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Jonathan Franzen

ions said:
Must get to The Corrections soon.
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I first heard about it during the whole Oprah skirmish. I checked it out from a local library when I had a good summer break and enjoyed every page. Let's just say this-you'll never look at tongue furniture the same way again.
 
I haven't read or heard a discouraging word about that book. I also have The Discomfort Zone. Signed.
 
Wow! he is sort of the way I imagined he would be after reading "The Corrections." None of his characters were likable and maybe he isn't either.
 
Not to harp on endlessly about the subject, but I was discussing this with a friend and he offered the following explanation for how we (in this case, Franzen) deal with technology:

  • Anything invented before your 20th birthday has always existed.
  • Anything invented between your 20th and your 35th birthday will be brand new and exciting for all eternity.
  • Anything invented after your 35th birthday is an Unnatural Abomination Unto God.
 
beer good said:
Not to harp on endlessly about the subject, but I was discussing this with a friend and he offered the following explanation for how we (in this case, Franzen) deal with technology:

  • Anything invented before your 20th birthday has always existed.
  • Anything invented between your 20th and your 35th birthday will be brand new and exciting for all eternity.
  • Anything invented after your 35th birthday is an Unnatural Abomination Unto God.
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:rofl:
 
I've read The Corrections and Strong Motion. I immensely enjoyed both.

HBO is coming out with a series for The Corrections. I'm pumped.

Has anyone read Freedom? I heard a character goes to a Wilco concert.
 
St. Stephen said:
I've read The Corrections and Strong Motion. I immensely enjoyed both.

HBO is coming out with a series for The Corrections. I'm pumped.

Has anyone read Freedom? I heard a character goes to a Wilco concert.
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I'd forgotten about the HBO adaptation, and with a 2013 release it might be a long wait for some. But with Ewan McGregor in the lead role (were all the good actors busy during casting?), my excitement's been stifled; I'll still watch it when it comes out though.

As for Freedom, it could be the most vacuous book by a major writer that I've ever read(in farness, I only made it half-way before selling it on to some other unsuspecting reader). It'd been a while since I'd read The Corrections and Strong Motion, but I didn't recognise Franzen's voice nor his style in that insubstantial, maddeningly insipid excuse for an Important American Novel. I'd advise anyone to avoid it for as long as possible (reading the excellent summary in The Atlantic as a stop-gap: Smaller Than Life - Magazine - The Atlantic), and read The Twenty-Seventh City or the essay collection How to Be Alone(in which Franzen ruminates and worries over the state of American writing) instead.
 
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