Jonathan Franzen: Great Writer, Not Great Guy?

Newsweek:

Jonathan Franzen spends most of the three-minute author video for his new novel, Freedom, explaining how uncomfortable he is with the idea of author videos. In his now familiar mix of prickliness and pretension, Franzen complains that making the video somehow corrupts the "still place" that reading occupies, because you can't really "multitask reading a book."

Read the whole story: Newsweek

Comments

[dab1000]

09:56 AM on 09/29/2010

A Small way to Say Thank You to Oprah:
http://you­tu.be/H9AT­XxyOGGI

[Huffmeister1]

05:43 PM on 08/31/2010

"Will his opinion influence you?" was the question, I believe, and the answer is "no". I'd rather listen to someone who actually has something to say about something other than himself. Even writers like Italo Calvino, an author whose work often emphasized the meta-exper­ience of reading, still didn't make comments like this when interviewe­d on camera.

[David Keith]

07:12 AM on 08/28/2010

What a loser.

[medproof]

12:27 PM on 08/30/2010

why?

[David Keith]

02:49 PM on 08/30/2010

"Jonathan Franzen spends most of the three-minu­te author video for his new novel, Freedom, explaining how uncomforta­ble he is with the idea of author videos."

- Why even bother to make the video?