The Rarity of a Jonathan Franzen Appearance
Decatur Metro | August 27, 2010 | 11:04 amIf you haven’t gotten tickets yet you’re probably SOL (to put it bluntly), but ArtsCriticATL.com gives us a good idea of the rarity of a Jonathan Franzen appearance. Not just at the Decatur Book Festival, but ANYWHERE.
Franzen, author of the acclaimed “The Corrections” and the new “Freedom,” arguably the most anticipated literary novel of 2010, is not quite in Thomas Pynchon’s neighborhood of reclusiveness, but he’s clearly someone who doesn’t relish the modern publicity machine. (His official publicity photo looks like it was taken by a stalker without his knowledge or consent.)
To publicize “Freedom,” his first novel in nine years, he agreed to a recent Time magazine cover story … and the DBF… and not much else. (The Oprah reference, if you don’t recall, goes back to 2001, when she wanted “The Corrections” for her Book Club, he made some mildly ambivalent comments, and the media fanned it into a feud.)
“I have a sneaking feeling there’s not going to be many more chances to see Jonathan Franzen on a book tour,” says DBF mogul Daren Wang. “It’s fair to say he doesn’t really enjoy the limelight. I think he’s going to step back from these kinds of public appearances. We’re really lucky. It moves the book festival forward one more step in terms of national importance.”
I really hope that Franzen gets a chance to check out the Festival, though I imagine that may be difficult without attracting a mob – something he obviously avoids like the rest of us would a giant, slobbering book monster.
After the jump, you can view a recent Franzen video where he describes his “profound discomfort at having to make videos like this”.
Hiding from publicity? Please. The only way he could be more in the public eye would be to stand next to Lindsay Lohan.
This aspect of publishing is a team sport, not solo work. And Jonathan Franzen is not the only person to benefit from his publicity. A writer of his caliber will agree to a certain amount of availability and travel as part of a book contract, or out of loyalty to the people who work hard to make his books successful.
Cormac McCarthy famously went on Oprah as a favor to his publishing team because it meant a lot to them. No one would accuse him of enjoying the spotlight, and if you’ve ever seen that appearance, I think you know what I mean.
Jonathan Franzen may have a lot of reasons to make himself available publicly at this point that aren’t about a desire to be in the limelight. It is a kindness of him to join us here.
Hyperbolic much?
I just talked to Bound to Be Read Books—they’ve given away their last two Franzen tickets!
Ya know, I just don’t get it.
I read “The Corrections” several years ago and the minute that I finished it I felt that I had wasted however long it took me to read it. It just didn’t leave any kind of impression on me whatsoever.
I’m sure that it was just me, but still…
I just finished “The Corrections” a few days ago. I found a lot of it funny, but also depressing. There is some brilliant description and insight; here’s a passage I particularly liked, from the perspective of a banker struggling to keep it together at a business function:
“Gary had always enjoyed corporate gardens as backdrops for the pageant of privilege, as metonymies of pamperment, but it was vital not to ask too much of them. It was vital not to come to them in need.”
Somehow the angst in the novel seems prescient now, after the economic collapse. The story isn’t very tight, but I tend to read more for language so the novel worked for me.
Actually if I had seen the Franzen video prior to the ArtsCriticATL post, I probably would have highlighted the substance of the book that he paraphrases in the video over his aversion to publicity.
Why? Because I’ve really wanted to bring up “The Last Taboo” for a really long time…especially after Mother Jones did a feature on it a couple months back.
What’s the last taboo? Population!
What’s the least environmentally thing you can do as a member of the American middle-class? Have another kid!
I don’t suggest I have it any more figured out than anyone else, but I find it quite interesting that we have little trouble thinking of ourselves as “green”, but leaving this last taboo unreconciled with the rest of our lives.
I’m thrilled that Franzen decided to tackle this. I really can’t wait to get my hands on this book now.
It wasn’t that long ago when the liberal fashion was to have just one kid to try to keep the population of the earth from exceeding its natural capacity. If folks had two, it was justified as at least keeping the reproductive multiplier at 1.0. It does seem like that aspect of being “green” has gotten less play lately. An awful lot of the families that I see doing walk/roll to school, composting, and community garden stuff have three kids. Maybe some of the #3 kids are “whoopses” but that doesn’t explain the entire trend.
On the other hand, I see in the current news that the birth rate is down in the U.S., reportedly because of the economy. So we may soon seemore single children and fewer families with more than two. Just as we get enough capacity in our CSD schools and get rid of all the trailers, we’ll have to downsize and reconfigure again!
Good point. For better or worse, we seem to live in an age of “green consumption” these days.
I’m not sure that it is any less taboo to point out that, generally speaking, economic growth is bad for the environment. A flat rate of growth will get you shown the door pretty quickly, the door of the White House that is.