

 

[typefitter]

I don't really get why people hate Franzen so much. He seems very good at his job to me. If he sounds a little arrogant, he has every right to be a little arrogant. He's earned it by writing massive, critically acclaimed, popular novels. Don't want the advice of an expert? Don't read it. Write your less successful book, or write no book at all, and then blame luck.

 

[Vombatus]

I don't really get why people hate Franzen so much. He seems very good at his job to me. If he sounds a little arrogant, he has every right to be a little arrogant. He's earned it by writing massive, critically acclaimed, popular novels. Don't want the advice of an expert? Don't read it. Write your less successful book, or write no book at all, and then blame luck.

Or write your own way, and be very successful.

If every composer followed the same style, we would be listening to the same ****ing music over and over with very little variation.

The process of trying to define something often destroys the very thing it is trying to define.

See Quality and Pirsig, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

 

[typefitter]

Or write your own way, and be very successful.

If every composer followed the same style, we would be listening to the same ****ing music over and over with very little variation.

The process of trying to define something often destroys the very thing it is trying to define.

See Quality and Pirsig, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Sure. But, like I always say, if Martin Scorsese wants to give me some advice about how to make a movie, I'm probably gonna listen.

 

[User 149557]

I always liked what Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote about Franzen: “On a sunny day it would be raining on Jon Franzen.”

And his digs and attempts to undermine DFW’s non-fiction in death seem petty and full of jealousy. Reminding us a dead man was mortal and flawed is one thing. He took glee in it.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Or write your own way, and be very successful.

If every composer followed the same style, we would be listening to the same ****ing music over and over with very little variation.

The process of trying to define something often destroys the very thing it is trying to define.

See Quality and Pirsig, Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I agree. This list struck me as pretty banal. I don't care for Franzen's novels, but he's obviously talented and they appeal to others.

 

[typefitter]

I always liked what Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote about Franzen: “On a sunny day it would be raining on Jon Franzen.”

And his digs and attempts to undermine DFW’s non-fiction in death seem petty and full of jealousy. Reminding us a dead man was mortal and flawed is one thing. He took glee in it.

They were good friends, weren't they? Wallace and Franzen?

 

[User 149557]

They were good friends, weren't they? Wallace and Franzen?

I’m a DFW fanboi (aka used to be an unbearable sad sack white young man) so I’m biased. But he’s taken so many petty shots at him in death that I wonder what that friendship was really like.

 

[daemon]

I don't really get why people hate Franzen so much. He seems very good at his job to me. If he sounds a little arrogant, he has every right to be a little arrogant. He's earned it by writing massive, critically acclaimed, popular novels. Don't want the advice of an expert? Don't read it. Write your less successful book, or write no book at all, and then blame luck.

The cynic would say that Franzen is a punching bag largely because he is a straight white yuppie American male who rose to stardom writing about straight white American male yuppie things. I've heard criticism of his female characters, and my sense is that the literary community as a whole skews pretty heavily female, so maybe it is as simple as that. I'm sure that he comes across as a pretentious blowhard, but I'm not sure that he deviates greatly from the baseline of the literary community in that regard.

 

[typefitter]

The cynic would say that Franzen is a punching bag largely because he is a straight white yuppie American male who rose to stardom writing about straight white American male yuppie things. I've heard criticism of his female characters, and my sense is that the literary community as a whole skews pretty heavily female, so maybe it is as simple as that. I'm sure that he comes across as a pretentious blowhard, but I'm not sure that he deviates greatly from the baseline of the literary community in that regard.

I mean, you could argue that, almost by definition, someone who writes 500-page literary novels has to have a little pretentiousness in them. Almost any kind of writing kind of requires ego, doesn't it? Unless you're in it just for the money—which is fine, it's work, but I can't imagine many novelists are—you kind of have to believe that you're writing something that is worth reading. Just by writing at all, you're kind of saying that you have a voice that's worthy of being heard.

 

[Vombatus]

I agree. This list struck me as pretty banal. I don't care for Franzen's novels, but he's obviously talented and they appeal to others.

Holy ****. Gee agreed with me on something!

I’m screenshotting this!

Peace in our time!

 

[daemon]

I mean, you could argue that, almost by definition, someone who writes 500-page literary novels has to have a little pretentiousness in them. Almost any kind of writing kind of requires ego, doesn't it? Unless you're in it just for the money—which is fine, it's work, but I can't imagine many novelists are—you kind of have to believe that you're writing something that is worth reading. Just by writing at all, you're kind of saying that you have a voice that's worthy of being heard.

Agree, which is why I suspect Franzen grates on people in the literary community for reasons other than his supposed pretentiousness. Like I said, I'm pretty sure he's taken a considerable amount of gender-related criticism, and given the overall demographics of the literary community, I would guess that particular line of criticism ends up being amplified. At the present moment, it's not very cool or edgy or avant garde to be writing from the perspective of a straight white American male. I don't say that as a gripe. Just look at the various shortlists and the identities of the authors and the subject matter of their novels. There aren't a lot of Phillip Roth, John Updike types. I'm sure it grates on people that, 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.

 

[typefitter]

Agree, which is why I suspect Franzen grates on people in the literary community for reasons other than his supposed pretentiousness. Like I said, I'm pretty sure he's taken a considerable amount of gender-related criticism, and given the overall demographics of the literary community, I would guess that particular line of criticism ends up being amplified. At the present moment, it's not very cool or edgy or avant garde to be writing from the perspective of a straight white American male. I don't say that as a gripe. Just look at the various shortlists and the identities of the authors and the subject matter of their novels. There aren't a lot of Phillip Roth, John Updike types. I'm sure it grates on people that, 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.

This is an interesting point. It would never happen, but it would be kind of fascinating if Franzen wrote a novel and put someone else's name on it, just to see the reaction to this stunning new talent, or Franzen acolyte, or whatever judgments might be cast.

Incidentally, here is the list of Franzen's awards and honours from his Wiki page:

• 1981 Fulbright Scholarship to Germany[71]
• 1988 Whiting Award
• 1996 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2000 Berlin Prize (American Academy in Berlin)
• 2001 National Book Award (Fiction) for The Corrections[22]
• 2001 Salon Book Award (Fiction) for The Corrections
• 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner (Fiction) for The Corrections
• 2010 Salon Book Award (Fiction) for Freedom
• 2010 Galaxy National Book Awards, International Author of the Year, Freedom[72]
• 2011 Heartland Prize for Freedom[73]
• 2011 John Gardner Award (Fiction) for Freedom[74]
• 2012 Carlos Fuentes Medal[75] (Inaugural award)
• 2013 Welt-Literaturpreis[76]
• 2015 Budapest Grand Prize[77]
• 2015 Euronatur Award for outstanding commitment to nature conservation in Europe[78]
• 2017 Frank Schirrmacher Preis[79]

Honors and other recognition

• 1996 Granta's Best Of Young American Novelists
• 2001 New York Times Best Books of the Year for The Corrections
• 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (for The Corrections)
• 2001 Oprah's Book Club Selection (for The Corrections)
• 2002 Pulitzer Prize finalist (Fiction)[25]
• 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award finalist
• 2003 International Dublin Literary Award (short list)
• 2009 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor American Academy in Berlin
• 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (for Freedom)
• 2010 New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2010 list (for Freedom)
• 2010 New York Times Best Books of the Year (for Freedom)[80]
• 2010 Oprah's Book Club selection (for Freedom)
• 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Fiction) finalist (for Freedom)
• 2010 Elected to the Akademie der Kunste, Berlin[81]
• 2011 Named one of Time Magazine's Time 100[82]
• 2012 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters[83]
• 2012 Elected to the French Ordres des Arts et Lettres
• 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Criticism) shortlist for The Kraus Project[84][85]

Probably someone who has earned a little arrogance, and whose advice is worth heeding.

 

[The Big Ragu]

‘Ignore this’: Jonathan Franzen’s top 10 writing tips get gleefully trolled on Twitter

 

[Azrael]

Yes.

The only thing worse than prescriptive lists from famous writers is the gleeful fisking of those lists on social media by slightly less famous writers.

Other than self-promotion, not sure for example what Jeff Pearlman's interest is here.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

It's all because he declared himself too good for Oprah fans to like his books. Otherwise no one would care about anything he says.

 

[Songbird]

I'm sure it grates on people that, 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.

We're all just waiting for the @Alma'n "Hard Left Turn" in American literature that takes place in 3 ... 2 ...