Jonathan Franzen on Overrated Books
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- Опубліковано 22 кві 2012
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The irony of Franzen chatting about overrated books is just too good.
@carlabaku This is the comment I came here to find… truer than true.
Right!!!
I came to write this very thing. Yes.
The Internet ❤️
Absolutely. Thank you for saying it!
"Big Ego Talks Total Shit" would have been a better heading.
He's written so many of them...
Corrections is brilliant
@@VAPigcooker Have you read Philip Roth ?
@@joniheisenberg6691 Sure.
My friends uncle David Simon produced Plot Against America for HBO (not that one has to do with the other)
@@VAPigcooker Thanks for responding. I asked, as I think Franzen is skilled at writing about the human condition. I am a big fan of Roth’s and think he is the master at this.Thought you might enjoy his books if you hadn’t become acquainted.
@@joniheisenberg6691 Philip roth isn't a secret. He wrote literally the best selling book random house ever published.
"That book is overrated" always seems to mean "I can't believe anyone likes a book that I don't like."
Same with ‘underrated’ which means “I discovered it.”
Not necessarily, though. I'm a really big fan of Hemingway, and I think he's overrated. I've read almost everything he wrote, and have read two biographies, so it's safe to say I'm a fan, I think. And even till. Overrated. But sure, the position is that you think these writers don't deserve the level of attention that they get. So?
@@matthewcepeda1563 Exactly. It's possible to be overrated and still be good.
No. There are really objective criteria by which you can judge if a piece of art is quality or not. Sure, many times critics go out of their way to convince people that a mediocre book is a great one - „The Catcher In The Rye” is probably the biggest example. „To kill a mockingbird” would be another one. But in general, the criteria is there to judge by it.
I think Shakespears is overrated, i never read a work of his but i still think he might be pretty over-rated.
The Quiet American is a real masterpiece. Tells you everything you really need to know about Vietnam in 100 pages.
agreed
So is A Burnt Out Case, and The Comedians, and The Power and the Glory, and The Human Factor. The End of the Affair isn't really his best.
@@yxvoegl2263 I'm not sure I've read any of those. Read the Havana one, the one in West Africa, Argnitina, and the Travels with his aunt and all the short stories. Anything he writes is pretty compelling
@@nicholasschroeder3678 I've read almost everything Greene has published, and I like most of it. I mentioned ones I thought were his best, but yes, Our Man in Havana, Travels With My Aunt, Monsignor Quixote, and the early "entertainments" like Ministry of Fear, Stamboul Train, This Gun for Hire, And Brighton Rock are all excellent.(As you might notice, Greene is one of my favorite authors.)
@@yxvoegl2263 loved them all, even the End Of The Affair.
'Even in the moment of love, I was like a police officer gathering evidence of a crime that hadn't yet been commited, and when more than four years later I opened Parkis's letter the evidence was all there in my memory to add to my bitterness.' - Graham Greene - The End of the Affair
I love you
Nothing special, tumblr teens
Hey where are you? Justed wanted to say Natalie loves you.
it has flow but is definitely not to the taste of the video speaker's style
Okay, so I'm kinda dumb (and 11 years after your post) but are you quoting this prose to support Greene or to demonstrate what Franzen is saying? The reason I ask is, I sincerely don't know why a police officer would investigate a crime that hasn't been committed (as a crime hasn't been committed until it is committed so how do you gather evidence on something that isn't?). Yet, the metaphor goes on to explain that the evidence is there in his memory despite the convoluted investigation of something that didn't happen and thus to me, makes it seem that Greene is trying too hard or my head is too hard...
The guy takes his time fumbling with words. It took him forever to say 4 sentences
A true expert in the realm of overrated books.
😂
The Da Vinci Code is the most overrated book in the last 20 years.
popular maybe, but i don't think anyone rates it as a masterpiece or anything, i think we're all dead set on it being a pulpy thriller
Overrated by whom? Everyone who reads knows that book is terrible.
It's non-readers that elevate stuff like that, Harry Potter, etc.
@@MetaEDM I thought it was a jolly good ride.
It was good fun, but not a good book. The way things are going, Harry Potter is likely to be erased from the memory banks.
@@MetaEDM
Harry Potter is splendid. Full of very intriguing symbolism.
I did a search for Blood Meridian on UA-cam and this came up and I swear to god if Franzen called Mccarthy over rated I was gonna lose my mind hahaha
That's how I got here too. I'm interested in that book because I wanna know what the fuss over it is all about
Can't be overrated when you're being lampooned left and right.
+1
Drop the "hahaha." Write more tightly. Make your sentences shorter.
I had a very similar reaction, although I searched David Markson.
This feels like an awkward eHarmony introduction video or something. His name appears, then his profession; the clean, white background....
Somewhere out there someone exists who could love Jonathan Franzen.
This man instantly became, in my mind, the epitome of someone who wants to say something deep, but doesn't posses the tools. He can't talk for more than a couple seconds without stopping and reaching for a particular idea which he never quite seems to grasp.
Given that he has proven himself to be the owner of a pretty formidable toolbox compared to most, I am tempted to think what he intuits and fails to convey here might indeed be quite deep. I hope he will give it another shot one day, perhaps in writing.
@@nikolehnert2693 Yep. Some people orate. Some people write.
See also:Stephen Poliakoff.
His books are worse
"i don't like Graham Green" would have sufficed.
I find it funny that the guy whose book I most often find in used book stores in large numbers is talking about overrated books.
Billions more have eaten at McDonald's than the French Laundry.
I bought a hardback copy of The Corrections at a used bookstore for 50 cents. That's how much the store owner valued it. I couldn't finish it. Ponderously dull
I hardly ever see Franzen there. The books I do spot second hand a lot are the Shades of Grey series, Zadie Smith's White Teeth and the Norton Anthologies (we're a student town)
I find it funny that somebody with an obvious contempt for Franzen is clicking on his videos. Or maybe you like him more than you're letting on, and his comments wounded you.
@@profd65 That's a really crude ad hominem. I'm neutral on Franzen himself, but I regularly get suggested videos I don't like, sometimes I do watch them and often I do comment on them. Anyone can.
Franzen is given an opinion here. We don't have to agree with everything he says, unlike the ςочіδ propaganda online.
Jonathan Franzen should discuss overrated authors while gazing into a mirror.
He's being asked a difficult question. He's human. He's giving his OPINION. Everyone relax.
Agree. I would add, however, that he may be influential in the sense of shaping opinion or giving an excuse to those who do not want to make an effort to find out for themselves. I don't like his novels, such that I had read. So it goes.
He’s pretentious enough to answer this pretentious question. If he’d had a trace of humility, if he’d been the least bit prone to effacement, he would’ve chuckled and said something like “Overrated novels? Oh my. All of mine, I suppose.”
This is the internet. In a comment section. Literally a place for opinions so fuck you
It's a simple question about his job.
He’s being asked a difficult question. And he’s an idiot. Next.
His failure to appreciate "The End of the Affair" and other works by Greene damages his credibility. In "The Quiet American," Greene was warning us about Vietnam way back in 1954.
Franzen is a five-alarm midwit and the only time he's ever entertained me is when he basically tells on himself in this regard. At one point he was talking shit about Gaddis (couldn't be jealousy over a systems novelist conspicuously more intelligent than he!) and straight up said that it took him around 60-80 hours to read The Recognitions. I kid you not.
Agreed. I've enjoyed Franzen but disheartened to hear him disparage a masterpiece like The End of the Affair. Fair play to him, he says it's not to his taste, and that's often what it boils down to. But honestly... that book is the most moving fiction I've ever read. The Quiet American is another of Greene's crowning achievements.
Greene predicted the Cuban Crisis too, in "Our Man in Havana".
Numerous authors seem to have predicted what is going on right now, which is scary.
I read 'The End of the Affair' in one sitting. Phenomenal book.
I know a very overrated book. The Corrections. Goodness, Jonathan Franzen commenting on 'overrated books'. Humility and modesty are qualities that often appear conjointly with intelligence.
are you kidding me? Jesus, it's become far too popular to shit on Franzen. His prose is just transcendent--like Nabokov level good. Sure, his plot lines may be a bit confounding at times, but if it's plot you seek, there's a surfeit of middling airport-terminal suspense writers that can serve your needs.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Corrections
The Corrections was excellent. No idea what you're talking about.
There are plenty of Franzen books to shit on but you pick The Corrections? A little suspicious. Humility and modesty is boring as fuck sometimes
@@melocomanTV Right? I thought it was funny and dark in all the right spots. Fish in the pants, and all of Estonia was hilarious but the overarching plot of the father was so well-written that the ending made me cry.
He's dead wrong about Saunders, Brits get and love his work. Wallace is read, liked, respected, but it's so strongly a product of American college culture that it needs a little translation effort on the part of the reader.
i'm assuming you're referring to Infinite Jest?
Indeed, Lincoln in the Bardo won the Booker prize, but yeah Franzen, the Brits don't get him (Sarcasm)
For real. George Saunders won the Booker Prize!
Wow didn't expect to see Graham Greene under fire. But I understand. Greene is a perfectionist. His work is clean, which makes it accessible to a mass audience. He is definitely in the same vein as someone like Phillip Roth, tremendously talented with a great sense for that verve that speaks to the modern reader and never veers from that lane.
Greene writes pulp . Which is why he is adapted for the screen so easily ...
When I say pulp I don't mean it in a bad way
@@bobjary9382 Greene certainly kept an entertainment value in mind. I will say, at his best-Power and Glory, maybe Brighton Rock-he is great. His oeuvre is ultimately a victim of his own popularity. He produced so much below the quality of his peak to meet the public's demand.
Greene is nothing like Philip Roth.
No but both write books that will be read for quite a while. I’ve read and re-read close to 20 books by Roth, and I really like him. Greene’s top-3 novels, which include Heart of the Matter, are very good literature.
@@graham6132 Shut up, mook. Read my comment again.
I’m Scottish and I love Wallace and Greene 🤷🏻♂️
He’s mad cuz DFW schooled him in the charlie rose interview. That guy is still butt hurt.
Also Scottish, love Greene. Wallace though? Started reading Infinite Jest a while back, not even half way through. A hard slog. It is the first book of his I've readm
You Scots sure are a contentious people.
The Power and the Glory (by Greene) is AMAZING and so is Our Man in Havana! What the hell is this man on about?!?!?!?!
The Power and the Glory is a masterpiece. I love it.
2:45 minutes to say "I kind of don't like certain books, but that's just my opinion".
He is a professional author, so no, it's not just a case of "muh opinion". He does this for a living.
@@thursoberwick1948 It is just his opinion. Dan Brown and Paulo Coelho also do this for a living and it hasn't made them any more credible.
Your description calls Bill Nye an expert, pretty serious typo
The irony of Franzen talking about overrated books is just too too much.
hate to be the usage police (and six years late at that), but that is not the correct use of the word 'irony'. Better to be told late than never, right ? ;)
@@kioshi1474 Why not? I am genuinely curious
@@bartimeo111 That usage of the word irony is perfectly fine. One of the definitions of "irony" is "a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result." One would not expect an author, whose famous book 'Freedom' is the poster child for overrated books in the literary world, to be pontificating on overrated books in a video. So, this state of affairs is contrary to what one would expect and is amusing as a result. It is also deliberate because Big Think is probably aware of the controversy and that is why they asked him the question. The video checks off pretty much all the boxes for an ironic situation.
Gabe Wyatt What an idiot 😂
How can he say Graham Greene is overrated? I find that incredible. Screw him!
End of the Affair shook me when I read it for the first time. I've never been so affected by a book.
@@MrOwen2012 Same here.
I wanted to like it very much, but it fell flat for me.
If anything, he’s UNDERRATED and somehow largely ignored in our times.
I haven't read Forster but I did read Greene's The End of the Affair and I think Franzen misses Greene's art--he wasn't a technician. He wrote characters who struggled deeply with their own consciences and with their faith. In the Quiet American, the ennui-laden character played by Michael Caine in the film, realizes that we all have more innocence to lose. Can Franzen comprehend this subtle, exquisite character shift? I don't think he can frankly.
* one of the films. There are two film versions. Both worth seeing. I got to see them in a double bill at the cinema, very different takes.
Clearly you haven't read "Purity" then...
Forster writes very clean prose about the internal conflicts of characters, explored over time and by their interactions with eachother. Generally, the web of hidden emotions, and conflicts gets more and more complex - yet he renders it with such clarity that you are never confused - and the endings are usually very mundane. The point is very much what happens between characters and not what the actual plot is. His Englishness can come off as uptight I guess?
The thing is, he doesn't actually explain his opinion. He's unable to get a coherent thought out.
He's not a facile speaker, though I have no problem understanding what he says, even though it's not terribly profound.
I'll take Greene over Franzen any day.
I'm British and I am currently reading Infinite Jest. I am about 700 pages into it and I quite like it, although it dawned on me a few hundred pages back that it does not have a story, and that realization re-set my opinion of the novel fairly significantly. It went from: this is an unbelievable artistic achievement, and I can't wait to see how he is able to resolve all these incredibly dense narrative strands into a satisfying conclusion; to: this is a series of highly technical literary set-pieces, some of which are fantastically entertaining and exhibit an extraordinary capacity for detailed observation, and some of which are overly contrived and at times a little silly. I also noticed that he pretty much uses the same trick in every scene: i.e. couch one of his theories about the world within a superficially entertaining scene.
Best book I’ve read. I don’t think any other novel will blow my brains out like this one did.
greetings from Allston Brighton (AKA Enfield) I hope you dig the book
idk if you finished it or not, but it does come together quite nicely. there are great theories online you can read after finishing the ending.
I like the way it talks about weaponized entertainment and how the most pleasure inducing and addictive entertainment is the most lethal but can't be remembered. Seems to be true with the contemporary attention span and Skinner Box media we are being bombarded with as commodities/consumers.
@@chriswilloughby48 yeah, it's kinda like when you think of days you spent 7 hours on youe phone you can't remember what you were doing that was so fun
Mr. Franzen just provided another reason not to read contemporary American novels.
The Corrections is funny, but it's like a TV skit, quickly forgotten. Whereas Forster and Greene linger. I read the Corrections last month and hardly remember a thing. I read Forster and Greene thirty years ago and remember so much of them.
I clearly remember one part of The Corrections: the multi-page conversation between a man and the turd that he has crapped out.
No, this is not a metaphor.
@@denisesudell2538 You see, I'd forgotten that. We're in 2022 and I read it in 2022 and I'd forgotten that. It's possible I enjoyed that part.
How much do I remember? Let's see: not very pleasant people with mediocre lives. Siblings. Rather selfish. Their father had Parkinson disease. Or Alzheimer? That couldn't have been funny.
I remember thinking I'd recommend the book to my mom and later deciding not to.
Greene? I'll be frank, I don't remember every novel (I've read about twenty), but The Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter: I could talk about each of them for an hour. And I read them in the 1990s, just once.
(I won't mention books I read multiple times or saw as movies, like Room With a View or The Third Man, as that wouldn't be fair)
Franzen wouldn't know an overrated book if he wrote it himself... Oh wait.
I love how everyone gets a stick up their butt when they hear Franzen give an opinion. I promise you, when asked straight up, you give more arrogant opinions about things and are less versed in them than he was about this. He's not being arrogant, he's giving an opinion with confidence.
But then also Franzen sounds academic as hell, and there's also an unfairness in how people who sound academic are responded to--if he said this in a different more "I acknowledge I'm an asshole so I'm just gonna fuckin say it" type way or even a david foster wallace type of "I am too timid to voice my true opinions on air so I'll make it seem like I'm just too smart to take sides cause everything is complex" way of answering.
That doesn't make what he says correct. For one thing, he makes sweeping generalisations about the differences between American and British fiction and then tries to excuse himself by saying "it's a taste thing." Well, surely if it's a "taste thing" he would recognise that there have been British writers who get DFW - Zadie Smith and Will Self spring to mind - and also that there have been American writers who get EM Forster and Graham Greene. DFW, in fact, was one of them. Raymond Carver and Richard Yates were others.
Franzen owes the bulk of his fame to one entertaining (but far from great) novel.... The Corrections... and one wildly-flattering jacket photo. There is no need or reason to take his pronouncements seriously.
Academics (some) sound intelligent. Franzen is not intelligent. He writes so much but says so very little. This mumbling blather is indicative of his work.
Both authors will be read long after he is.
In what way is this big thinking? Yet to hear any justification for why he doesn’t seem to like Graham Greene, other than it being a question of taste... which, let’s face it, is hardly insightful.
It's a 2 1/2 minute video. Two and one half minutes.
@@rmcnabb thanks for doing the math.
Well he admitted it was his opinion, and it wasn't the truth. He just gives a honest answer to a question. So what's the problem?
Exactly...
Most authors would have politely refused to answer the question. He wasn't forced to give an elaborate answer. Yes, he's giving his opinion and the comment section is giving their opinion. So what's the problem.
The problem is that he’s been this overrated blowhard for about 20 years, couching his pomposity under a blanket of false modesty. THAT’S the problem.
@@acetate909 No, the comment section isn't giving its literary opinion: it's merely attacking Franzen, because Franzen had the audacity to not share its taste in books. Obviously, many people clicked on this video hoping to have their tastes validated, and were disappointed.
The very first book he should have mentioned is "Freedom."
The dialogue in that book is incredibly bad...like "rock stars," hillbillies, "cool" college kids, all talking like a precocious 12 year old doing an impression of an adult
Only time will tell, Graham Greene has taken a beating like in his time the famous Somerset Maugham, whose novels are rarely mentioned nowadays and were expected with excitment in his time. All human works take a plunge in favour and literary glory and readership as time goes by. Then 50 years later or a hundred are rediscovered with passion, glee and dedication by a new public often for other reasons. Hence I would not venture a judgment on anybody's books risking well
deserved public ridicule, showing aptly my shortcomings and keen prejudices. Or shall I ? for vain glory, ride in the shadow of those geniuses like a hen when a horse goes by.
Somerset Maugham still has his fans. I'm one of them. He was good at writing solid plots, something which is unfashionable in literary circles these days.
Eye contact, Big John. Eye contact, little man.
I’m going to turn off this video before I get annoyed and assume he just lists his bibliography.
I think Franzen is an excellent writer. I've been on a Dostoevsky roller coaster for the last two months, and I took Franzen's Freedom to relax a bit, but it turned out to be really interesting and really masterfully written..
The Brothers Karamazov is the best book ever written.
@@MrDinger60 yes!
@@MrDinger60 couldn't agree more
Wait til you read Crossroads. His best yet!
I found Freedom rather pedestrian…
The Power And The Glory, Monsignor Quixote, Brighton Rock, Our Man In Havana, The Quiet American, The Third Man and The Heart Of The Matter are just a few of the great books Greene wrote. Its a case of taste, if you don't like the writer fair enough but they can still be a great writer. The crap writers are one's like Jeffrey Archer whose writing is absolutely terrible yet he's a serial best seller whose got rich thru his badly written, poorly sourced books which just shows that a high percentage of the population couldn't tell a Rembrandt painting from a paint splatter and who think a fish finger is a type of fish..
I am in total agreement with the Archer thing. I used to write more interesting reports about what I did at the weekend when I was 5 years old. In light of that anyone is better and people like Greene and this guy are gods.
To add onto this, he picks Wallace's Infinite Jest as an underrated book in another one of these clips. It seems like people just want to manufacture reasons to hate Franzen.
It's a barely readable book. I've been at it for over a year and still have at least a quarter left.
@@thursoberwick1948 barely readable for you, maybe. I read it at 19 and didn't find it particularly challenging. In fact, I couldn't put it down and read it in a few weeks. This not to brag or anything. I know plenty of other people who did the same. Try The Recognitions or Gravity's Rainbow if you want difficult.
@@rome8180 I've read Joyce and Tolstoy, not to mention Dostoyevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" (which is the only book to ever give me a headache, even though it is an amazing book). I never got far with "Finnegans Wake", although I've read "Ulysses" a few times.
"Infinite Jest" is a nightmare though. It's not the worst thing I've read but it's not the most exciting. I believe DFW was made to shorten it. I think at least half of what I've read could have been cut out. He also has a bloody annoying habit of having third and fourth level footnotes as well. I really prefer DFW's essays, to be honest.
I've never read Gaddis, but I do have two copies of Gravity's Rainbow (unread). I'm never sure whether it's worth investing my time in all of these. I've abandoned "Finnegans Wake" pretty much. Seth's "Suitable Boy" and Mann's "Magic Mountain" were a waste of my time.
@@thursoberwick1948 maybe ur just too dumb to get it
@@rome8180 Honestly is fake depth, gassed up by people who didn't read enough. Mostly complications of simple ideas, not a challenging book that delves into dense subjects through a well composed aesthetics and structure. Unlike Doctor Faustus by Mann and GR, which I feel do suceed in this concern.
Graham Greene is a brand new Porshe and Jonathon Frantzen is a rusty old VW. Seriously,he should be so jealous of the quality of Greene's work.
He's the most overrated American author from recent times.
I'm British and I love David Foster Wallace AND (what I've read of) George Saunders.
So, uh...there.
i think everybody who makes generalizations realizes that they don't apply to everybody
This one's for the other brits who think DFW was incredible.
Jonathan Franzen has written two books, The Corrections and Freedom.
"Overrated" is such a loaded word. There is no "objective" measure of art quality. Music, Movies, Books etc. can be deeply effective and personal to individuals despite criticism from "professional" critics.
Next week: Johnny Depp on overrated actors.
I'm getting really sick of arrogant twists go on about Franzen's arrogance. He is actually just opinionated, but show me someone who isn't.
Well, if that is the case then we might as well say no one is opinionated, they just have a way of seeing things. But this is a curious little video. Franzen here suggests that some literature might be too American for Brits to "get" while stating that he doesn't know what all the fuss is about about certain British authors. Perhaps opinion has nothing to do with it at all. I for one didn't get the impression that he was inquiring what the big deal with certain writers was, but was rather suggesting that people might come to their senses one day and realise had bad these authors actually are. In fact, my first impression was: WTF?
@@worldpeace8299 What's so curious? After finding himself at odds with two British novelists, he suspects it might be a cultural thing and mentions analogous cases in the other direction.
@@nikolehnert2693 I personally think Harry Potter was a heap of cliched shite. But what criteria would I be wrong?
@@worldpeace8299 I don't know why you ask me - I couldn't even get through the first Harry Potter book. Maybe it is such a heap and its success is due to the cliches being still fresh to most readers. Don't know...
I loved "The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene, mostly for its importance as a work of Catholic literature. But I also love Franzen's books. :)
Also notable as a great work of amphetamine fueled writing. And that creepy vagrant with the bad yellow teeth who sells out the priest to the authorities still lurks in my imagination.
Look at this. A reasonable and sensible person , capable of feeling two things at once in our modern world of either/or and us v. them.
You may save the world.
Never mind... 9 years ago. You were probably cancelled.
The Power and the Glory was amazing. So was Brighton Rock
@@breeeegs
My least favourite Greene books . A burnt out case . The end of the affair . The power and the glory ...and A sort of life are mine .
It would be so dull if we all liked the same things
The Power and the Glory is excellent. I was very moved by it, especially the scene where he loses the wine he intended for mass (I’m also Catholic).
So what?
The main point seems to be that he doesn’t like E M Forster or Graham Greene. He is entitled to his opinions, though they wrote very different styles of book and set out to do different things in them. I also think it is correct to say that some books are less effective in cultures other than their own.
None of that proves that either of these writers is over rated.
If he wanted this talk to be taken seriously he should have gone into details and given examples of passages which did not work for him in the books in question.
What's unintentionally amusing about this is that Anglo-America has a lot more in common with itself than it thinks ... but this applies to all traditionally big countries, incl. France, Germany and Russia. What made me stick with Brodsky’s On Grief and Reason was the enjoyable description of how he was ingeniously robbed in Rio while on a Seventies culture junket. There was a dog involved. It was trained to distract gringo sunbathers by tugging at their pants.
There is a pattern (both for tourists and for artists) in that the big countries seem incapable of imagining how the world looks to the more circumspect, little-guy countries. What on earth was Brodsky doing with “four hundred bucks” on him at the beach in Rio? Where the hell did he think he was? At home in (non-Latin) America?
A lot of people who write very well aren't good speakers.
Yes, and I wish bookshops and publishers would realise that.
The Kanye West of literature. Blows hard, says little, loves the sound.
This is such a bad comparison. Fundamentally, this is dogshit.
Anybody that knows a thing about music, no matter how they feel about the person, knows Kanye West's oeuvre makes a strong argument for him being the greatest Pop artist of the last generation.
At a minimum, he is to Hip Hop what Miles Davis was to Jazz. So comparing Franzen to West makes me think Franzen is pretty damn important.
@@bk2524 absolutely. I hate that West's music is so damned good given that he doesn't fit my limited prejudices of what a "good" person is. But there are plenty of schmuck geniuses in music, the obvious example being Wagner...and then there's the murderous Gesualdo. And I'm certain Miles Davis ruined more than a few lives
This guy is no Kanye, love him or hate him Kanye west has changed his art form in a way Franzen hasn’t and couldn’t even come close to
Lol no. Kanye is actually dope.
I love E.M. Forster!! Howard's End is so beautiful. Maurice was the first great homosexual love story ever written. And actually, I've never met an American who has even read him (not even people who had STUDIED English literature) so I cannot imagine he's overrated.
I am American and love Forster and Greene. I like Franzen but this video is pointless.
@@TeachUBusiness Yay for American Forster readers!! :-)
@@Maren617 A Passage to India is heartbreaking and pertinent to today's U.S.
Many American, including myself, know Forster from the film adaptations--most of which are very good.
Late to the party here, obviously, but I'd say all of his novels are great gay love stories; they're just semi-veiled within the stories of straight characters. "Maurice" was just the one he purposefully didn't hide that fact (which is why it went unpublished for 60 years). I can't recall if it was in an analysis of his work or in his own words, but I recall learning that the characters of his novels, including the women, were based on or inspired by gay male friends, acquaintances, mannerisms & norms of the time. I also love that he very specifically wrote "Maurice" to have a happy ending: if he was going to be daring enough to openly write about gay men in the 1910s, he was going to make sure they didn't fall into the tragedy trope of all other gay representation. Contemporarily, I'd say "Schitt's Creek" is the closest we have to a Forster novel, & like "Maurice," the Levys very consciously created a story with a very happy ending.
Thanks for telling us what we already know. But someone should never mistake their opinions for holy writ; I remain unconvinced that Franzen knows the difference. I doubt he would suffer the loss of an opinion (or several) either. It is a trait he shares with Evelyn Waugh.
Graham Greene is an exceptional writer, in my opinion.
For sure do not let anyone let you think otherwise
It's like movies...we have different temperaments and life experiences. Our favorites are going to differ.🤷♂️
Most underrated writers - Strugatsky Brothers and Stanislav Lem.
Putin ist мой Führer I will check out the Strugatskys Brother because you hold Lem in such high esteem. Totally agree, Lem deserves to be was well known as Borges and Calvino. Perhaps the label "science fiction" scares literary snobs away.
@@Proudnuggets would you recommend anything in particular by Lem?
I've only read Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It was pretty good
@@jawnsushi I can't speak for Mick, but my choices would be Fiasco and Solaris.
@@jawnsushi Solaris is a masterpiece, but afaik the English translation isn't very good.
"Like, you say, whatever, that's a replica." Yeah, dude.
i keep waiting for him to be honest and name his own books but maybe self-important american writers just don't get irony
When an author is said to be "overrated", it, as Franzen points out, does not mean their is anything wrong with the writing. I would take it a step further and say that many good or even great writers are overrated, because of the hype, accolades, supreme status they receive (perhaps through no fault of their own). For some writers it is just assumed that if they write a few great books, then most of what they do must also be great. Not so, some of it is junk. Overrated: Hemingway, Twain, Whitman, and Faulkner to name a few. They wrote some good and even great stuff. They also produced mediocre, and some rubbish too. Why do we give humans in certain artistic fields God-like status, as the authors I mention above have been given? It's idiotic, they are human, and inconsistent.
"does not mean THERE is anything wrong with the writing"
@@eddiejc1 Calling those 4 overrated when you don't know your their, from there, to they're. Overrated means thought of too highly. Writing 1 or 2 of the best novels ever written and 10 average books doesn't make you overrated, you still wrote 2 of the greatest novels ever, that makes you one of the greatest novelists ever. I would counter what Mr Their/There/They're said with why does everyone these days think they're a literary expert? Just because you don't find a book or books good doesn't mean that authors reputation has suddenly been changed. The world would be a boring place if we all loved the same things. But when most professional writers agree a certain writer is one of the greatest ever, it doesn't matter how many they sell or how many average readers like them, average readers aren't experts in prose. If it WAS the case people like H.P.Lovecraft and Edgar Alan Poe would be unknown today. Some writers are just way ahead of their time, so the average reader of their generation doesn't like them, but fast forward decades when the rest of the literary world has caught up and that person could even have passed, yet they'll be discovered by a whole new generation and receive the renown they deserve.
2.45 of complete and utter gibberish. He literally didn't say anything of worth, whatsoever.
I have to agree. I learned nothing, yet he took a long time to explain it.
Ma boy Franzen getting mad at another book nerd Davy Wally knocking his books out of the water in terms of complexity and getting good press
Wallace was a gifted writer but I’d take Franzen any day. DFW is the most pretentious writer to ever live, and for every brilliant piece of writing there’s something so insanely snide and intentionally obtuse it makes one cringe.
He was right about Forster. ! Greene's " A Burnt Out Case " was brilliant. He later
lapsed into self parody alas.! As for Frantzen : Physician heal thyself !!
I wonder what writers like mentioned DFW or Don Delillo would said. Maybe some kind of more balanced opinion. But to me there is something in what Franzen says, that there is always a certain conflict between so called avantgrade and classic novel (or in general - "lighter stuff"). And to me is seems that Franzen identifies those two with American (avantgrade) and European (classic) novel.
That the stuff of Greene and Foster is 'lighter' than that of Wallace or DeLillo is comical. Cheers for the titter.
You just have to focus on writing great fiction, the rest is out of your hands. If it's going to be championed by those in academia and shoved down students throats, of course it will stand the test of time.
Amen to that.
He's very articulate in interviews, just not in a camera friendly way. He was always way too concerned with how he was going to be perceived.
Clearly not very articulate in this shite
Very articulate saying the Brits would never get Saunders despite awarding him their biggest literary prize, the Booker for Lincoln in the Bardo....
I think this statement could be applied to his writing as well. Does Franzen even start a book without pondering what awards he will win for it?
Brits don't get Wallace or Saunders? I suppose he missed Zadie Smith's book on Wallace then... And was mighty surprised when Saunders won the Booker.
I can’t get through a Graham Greene book. I’ve tried. Travels with my Aunt put me into a drugged up like catatonic trance of boredom that I’m half still in……so i suppose I have that to thank him for
I had a copy of "Travels with My Aunt" on my shelf for years and finally picked it up last month. I wasn't bored with it, but I quickly realized it was just going to be the same joke for 200 pages. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't continue either.
I agree. Some people are so snooty about Graham Greene these days. I think he was a fantastic writer that managed to cover significant social themes while keeping to a level of readability that made him popular amongst the masses.
I’d have enjoyed this more if he’d elaborated on why he thinks E. M. Forster and Graham Greene are overrated.
He would require 10 minutes to produce a substantial sentence or two.
A lot of people are talking about how overrated Franzen is himself, but even if you took away all his literary achievements, he's still the only person in a century to see an ivory billed woodpecker.
Hi Big Think, I hope you know it's Graham GreenE. You had 7 years to edit it!
having said that, his most recent novel is my favorite contemporary work of fiction
Franzens?
you know that scene in Annie Hall when the guy in line behind them for the movie won't stop giving his meaningless opinions?
This vid may as well be re-titled to - Over-rated Franzen gracelessly waffles and generalises about the difference between the UK and US's literary tastes. I'm from the UK and I like Hemingway/Plath/Bret Easton Ellis/Philip K Dick/Capote/DFW. I have to admit I struggle to see the why ppl like PoMo though. Great novels are like their authors, intensely individualistic, so it's wrong to generalise when talking about novels (let's save the over-simplistic generalising/labeling for politics).
Utterly barren of insight. Why even post this video?
You are so spot on.
It is the ultimate irony that Jonathan Franzen is being interviewed about overrated books
Exactly. The irony.
No. He suggested that Brits might think DFW is puerile.
What's all the fuss about Jonathan Franzen's books?
Graham Greene ("e" at the end), not Graham Green.
What's a "nearly perfect replica of a novel"?
Some psuedo profound insight from a pretentious narcissist. This video is just an author smelling his own farts.
He means that. Other Forster and Greene are following 19th century principles of novel writing and they apply badly to modern concerns, or at least those of Americans. Which is a défendable stance. They both write like they’re a hundred years behind the French and Russian novelists.
Good point.
I was wondering that... It seems like he used so many words to say that there's some popular novelists he doesnt care for.. he may as well say the sky is blue or fire burns. Every single one of us can name a popular novelist whose works we dont connect with
@@razvanrepciuc5811 You mean they are more concerned with good writing rather than adopting the latest literary fashions. They write like humans about humans. Franzen is a dirge.
I haven't read much of Foster Wallace, but I can say about Saunders--"Where's the beef?" I've read or tried to read many of his short stories and novellas. Very cute, very clever. But soul? I didn't feel any.
A near-perfect imitation of a novel is a novel.
He didn't he suggested that British people don't get DFW, and as I British person who loved his work, I don't think that's true at all.
Wow, he's super articulate. Does he write in English?
I have lived in London for 25 years and Wallace is a popular modern writer, Infinite Jest is easier to find in bookstores than most other recent novels. Not sure where these generalizations come from.
Love the dis he works in of Foster Wallace and Saunders. Puerile, broad, etc-all adjectives the BRITS would have used, mind you. Not old Franzen, who actually came up with the adjectives and whose fiction, incidentally, he absents from any such purely imagined criticism.
Yeah, the Brits would never 'get' Saunders and award him the Booker, the biggest British Literary prize....wait....
@@reluctantsocialist2670 Right right! This points up even more clearly the inanity of Franzen's musings here. But I remain obsessed, mostly, with how he smuggles in these really quite devastating criticisms of his literary frenemies-he can't stop coming up with new adjectives, new lacerating put downs, all of them HIS OWN INVENTION-and then of course all of it lovingly framed by his observation that Greene and Forster are overrated. Fuckin' 'ell, as the Brits would say.
@@JohnColapinto The other thing that annoys me about people like Franzen is look how he puts across this ‘opinion’. He doesn’t put it as ‘in my opinion’ it’s they ARE overrated, the Brits DON’T get Foster etc, to him these aren’t personal opinions, he’s the literary god that’s decided for everyone
THE END OF THE AFFAIR is a heart-breaking masterpiece and a succinct one at that.
It is the inner life of a self centered man
His opinion is so bad that nobody really care about it.
I hope he writes better than he speaks. Takes him a long time to say very little of value.
Speaking of overrated books, I think Franzen's Freedom was way overrated. Apparently he thinks that using as many obscure five-star vocabulary words as possible (along with absurdly long sentences) somehow makes him a superior author. Another thing that became clear to me when I read it is that Franzen never got laid in high school. He has a juvenile obsession with sex, bodily fluids in particular.
Hey, attack Franzen and purple prose all you want, but leave bodily fluids out of this..
My initial reaction to this video was amused shock however after that had subsided it was a feeling of incredulity. Franzen comes across as an erudite Anglophile writer, so to dismiss Greene so casually seems... quite sad & disappointing really. He only references The End Of The Affair which if that is all you've read of Greene can maybe seem a little trussed up and prim. However that is kind of the point.. we're talking about a novel which deals with the loosening social mores of middle class English folks in wartime and post-wartime London. You need to delve a little deeper in to Greene to get the gist. Read The Heart Of The Matter, Our Man In Havana or The Quiet American. I wonder if Franzen has read Brighton Rock? The first chapter of Part Four which deals with Spicer's murder at the racetrack... read that Mr Franzen.
Agreed. Greene improves the more novels you read, they all start to constellate into a mesmerising picture. C'mon Jonathan, I love you but you need to read more Graham.
This was the 4th search result for "letters john barth" so I watched the whole thing thinking Franzen was seriously gonna rag on my boy Barth but I just watched the whole thing and apparently it has nothing to do with Letters by John Barth! UA-cam, explain yourself!!
This is a Barthian problem...I too searched "John Barth" videos on UA-cam--and this one popped up--and yet no discussion of Barth! Very perplexing. I think Barth would appreciate it, though.
"Well, as an expert, you should know," as Vidal quipped to Mailer.
This is one of those videos where we need the dislike statistics
anybody know what Franzen's thoughts on Zadie Smith are? I wondered if some of his (justifiable, imo) negativity toward British lit was fueled by the amount of hype around Smith and her devotion to the school of Forster, Wodehouse, etc.
Totally. Stone cold dis of Zadie, and a look-the-other-way-towel-flick on DFW too. Ouchie!
An American has a rich canon of mediocrity to choose from before he has to leave his native shores in search of overrated literature.