Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

Why did Jonathan Franzens career go down the shitter?

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.

by Anonymousreply 26August 8, 2022 9:59 PM

Who

by Anonymousreply 1June 25, 2022 12:09 AM

Don't look at me.

by Anonymousreply 2June 25, 2022 12:11 AM

"The Corrections" was a mediocre bore.

by Anonymousreply 3June 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 Anonymousreply 4June 26, 2022 12:08 AM

He's no Judy Blume!

by Anonymousreply 5June 26, 2022 12:18 AM

Modern fiction is achingly self conscious.

by Anonymousreply 6June 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 Anonymousreply 7June 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 Anonymousreply 8June 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 Anonymousreply 9June 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 Anonymousreply 10June 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 Anonymousreply 11June 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 Anonymousreply 12June 26, 2022 1:36 AM

All his books are basically 400+ pages of, 'My wife's fucking some other guy.'

by Anonymousreply 13June 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 Anonymousreply 14June 26, 2022 2:11 AM

If he wasn't a white male he would be more popular today.

by Anonymousreply 15August 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 Anonymousreply 16August 8, 2022 3:31 PM

R16

by Anonymousreply 17August 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 Anonymousreply 18August 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 Anonymousreply 19August 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 Anonymousreply 20August 8, 2022 4:52 PM

He a bitch!

by Anonymousreply 21August 8, 2022 7:19 PM

He screams tiny penis Chicago intellectual snob bore.

by Anonymousreply 22August 8, 2022 8:11 PM

Well, he did go to Swarthmore, R22.

by Anonymousreply 23August 8, 2022 9:04 PM

I get him mixed up with that Eggers guy.

by Anonymousreply 24August 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 Anonymousreply 25August 8, 2022 9:54 PM

R11-You can thank Scott Rudin for that fiasco. Bitch that she is.

by Anonymousreply 26August 8, 2022 9:59 PM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!