Books by author: Jonathan Franzen

The Corrections is as good as all the critics are making it out to be, and this is definitely Franzen's best book so far. Though I liked Strong Motion almost as much, The Corrections is clearly a more mature work. All of the pieces fit together nicely, the characters all have substantial depth, and the writing is beautifully polished. A lot of the pop culture references that I noticed are outside of the mainstream (the tangential Stephen Malkmus cameo, for example), which makes me wonder how many I missed completely.

A few weeks ago, Glen Engel-Cox asked me where the female writers were in my list of favorite authors. I didn't have a good answer then, but I think I have a partial answer now.

I mean, it's not as if I go out of my way to avoid writers without a Y chromosome. It's just that the writers that speak most directly to me, the ones where I understand most of the "in" jokes, the ones whose prose I find myself savoring, are men. Three of my absolute favorites are Richard Powers, David Foster Wallace, and Jonathan Franzen — three white men, each 10-15 years older than I, who write complex literary fiction. I have a tremendous amount in common with these writers. Setting aside the obvious fact that I'm a crappy writer, we share a cultural background, an interest in pop culture and science, and a love of language. Until today, I had never thought about how similar they are (I had never realized how close they are in age — all early-to-mid forties), but I guess that helps explain why I look up to them and why I take such pleasure in their writing. I'm interested in reading widely and diversely, but the white American male writer 15 years my senior has been my literary center for nearly ten years and will probably continue to be so for a while yet.

How To Be Alone is an essay collection, and as such, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Franzen tackles Alzheimers, privacy, the importance of the literary novel, the ailing postal service in Chicago, prisons, his brush with Oprah, and more. The more recent essays are better than the older ones, perhaps because Franzen has become more comfortable with his voice over the years, but all of them are worthwhile. Of course, if you aren't like me, a 30-something white American guy with a penchant for artful prose, your mileage may vary.

This is my first exposure to Franzen, and I'm impressed. Strong Motion isn't on the level of Infinite Jest or The Gold Bug Variations, but Franzen probably should be grouped with Wallace and Powers as one of the few contemporary writers to whom careful attention should be paid. Franzen's prose is clean and inventive, the characters are interesting and well-drawn, and the plot is almost brilliant.

This is Franzen's weakest novel (also his first). I much prefered Strong Motion and I'm currently enjoying The Corrections even more.