Marcus vs. Franzen

[tony antoniadis]

Any thoughts on the Ben Marcus essay in Harper's? Some of the
arguments and word choices were miraculous, i.e., Franzen's notion
that characters must be "livestocked" in familiar pastures of setting
and plot in order to reach as many hearts as possible. And Marcus's
boldness and intelligence to admit that he was, indeed, jealous of
Franzen's status as a pundit.  I wasn't so fond of the sort of model
he set up though, with franzen's fiction aimed at melting hearts, with
experimental fiction aiming for minds. There are writers, in my
estimation, who do both, notably TRP and Gary Lutz.

The essay opened up some interesting questions, or at least, dusted
the familair ones off a bit--do we ever write for an audience?  Should
we shoot for scale, i.e., aim to write the novel that will be the one
book Joe Blow reads this year, or do we take the high road and write
for
a handful of arrogant nerds, then fade into obscurity? I think Donald
Antrim is perhaps one of the few living writers who went for both,
i.e., tried to write something fundamentally entertaining that also,
of course, was utterly original and even cerebral. Of course, his
notion of entertainment might be a bit different than Joe Blow's. But
the guy got blurbed by Pynchon, Proulx, and Entertainment Weekly. How
the fuck do you do that?

Tony