Hello "Veeky Forums." I am novelist, essayist, and birdwatching enthusiast Jonathan Franzen...

Hello "Veeky Forums." I am novelist, essayist, and birdwatching enthusiast Jonathan Franzen. Feel free to ask me anything, but preferably not related to my dear friend, the late Dave Wallace.
My most recent novel, Purity, was recently released in paperback. It can be found wherever Literature is sold.
By the way, Tom Pynchon says hello; he occasionally "shitposts" here as "girardfag."

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harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-07-0059612.pdf
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Hey, nice post. I enjoyed reading it. You get an "A" my friend.

I'll send you the bill. Dance dance, little monkey.

What stage of metamorphosis are you on?

Hm. A fascinating question that I'm not sure how to answer. However, "Metamorphosis" reminds me of a great little essay by Dave. Check it out:
harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-07-0059612.pdf

What's your favourite bird and why, Jon?

This. I would love to see some artwork/charts having a number of Veeky Forums authors beside the bird that represents them. Tommy Pinecone the good old dodo!

Of all the winged creatures that populate our wide world, I suppose my favorite--if one can really have a favorite anything--would be the Cerulean Warbler. It's a small, delicate avem that occupies a space close to my heart. If you're curious as to why, I would recommend reading my award-winning novel Freedom, in which the little guy plays a starring role.
Buy at your locally-owned bookstore!

I am also curious as to the prevalence of fringe philosopher Nick Land on this (board? Forum? (When I was young all we had were forums.)). Is he not a crack-pot?

Why does no one on this board talk about you other than this thread?

It is my belief that there are two very different groups that read capital-L Literature today. One group would be the 'SJW' types who, in their undergraduate studies, got a taste for what the august Prof. Bloom would call the "School of Resentment." They despise my fiction as I am a heterosexual white male who imagines female characters, minority characters, and various "oppressed" characters--such an act, from one of my identity, is paramount to treason.
So, that's half of the Literature-reading crowd. They call me an elitist oppressor, usually mentioning colonialism.
The other half of readers seem to be Veeky Forums-esque: they read avant garde or strictly canonical works. Stuff like Dave. They hate me because I've tried to escape maximalist Postmodern language-games, thus I am middlebrow and underwhelming.
I believe, paradoxically, that by being hated by both groups, I am forging the correct path.
At least Oprah and Time Magazine enjoy my work.

My girlfriend finds Purity very boring. She's up to page 80 or so. What should I do, Jon? The only reason why I bought your book for her was because it had a neat cover. (Pic related)

Purity was merely written as a masturbatory exercise. I wanted to craft the perfect characterization of the average millennial woman. That your girlfriend is bored simply reveals that I have succeeded; who would not be bored to death by the average millennial girl?
I kid, of course. Things speed up a little later on.
Authors have nothing to do with the covers of their books. Dave famously hated the cover of Infinite Jest.

Jon, where do I start with your books? The Bookchemist said Purity was shit, should I believe him?

Thanks!

I'm not sure why that statement would be untrue, but I still can't accept that girardfag was Pynchon. But man do I want to. But at the same time, why put that out there? What kind of ad is this this time, and why do I think I should not be asking anymore questions?

I hate you for this, and I love you for this.

Oh, a Land thread? Wait, no. What is this?

Is he really escaping "maximalist Postmodern language-games"? Or is he channelling the Victorian era with something of a moral or "social" novel, and doing so with language-games as a hook? Not necessarily middlebrow, whatever the fuck that means, but striving for entertainment value over aesthetic value without completely losing aesthetic value?

And the underwhelming part only seems to me to be associated with the reality he has to grapple with in order to make his novels relevant. I bet he could write great historical fiction or fantasy.

But yeah, he's no Zola.

Ah. I did not write Purity for the critics now, but those scores in the future. Wait and see.
Freedom, perhaps, is the most well-done of my books. But I am very proud of The Corrections--it is worth reading too, I believe. Just done begin at the beginning. My early works were juvenalia, in the most derogatory sense of the word.
You are welcome, anonymous friend!

I will attempt "greentext" here:
>Is he really escaping "maximalist Postmodern language-games"? Or is he channelling the Victorian era with something of a moral or "social" novel, and doing so with language-games as a hook? Not necessarily middlebrow, whatever the fuck that means, but striving for entertainment value over aesthetic value without completely losing aesthetic value?
I am very much influenced by the Victorian novelists. Dickens is one of my greatest influences and I've read every scrap of his. I admire that even in a behemoth like Bleak House, entertainment and aesthetics are balanced. It was a novel for the factory worker and the Queen. And everybody in between. How great is that?
FYI, when I was teenager, I read/wrote almost exclusively genre fiction. I'm a little rusty, but I bet I could write a good Sci-Fi novel now!

Introducing the larger public to language games undermined the social aspect of the novel in general. It made them unfit for the factory worker and broke the noble lie which was a necessary devise to sanctify the novel form as an address to even the aristocracy. The only people left to read a social novel tightly knotted with language games is the middle class or poor liberals aspiring to that class. I'd demand more from my moralists, especially when talking to the Queen.

Freedom, as far as I, the author of it, know, is exempt from Wittgensteinian language-games.
The Corrections? Not so much. My dad, for example, didn't like my post-modern stuff. He was a blue-collar Midwesterner and a proud auto-didact. I'd like to think he'd enjoy Freedom, however. It's birthplace was "home," not "academia."

Fuck off back the reddit, and shill your shitty book there.

Thread makes me actually want to read some Franzen

This is correct. I'm generalising for the sake of overtaking the conversation with generalisations that hang white, phallic-like, and flaccid. It is in this spirit that I seek a meta-analysis of the meandering walk that must be taken first to gain a footing within the maze.

Please do! After the first printing, I make 50% profit on all book sales. But buy local!
An apt Wittgensteinian metaphor.