The Decade's Best Books

[Thomas Beshear]

Am reading The Corrections (finally). The man who wrote a book that amounts 
to an overstuffed version of a 250-page novel by Kingsley Amis, or possibly 
Peter DeVries, should be careful about trashing other writers. Also, didn't 
he know DFW already wrote the definite novel for our time about depression? 
Still, it's quite funny at times.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "D." <darjr1 at yahoo.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 7:23 PM
Subject: Re: The Decade's Best Books


Given his Oprah debacle and general windbaggery in nearly every
interview I've seen of him, Franzen should really take a clue from
Pynchon and say as little as possible outside of his written work.  His
Gaddis trashing in the Mr. Diffiicult essay, however, was baffling.
Was he just frustrated? Jealous he didn't write Gaddis's entire
oeuvre?  Or just trying to prove his manhood as a writer by being the
student trashing his once beloved teacher?  To me, it gets even
stranger when I think of his friendship with the late David F.
Wallace.  It always seemed to me that Wallace would go out of his way
not to trash any other writer outright.  Wallace would toss the
backhanded compliments and, occasionally, lavish praise around, but
rarely diss anyone with any vigor.  Franzen apparently never caught
that skill from his departed pal.  Oh, and didn't John Cheever also
trash JR, too, (if my memory of a review of the recent Cheever bio is
correct)?  If so, both he and Franzen are wrong--JR is definitely a gem of a 
novel definitely worth it.

Cheers,

D.


----- Original Message ----
From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
To: "“pynchon-l at waste.org“" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, December 23, 2009 11:41:40 AM
Subject: Re: The Decade's Best Books

Franzen has my unremitting hatred for his Gaddis diss in the New
Yorker. the pompous fool has the audacity to say JR isn't worth
reading. fuck him.
>
> Maybe the decade's biggest novel, in terms of its scope, Jonathan
> Franzen's The Corrections (2001) was about family, which made you
> think of Tolstoy—but it was also about money, the market, big pharma,
> unbridled Russian death capitalism, the goofiness of academic American
> postmodernism, gourmet cooking, therapy, and, maybe above all else,
> passive aggression.