I went to see Jonathan Franzen read last at Tulane. He said it had been twenty-six months since he’d written fiction, and it was killing him. I could not imagine what that would be like. Sympathy for the Franzen.
Afterward I went to dinner with three other people who are readers, and also writers in some capacity (a publicist, a curator, a graduate student) for a living, and we talked about what he said for a long time. We all liked his work. For me, The Corrections was an extremely instructional book, and definitely came to me at an important time, when I was drafting The Middlesteins. Jim said he quit smoking because of an essay of Franzen’s. Rien said he could read his non-fiction forever. Miranda loves his novels. I was the only one who had read that Edith Wharton piece, though I suspect they might have shrugged it off when holding it up against his larger works.
He gave us a great dinner conversation, so thanks Mr. Franzen!
Below are some of the notes I took, and also, in one area, my thoughts on it.
On sex writing:
“If you write with any kind of specificity, there’s only a limited number of things you can do to a person. There’s even a limited number of animals you can do things to…it’s easier to write about bad sex than good sex, just like it’s easier to be funny than moving.”
On Revolutionary Road:
“[It's] dishonestly bleak. The world is bleak, but not as falsely bleak as the way that book ends.”
On endings:
“I am committed to closure. I am committed to endings…I can no longer be mistaken for a post-modern author…I made a decision to alternate between lighter and darker endings in my books, and it was Freedom’s turn for a lighter ending.”
On the writing process:
“Not to be 1970s about it, but the process is more important than the product…It’s about about the happiness of having a story to tell.”
On social media:
“It’s a free country. People can do whatever they want within the law, and even some things not within the law…I personally was on Facebook for two weeks as part of a piece of journalism I was writing — it seemed sort of dumb to me. Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose…it’s hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters…it’s like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it’s like writing a novel without the letter ‘P’…It’s the ultimate irresponsible medium.
People I care about are readers…particularly serious readers and writers, these are my people. And we do not like to yak about ourselves.”
This sort of infuriated me. Not that he’s incorrect about how much social networking can suck your time, because it can, but because he doesn’t understand that a lot of writers have to use the medium as a promotional device as well as a way to build networks. He doesn’t have to do anything! He has a publicist who probably has dreams about him every night, whether he has a book coming out or not. He is free to write and just be himself, while the rest of us are struggling to be heard and recognized. He will never understand how hard it is to get ahead as a writer, never again in his life. I’m not suggesting he’s old-fashioned. I’m suggesting he has lost perspective.
On American literature:
“There’s something goofy about American literature since modernism came to an end.”
On how he begins:
“I don’t start with a big idea. The work is almost entirely about creating characters I can love.”
On the Midwest:
“The Midwest means many different things to many different people. I was taught to be nice to people, which is my credo even though I seem to have some small gift for offending people without intending to…but I want to be welcoming, that’s how the Midwest impacts my writing. My parents didn’t like the people they had to be welcoming to, but they were welcoming.”
[...] about our online activities. Author Jami Attenberg saw Franzen speak at a Tulane event last night, copying down a few quotes about social [...]
Regarding social media, I agree with your comment, and moreover–have you tried writing a story in 140 characters? I have to tell you the confines are exhilarating. While Franzen struggles to be unfilmable he is defining limits to his means of expression. Sometimes boundaries, self-imposed or otherwise, help us express ourselves in ways we wouldn’t have explored otherwise, and that can be very good. I’m on Twitter @chiclits.
“it’s hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters…it’s like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it’s like writing a novel without the letter ‘P’…It’s the ultimate irresponsible medium.”
Huh. Seems like Franzen’s not doing such a great job of created a complex or thoughtful argument himself. I don’t see any cited facts. And he’s not constrained by a character limit or the inability to use the letter P.
These types of arguments are always willfully missing the point out of bitterness and dislike. There’s a wrong presumption that Twitter is making writing by other means obsolete and we’re going to lose the rich complexity of other types of the written word. That’s simply an untrue and irresponsible assertion. We have escalators and elevators and yet, stairs still exist. Stories and information take the form of many things not mutually exclusive. We’ve had magazines and newspapers and movies and TV and radio for ages and yet… the book lives on…
One could argue poetry is a limiting medium, or photography, or speech. All have their drawbacks and advantages, and yet it’s exactly these constraints that help to edit and shape expression, and the same can be said for Twitter.
What you can capture in a photograph is not what the same as what’s achieved through an exceptional rebuttal in a debate and yet they both have their place, their value and contribute to knowledge and entertainment and understanding of our world.
News, jokes and even small poetic literature experiments have flourished on Twitter. That should be exciting! A new creative outlet! If I thought he’d be open to suggestions I’d urge Franzen to follow @tejucole and @ahm76 and @robdelaney as a framework for understand how small bursts of words can pack such hilarious and insightful and satisfying punches. Just as he might urge young people to become familiar with the classic books to understand the value of literature, he’d benefit from understanding the value of the Internet. Not just because it’s not going away, but because it has a lot to offer if he’s accept it. Alas.
I am a fan of his writing, but the inability to be forward thinking, to be ever afraid of change is not what makes a great artist or thinker. He should worry more about that than about eBooks.
Thanks for posting your notes. I’ll probably never see him “live.” He does have a Midwestern quality about him, a bit stand-offish. and I’m from the Midwest, too, and completely understand.
Lots and lots of us agree with him about Facebook and Twitter. It’s called an opinion, nothing more. As I watch these brouhahas I gather he best not offer them anymore.
[...] Jami Attenberg attended the Jonathan Franzen event last night at Tulane, and wrote a blog post based on her notes that’s getting trafficked around the interwebs, particularly because of [...]
DeLillo-ness. Hm-m-m.
Makes me remember reading White Noise and the resulting paper for post-modern Lit class. Makes me remember my resolve to add a new blog, to my repertoire, of stories and stuff I’ve written and am writing. Makes me want to write more. For me. Thanks.
[...] Attenberg attended the Jonathan Franzen event last night at Tulane, and wrote a blog post based on her notes that’s getting trafficked around the interwebs, particularly because [...]
[...] Jonathan Franzen being unspeakably irritating about why Twitter is unspeakably irritating [...]
Thanks for posting your notes!
[...] his every response to questions before talking, even as we all squirmed in the awkward silence. He smiled, he joked, he read one of my favorite passages from Freedom, he said some shit that made people mad, and [...]
[...] always forget how calm and silent writers are about themselves. Thanks for the reminder, [...]
[...] Franzen thinks Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Pot, meet kettle. Predictably, Twitter folks had reactions ranging from amusement to anger, many [...]
[...] Slate talks about the #jonathanfranzenhates Twitter hashtag after Jami Attenberg finds out J. Franz doesn’t like Twitter. [...]
Last night, Franzen spoke at Binghamton University. In answer to a question about the role of contemporary fiction, he praised your book, saying he’d spent a great two days getting lost in it. In the next question, I asked him if he knew of your comments on this blog and the subsequent “Slate” and “Salon” articles. He did not, and said he wondered if you’d be surprised to hear about how much he enjoyed your work.
[...] his contempt of technology by adding twitter to the list of things he utterly dislikes.Writer Jami Attenberg blogged about Franzen’s comments at a talk on Monday in New Orleans hosted by Tulane [...]
[...] has been getting a lot of flack this week for lashing out against Twitter, calling it “the ultimate irresponsible medium.” Naturally the Twitterverse struck back with – what else? – the popular hashtag [...]
[...] Attenberg listened to a talk by author Jonathan Franzen, where Franzen had this to say about Twitter. Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose…it’s [...]
[...] and @harikunzru, the results of Kunzru’s social media experiment, literary journalists, Jami Attenberg’s report on Jonathan Franzen, Twitter as a way of finding who your people are, the importance of writers getting involved with [...]
[...] and @harikunzru, the results of Kunzru’s social media experiment, literary journalists, Jami Attenberg’s report on Jonathan Franzen, Twitter as a way of finding who your people are, the importance of writers getting involved with [...]
It’s true that Franzen just doesn’t want to see what other people like about Twitter and Facebook, or their multiple levels of utility. But he’s a cranky guy, and I don’t think he means that they are destroying reading or readers. He just finds them irritating and lame, as plenty of people do, and he has no real use for them. I don’t blame him – I don’t use twitter and I hardly ever check Facebook. If I had Franzen’s platform I’d probably say something similar. “Standing for everything I’m opposed to” is quite melodramatic, but it’s still just like his opinion, man.
[...] couple weeks ago, author Jonathan Franzen had the nerve to call Twitter “unspeakably irritating.” Twitter “stands for everything I oppose,” he said [...]
[...] ago in Web time, Jonathan Franzen spoke at Tulane University and said that he found Twitter “unspeakably irritating,” expressing a concern for “serious readers and writers” and the medium’s inability to [...]
[...] talk, Jonathan Franzen committed the scandalous act of criticizing Twitter. An audience member took issue not with his points, but with his failure to admit to his own privilege. Franzen, she argued, [...]