I had almost forgiven him for writing that epic of twattery Freedom when I come across this lurking in the hinter-realms of the Guardian (a newspaper I usually adore).
Here he goes again: "But not long ago, when I was intemperate enough to call Twitter "dumb" in public, the response of Twitter addicts was to call me a Luddite. Nyah, nyah, nyah! It was as if I'd said it was "dumb" to smoke cigarettes, except that in this case I had no medical evidence to back me up."
WHAT IS HE SAYING?? That Twitter causes cancer? That smoking is more fun than social media? Do we know? Do we care?
As a form of silent protest against Franzen and all his pseudo-intellectual posturing, I am now going to watch Miley Cyrus knocking down walls in the nude on YouTube.
I think, in a very convoluted, juvenile, and pretentious way, he's suggesting Twitter is bad for your health, yes.
In the same statement, he's admitting he has no evidence to back up his claim, making it arbitrary, and demonstrating that he doesn't see how naive and narrowminded he's being.
*looks him up
Oh, he writes for the New Yorker. This all makes perfect sense now.
I am NOT his biggest fan.
Everything I hear about this guy screams to stay away, yet someone gave me Freedom, which has been sitting in my to-read pile since it came out. I'm reluctant to get into it. Can someone give a reason to tackle this book. Cath, was it good or bad twattery?
I've had "Corrections" on my bookshelf for about nine years. I started reading it twice and fell asleep during the first couple pages. Maybe one day when I'm not tired I can get through it. I've heard it's pretty good.
I absolutely loved CORRECTIONS. Haven't read FREEDOM. From what I've heard he might be a difficult guy, but he sure can write. You should read CORRECTIONS. Of course there is no excuse for being a jerk, but yeah he can write.
I read the first few pages of Freedom a couple of times and was convinced it wasn't for me. Gave it one more shot and by page 20 was hooked, by the end of the first section I understood the hype. About half way through now, and while it slows at points, it's a pretty spectacular piece of writing. The more people hate Franzen, the more I tend to like him. When our big brain writers aren't pissing the world off, something's wrong.
Matt, you might've sold me.
well said, Matt. if i remember correctly, i enjoyed The Corrections. have Freedom, but haven't cracked it yet. keep getting distracted by OTHER big books like Doctor Sleep, now.
When our big brain writers aren't pissing the world off, something's wrong.
Totally agree with this statement, but I think that, when our supposedly big brain writers are pissing people off by saying something inane, that's different than when they're saying something controversial. The former is what happened here.
Granted, it's only Twitter, but for someone like me, who's never read anything else by Franzen, I look at that and think, "man, this is kind of dumb statement." And if I were a fan, I'd be somewhat embarrassed. It is neither a display of intellect, nor a display of good, effective writing.
Of course, as always, reserve judgment for seeing stuff out of context and all of that.
A pretentious bore.
I mainly wish people would argue back rather than dismiss. Sometimes it's clear a troublesome statement doesn't actually warrant discussion, but if a guy writes an article and all you do is say "Shut up," chances are no one cares what you think either. Nothing wrong with that, or writing an article, or saying this; but I wish people would either rebut or ignore rather than grab the torches and pitchforks.
I went to a reading of his a couple years ago, trailed him in from the parking garage. I liked the writing passages. In person, though, yeah, he just seems to come from that old school of the writer with poor social skills. He was aloof and awkward. But I didn't really care, as the books are what matter.
Ahem. Just finished an assignment story about stealing Franzen's glasses.
Haven't read him, so I don't know about his work-- but his media presence, and people's reactions to it, are entertaining.
