The flattened American landscape of minor writers

[rich]

>
> Not necessarily. If we read Franzen's statement in light of the essay
> "Mr. Difficult," his vicious putdown of William Gaddis,
____________
what was most unfortunate about Franzen's NY'er piece on Gaddis was
not that he didn't like Gaddis's work but that he condemned all of
Gaddis' work solely on his reactions to The Recognitions and what he
read of JR.  the other works are dismissed in a line.

I really think he wrote this piece to assuage his bruised ego after
coming off as a snob by his reaction to being asked to appear on Oprah
which he declined in a rather careless way.

The article seemed to be saying hey look i'm not really a snob; I
write what people like, really! Just look at this other guy!

That he had to trash Gaddis to do this, to make himself feel better,
to me, seemed pretty low and patently unfair to Gaddis (or any other
artist he would've written about)

its the equivalent of Ken Burns/Wynton Marsalis dismissing avant-garde
jazz in mere sentences, particularly the work of Cecil Taylor, in
their Jazz documentary.

rubs me the wrong way when people say art has to be this this or has
to have that-to me a sign of mediocrity of the mind

Rich



Rich