Imagine owning a bonsai tree and snipping, cutting, making small corrections from the plant’s growth, guiding it and making it become what you want it to be.
*A friend once told me that Jonathan Franzen has been quoted as saying he deliberately rips off influential late-century American authors such as Pynchon, DeLillo and Roth, but tries to make the prose less difficult, more easily consumed. He turns a phrase as well as anyone in modern literature, with a style that is both artful and incisive.
I know what I mean.middle-aged ex-Midwesterner dudes who hate their parents.That’s right, Jonathan Franzen - yesterday on my lunch break I powered through and finally finished your 550-page ode to being an unsatisfied ex-Midwesterner.That’s right, Jonathan Franzen - yesterday on my lunch break I powered through and finally finished your 550-page ode to being an unsatisfied ex-Midwesterner.“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn't that a strange thing? The absolute attention to the meanings of these words, sentence by sentence, adds up to a perfect whole. The last part of the book was brilliant and in the end I was really sad I'd finished it. George does a brilliant job, as he always does. Please know that I will not be interacting with any comments as I remember almost nothing about this novel other than the repulsion I felt toward it. Fond memories of home get pushed aside in the wake of a million tasks: doctor visits, medical forms, cancer treatments, prescriptions, adult diapers, and the inevitable move to a nursing home.
We're immediately focused on the agony and resentment of the emasculated American male wrought by decades of marriage to a dutiful wife who dutifully domesticates the family and becomes an expert in polishing the façade. Grief, frustration, anger, shame, feeling helpless — all that plus a sincere desire to do everything you can to help, but ultimately you know you will fail in your mission to save them. And yet I've always known that if I gave in to this ungenerous voice, and refrained from reading as avidly as I do, I'd become an even worse writer than the one I fear I am in my darkest moments.Being a writer can make you an extremely poor - and biased - reader. Kabarettistin Lisa Eckhart The absolute attention to the meanings of these words, sentence by sentence, adds up to a perfect whole.
Beklemmender, genauer und anrührender ist wohl noch nie beschrieben worden, wie ein Mensch sein Gedächtnis, seinen Verstand, seine Umwelt und schließlich auch sich selbst verliert, wie es sich anfühlen mag, wenn die eigene Persönlichkeit nicht mehr ist als ein Gesicht, dem man auf der Straße in der Menge begegnet: Es kommt einem bekannt vor, aber es könnte ebensogut eine Verwechslung sein.Und auch die Worte gehen verloren: "Dann begann er einen Satz: ,Ich habe -', doch wenn er überrumpelt wurde, war jeder Satz ein Abenteuer im Wald, und sobald er die Lichtung, an der er den Wald betreten hatte, nicht mehr sah, bemerkte er, daß die Brotkrumen, die er zu seiner Orientierung hatte fallen lassen, von Vögeln aufgepickt worden waren, leisen, flinken, pfeilgeschwinden Dingern, die er in der Dunkelheit nicht recht ausmachen konnte, obwohl sie ihn in ihrem Hunger so zahlreich umschwärmten, daß es schien, als wären sie die Dunkelheit, als wäre die Dunkelheit nicht gleichförmig, keine Abwesenheit von Licht, sondern etwas Wimmelndes . It has the right mix of obnoxious characters and those who evoke sympathy. Kindly agree to disagree and move along.JONATHAN FRANZEN'S TOP TEN RULES FOR WRITERS (as given to The Guardian on 20 Feb 2010)JONATHAN FRANZEN'S TOP TEN RULES FOR WRITERS (as given to The Guardian on 20 Feb 2010)Franzen’s writing is impeccable.