He was hyped up as the next Great American Novelist. I don't think he was that talented but for whatever reason critics seemed taken by him. I struggled to get through his books. Very banal.
Why did Jonathan Franzens career go down the shitter?
by Anonymous | reply 26 | August 8, 2022 9:59 PM |
Who
by Anonymous | reply 1 | June 25, 2022 12:09 AM |
Don't look at me.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | June 25, 2022 12:11 AM |
"The Corrections" was a mediocre bore.
by Anonymous | reply 3 | June 25, 2022 11:27 PM |
His second novel, “Strong Motion,” is embarrassingly bad. I couldn’t make it past the first hundred pages of “Freedom,” which Sam Tanenhaus called a masterpiece in the New York Times Book Review.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | June 26, 2022 12:08 AM |
He's no Judy Blume!
by Anonymous | reply 5 | June 26, 2022 12:18 AM |
Modern fiction is achingly self conscious.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | June 26, 2022 12:22 AM |
Atlantic ran a pretty spot on take down of him a few years back. The author made some quip along the lines that Franzens writing was so unappealing that he could understand why people would prefer to read the Twilight Books. Ouch!
by Anonymous | reply 7 | June 26, 2022 12:25 AM |
The Oprah dispute hurt him a lot- but it ultimately also hurt Oprah, because it really focused attention on the composition (and limitations) of her audience.
Jonathan fits most of the straight white male stereotypes that later became so unpopular. I liked The Corrections and agreed with his Oprah-stance, he handled it very poorly though.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | June 26, 2022 12:48 AM |
R8 There was nothing wrong with not wanting to be a part of her book club but he came off as too sneering and contemptuous. Something along the lines of " I am not a huge fan of the book club concept and would prefer that readers find my work on their own, yada yada yada" would have sufficed. It was off putting.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | June 26, 2022 12:52 AM |
American literary fiction is going through a long dry spell. I’m guessing the most talented younger storytellers have gone into more lucrative and rewarding lines of work like genre fiction, nonfiction and screenwriting.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | June 26, 2022 12:57 AM |
A pilot of The Corrections was shot starring Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper and Dianne Wiest and directed by Noah Baumbach but HBO passed so the pilot just sits in a vault.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | June 26, 2022 12:59 AM |
Crossroads, which came out last fall, is a very good book and got great reviews. So his career is doing fine.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | June 26, 2022 1:36 AM |
All his books are basically 400+ pages of, 'My wife's fucking some other guy.'
by Anonymous | reply 13 | June 26, 2022 1:37 AM |
The Corrections and Crossroads are wonderful books and if read clearly, a real insight into your deteriorating idea of a country.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | June 26, 2022 2:11 AM |
If he wasn't a white male he would be more popular today.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | August 8, 2022 3:14 PM |
I always got him mixed up with Johnathan Lethem and they canceled each other out so I read neither, except for the 9/11 novel, whichever one wrote that one.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | August 8, 2022 3:31 PM |
R16
by Anonymous | reply 17 | August 8, 2022 3:44 PM |
[QUOTE] American literary fiction is going through a long dry spell. I’m guessing the most talented younger storytellers have gone into more lucrative and rewarding lines of work like genre fiction, nonfiction and screenwriting.
Not in the world of GAY literary fiction which has been having a major renaissance.
Garth Greenwell, Andrew Holleran, Tim Murphy, Philip Dean Walker, Rebecca Makkai (straight woman who wrote a classic gay novel), Hanya Yanagihara, etc. have all written very well-received literary fiction in the past five years. And the list goes on and on.
Like, I’d really love to know what you’re referring to when you say “American literary fiction.”
by Anonymous | reply 18 | August 8, 2022 3:49 PM |
Franzen’s “The Corrections” was, at best, a novel of middling proportions. For me, it took some effort to bother to finish reading it. I never went further than perusing the book jackets of his novels after that.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | August 8, 2022 3:51 PM |
He's a glum cunt.
He couldn't take Edith Wharton seriously because he thought she wasn't sexy.
He's in the same category as Lars Von Tryhard and that twat who made Welcome to the Dollhouse.
Dullness is not realism.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | August 8, 2022 4:52 PM |
He a bitch!
by Anonymous | reply 21 | August 8, 2022 7:19 PM |
He screams tiny penis Chicago intellectual snob bore.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | August 8, 2022 8:11 PM |
Well, he did go to Swarthmore, R22.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | August 8, 2022 9:04 PM |
I get him mixed up with that Eggers guy.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | August 8, 2022 9:48 PM |
He's a fairly talented novelist who made a big splash out of the gate. Which is better than most. But his work hasn't really stood the test of time. Which is disconcerting because it's only been 20 years or so.
Jennifer Egan, Donna Tartt, Junot Diaz, and a few others also made a splash, but their works seems to have longer shelf lives. At least so far.
Sometimes novelists, extremely popular for a moment, just don't last.
by Anonymous | reply 25 | August 8, 2022 9:54 PM |
R11-You can thank Scott Rudin for that fiasco. Bitch that she is.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | August 8, 2022 9:59 PM |