Why does this guy get memed on so hard?

Unlike his late friend, he's not a rhetorician, and he doesn't apologize forty times before he offers his opinion. Says what he thinks, doesn't try to be cute about it. Sells a lot of books, which makes him a big target. Comes off as an elitist sometimes but doesn't much care.

>>8643368
Because he's a mediocre hack who thinks too highly of himself. Even his target audience of milquetoast plebs doesn't actually like him anymore.

Also draws ire for being - through whatever complex cultural processes that elected him - the epitome of the "white male novelist."

Go ahead and enter "franzen white male" into Twitter search.

Read his essay on Gaddis. It's called Mr. Difficult. If you can get through that without hating him you should be castrated.

>>8643395
>>8643388
so it's just a bunch of angry minorities/women?

>>8643399
No. I'm white and I've always felt an intense, instinctive distaste for this guy, without having read a single book of his.

>>8643399
no, see >>8643386
franzyboi probably gets unfair scorn from 'social justice' types but since unlike some other 'great white male artists' he isn't actually great it's hard to feel that much sympathy

>>8643405
He's sort of just hateable. That's part of it.

>>8643368

ive only read the corrections and i liked it well enough. i dont really care for him as a person or as a novelist but i actually do enjoy his essays.

like >>8643398 said, he wrote an essay about gaddis and that was my first exposure to the recognitions and JR. the fact that he also doesnt finish books makes him seem more human.

im not saying i love the guy, but i really dont understand the hate that he gets with the exception of some of the stuff he has said publicly, but even then im pretty indifferent.

i dont understand why anyone gets meme'd. it must be some kind of post-ironic criticism where people feel like someone is not worth the attention they get, so the people go on to propagate the shit out of them and their work, furthering while also blurring the distinctions of what is considered good and laughable. stirner is the best example. he was the sort of a blip on the radar for german idealism but hes all over the place here.

never change, /lit/.

He's not actually memed around here. Occasionally mentioned, nearly always shat upon. Actually, I remember a Franzen thread long ago that popped up late at night, and surprisingly everybody was praising him. It was all non-Americans. I gathered from that that Americans hate him more than the rest of the world.

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>>8643435
>stirner is the best example
you don't understand how these things work at all. Stirner has perfectly memeable concepts, a cool picture and a snappy catchword. If the picture we had of him was something this, he'd never have made it here.

>>8643368

When you're called Americas great writer by lots of meme publications and you're weighed up against Melville, James, Hawthorne and in reality most of these modern writers just don't cut it.

God bless lit for seeing through him, even if it is out of contrarian thought, it's absolutely fine to reject modern writers like memekami in favor of others

>>8643463
The regard, even by the American publications responsible for his renown, is not that high.

>>8643452
but couldnt you say what i described is the case for authors like DFW?

maybe i used the wrong example.

>>8643368
The Corrections was a masterpiece IMO, but it went downhill from there.

He's really not that intelligent, either. Watch an interview and you'll see what I mean. If anything this should be heartening for your average aspiring author because it means you can succeed without being a literal genius if you work hard enough.

This is the definitive Franzen hit piece IMO
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/10/smaller-than-life/308212/

>>8643540
It's not entirely bad but comparing him to DeLillo and conflating the strain of pop quasi-postmodernism that's been around since the 80s to the real stuff is missing the mark. It'd be more accurate to call Franzen the Stephen King of Literary Fiction.

>>8643540
>One
stopped reading there

>>8643435
Jesus, man. One would think a poster on /lit/ would have mastered proper English capitalisation, but here you come.

>>8643395

Just a bunch of narcissistic trendy idiots who are butthurt because Franzen doesn't like twitter so he doesn't give them attention

>on Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature
>Jonathan Franzen: "It’s a bitter disappointment to those of us who hoped that Morrissey would win this year. But it gives us hope for next year."

this response redeems Franzen in my eyes