Is Franzen comfy? Should I read him?

Is Franzen comfy? Should I read him?

no

He's Stephen King of post-modernism

I think (but am not sure that) I might have been more inclined towards reading this person's books if they had a beard, or at least looked less like some fancy version of an evolved bird pokemon, which (bird pokemons) I've always had a certain distaste for

sounds cool

His novels are very very readable, in that you get sucked in and have to finish even though he'll throw a lot of boring or gross (literal) shit in there. I would rank his books I've read: Corrections, Purity, Freedom (some parts of Freedom are my favorite overall, but it's very uneven for me, very stupid in parts).

He barely does anything post-modern though? More like victorian family drama lit meets mid century vulgarity/darkness in suburbia meets 2004 guy with a blog mad about birds getting eaten by cats and Bush.

If only.

>victorian family drama lit meets mid century vulgarity/darkness in suburbia

accurate

OP here. is he comfy or not?

slightly

He's comfy the way being medicated beyond a point of critical thinking might be comfy.

He's literally AGAINST postmodernism. The Corrections is a reference to The Recognitions: "I am correcting literature by being bland and domestic instead of daring and innovative." Plus the talking turd scene was an obvious parody of Gravity's Rainbow, he's suggesting Pynch is being edgy and scatological with no real purpose. Which is a totally facile reading.

He looks like the girl who says "I'm into leather" in Annie Hall.

>Plus the talking turd scene
Funny how something that might sound at least funny in a juvenile way takes a uniformly boring color with this guy's picture in the OP

Look at that face, user. How could you say no?

Yes. Corrections is mega comfy. Just read the first two chapters of The Corrections and decide for yourself, it's what I did an I ended up reading the whole book in 3 days

No and I'm not reading him again, but you should at least try. He reads like a fine tv soap opera. Don't expect to think; don't expect to be challenged; don't expect anything novel or interesting or out of the ordinary in any way. He has no aesthetic sensibilities and one can easily confuse his "style" with any other book they find in an airport, but he does have a sense of humanity.

If you are very in to melancholic suburbia, he'll give you a bunch of characters going through it. But then again he'll also give you sentences like, "Enid slept like a haiku."

And people here will defend that.

>people here will defend that
citation needed

>"Enid slept like a haiku."

That's actually nice.

no one acknowledged these quads baka

What do you think dfws reaction was when reading that? We all know he was gold standard Veeky Forums irl

>"Enid slept like a haiku."
What did he mean by this?

literally MEH the author

5-7-5 is the syllable structure of a haiku. So the 5 would be the gradual fall to sleep, 7 would be the REM cycle, and the final 5 would be her waking up.

Well,
I guess there you go. We'll see how others choose to do the same. What bothers me about it, specifically: haikus are as diverse a category as novels, songs, or meals. To pretend like that sentence means anything would be to negate any other meaning. In the end, it gives you no fucking clue how Enid slept; one is simply left with the idea that Franzen has a "literary writing quotient" and he throws in banal similes and allusions to be counted as "serious fiction"

yes actually

>giving an explanation to sentence is defending the author

>not liking bird Pokémon

heh Franzen is an avid birdwatcher btw

Has anyone here read How To Be Alone? I'd be interested in some opinions.

Yeah, he's definitely comfy. They're relaxed and pretty easy to follow I've only read Freedom and Purity. Liked both. Freedom was probably better. If you're only going to read one or two (this is just what I've heard), make it either Freedom or The Corrections.

he's the definition of alright, not really that cozy.

bird pokemons are fine, but spearow a fucking SHIT

et al
Well now I'm picturing him writing an essay about Pokemon Go and probably complaining about how Wallace probably wouldv'e liked some other kind of pokemon better than the bird ones

It must be the white lick of tuft in his pennage that does it, though not because (or not just because) those are pigeon colors.

I read it a few years ago. Overall I really liked it, there's some great stuff in there. The ones where he talks about life after The Corrections, sex toys, working with Oprah and his dad's Parkinson's are great. Won't lie though, some of his essays are really pedantic and kind of masturbatory. There's one that literally opens with him stating that he doesn't own a TV.

He'd write some shrill screed in The Atlantic about how Pokemon Go is a lowbrow waste of time, and how young people should just read Edith Wharton instead.

i have a problem with him but not with GR. is there something wrong with me? is it just that GR has a smoother read but franzen is too technical? fuck

He would be right

Gravity's Rainbow?

what a complete pseud

What happened?

You read his books, and you can come up with a dozen better plotlines involving his characters than he chose to write

Be the first to write Franzen fanfiction.