Washington College Magazine
Student Writer Talks Shop With Jonathan Franzen
By Kim Last '07
For a writer who claims "Almost nothing interesting has happened to me," author Jonathan Franzen is a pretty intriguing guy by my standards.
During Sophie Kerr weekend, when prospective students interested in creative writing visited campus, acclaimed essayist and novelist Jonathan Franzen read from his forthcoming "personal history," The Discomfort Zone.
And no, it's not because he "dissed Oprah" and still managed to sell thousands of copies of the critically acclaimed novel The Corrections; or the fact that when you Google his name, there are over 1.1 million references.
Nope, that's not even close to the core of who Jonathan Franzen is. The most fascinating trait of this Midwest-raised, New York-based writer is the meaning behind his stories. Franzen is a writer who can strike a chord with his readers by tying together the most common collective in people's lives: family. How can you not enjoy and relate to a writer who can link the world's waning environment to his own declining family and relationships?
During his Sophie Kerr Weekend visit, I had the chance to sit down with Franzen to talk about just that: stories. We discussed the role of the social novel, the importance of family, Franzen's evolving writing career and how he manages to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground.
KIM LAST: In 1996, you wrote in Harper's Magazine about the decline of the social novel in fiction. Do you have any words of advice for budding novelists and creative writers to fulfill their duty to create a piece of writing that is reflective of the social cause?
JONATHAN FRANZEN: Well, the problem with the social novel is that we don't need it anymore. Before TV, people would actually read a book to learn about a subject, and TV does it so much better. The serial dramas like ER and the news do it so well. So, if you have something important to say why would you write a novel? If you are trying to advocate two sides [books] aren't a good way of doing it. But, TV is really good at it.
At the same time, it is important not to ignore the social reality of the novelist. I have very little interest myself in reading historical fiction because I am a living person in 2006 and I get excited by somebody's account of what it's like to be living now, dealing with the anxieties and the struggles we have now.
When I write a book and when I read a book, I know that I'm in a world I recognize when I see the social aspect as well . . . Suddenly everyone's talking on a cell phone and everyone's manners are different and that is really interesting to me.
I think the advice [to writers] would be to pay attention to the world. I also think that if you pay really, really close attention to what's around, you see things that other people don't. I think that's what fiction writers do: register with their sensitivity the stuff that people walking around, talking really loudly or listening to really loud music, miss.
The present reality of what you see on TV is so noisy and so bright you don't necessarily know what the real important things are. You can learn more by paying attention to what the landscape looks like when it gets covered by McMansions than you [can] learn by covering the news in Washington.
It could be that there is something that is more important there. I think there is ultimately a social utility in just doing your job as a fiction writer. You don't know necessarily how it will be useful, but I think telling the truth and observing carefully is one of the greatest things you can do for the culture and the country.
KL: In an interview with Esquire magazine, you discussed how family can determine one's fate in The Corrections. How important is the role of family in society? By referencing family in your writing—both in your New Yorker articles and in your novels—what message are you trying to put forth?
JF: No message. I have no message for anyone.
KL: Well, why do you use family so frequently in your writing?
JF: I don't have a message about anything. Bad fiction is full of messages. The kind of fiction that I want to write and the kind of fiction I enjoy reading represents things.
Truth is different from a message. Message means you know what you are going to say and you're packaging it. The fiction that excites me is written by people who don't know what they're going to say and for whom the writing is an adventure. I write about family just because it's one of the few things that I really can hold onto and that I know is real. It's also just one of the few universals we have in a very, very pluralistic world. Everyone knows what it's like to have a father. Even someone who didn't have a father in their life knows what it's like to have some kind of father in their life.
It's important to me to try to write books that are of interest to more than just people who are exactly like me, so that's one reason. My family was very important to me. I was the last kid, and I just don't really feel at home in a world if there's not a family in it.
KL: Are there any family events that have shaped your writing?
JF: Of course.
KL: Your latest book is set to be called a "memoir," which can typically mark an end or a new beginning in your writing career. Does your new book reflect a closed chapter in your life? If so, what does the new chapter entail?
JF: That's a painfully relevant question. That's a very unexpected and piercing question.
Yes. I hadn't particularly noticed that about memoirs myself. Again, I use the world memoir very carefully because nothing unusual has ever really happened to me. I think the chapter being closed has to do with what a shock it was to suddenly have what I had worked for so many years to get. It's very disorienting to get what you want. And I wanted to write a book that really was both serious and entertaining and that mattered to a whole lot of people, and that represented what I was really capable of.
Then that happened. And I immediately felt misunderstood in all of these new and painful ways, and didn't recognize myself or didn't recognize my life anymore.
Somehow [I had to] go back and to get down on paper my own story as I see it: the story of who I really am and where I come from was the logical next step.
I had about 24 hours to feel good about the success of The Corrections before I was in this incredibly humiliating position of having people all over the country calling me really vile names for having dissed Oprah. And, so, I didn't have my year to strut around and feel like a big shot.
The first thing I learned was, "What a jerk you are," and that really did have an effect. It's such a blow to your own sense of rightness and your invincibility to see what incredibly stupid things you've managed to say to a series of journalists, and to see how much distress it's caused to so many people.
Kim Last, a junior American studies and political science major, is editor of Washington College's student newspaper, The Elm, from which this interview is reprinted. This spring, she was part of a group of young journalists recognized by New York Women in Communications, Inc. at an awards ceremony in NYC.
That was a real lesson and I thought I was hot stuff and I was kind of a jerk.
KL: How do you manage to stay so humble—how do you manage to step away from being a celebrity author where things just seem to go straight to their head? How do you keep both feet on the ground?
JF: Well, this seems like an opportunity to pat myself on the back. Isn't it?
KL: Why not?
JF: Because it never sounds good.
KL: Well, what would be your advice to a budding writer when they want to know how you stay so cool during a time where society can pick you up and take you along for the ride? How do you manage to look back, care about the craft and turn out a good product that you are proud of? Is it staying true to your heart? Is it a family influence?
JF: I came of age in the '70s and it was a very idealistic period. And, I was poor for so long. I mean, really, just absolutely no money and I never did anything except stay home, work, and scrape together some money to keep on writing. That shaped me.
I spent more than half my life that way and it would seem strange to be any different. Because, I will admit that I perceive it [to be humble] to be true... but I am as arrogant and ambitious of a person as you will find in the business.
Maybe it has to do with coming from the Midwest. There really is this notion that you aren't better than anyone else. You may have a better job or have done better at this or that but everybody deserves being treated just like another person.
That was really drilled into me by my parents and I think they drilled it in because they themselves were exceptional and I think it was really painful for them to stick out in that way. So they were always at pains to stress that you are really just like everyone else. That's part of it. I'm not saying that the Midwest has a monopoly on that particular kind of value.
KL: But it shaped you?
JF: It did.
300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, Maryland 21620 | 410-778-2800 | 800-422-1782