Writers and Critics
And so, when Franzen and Wood fielded questions at the end of their hour, I asked the following: “The desire for a writer to find readers is perfectly understandable, just as it is for a writer to fear judgment. Some contemporary writers, among them David Foster Wallace, [say they don’t] read any criticism, and I wonder what role criticism has played in your life as a writer, particularly criticism of your work. And in the instance of James’s review [of The Corrections, in The New Republic, in 2001], it would seem to be a missed opportunity (given how infrequently critics and writers actually have conversations about work and given how diminished the reading culture certainly is) not to know: when you read James’s review of your book; what you thought of it; and, as an ambitious novelist who is writing a fourth novel now, one presumes, to what extent any of the things that James said in his review affect you or afflict you as somebody who’s attempting to create a better and more ambitious book still.”
Franzen’s answer was frank, generous, thoughtful, and, I think, usefully revealing about the impediments, both philosophical and practical, that may come up when any of us might wish to discuss a work of art, whether with its creator or with one of its admirers (or detractors).
Wyatt Mason’s brand-new blog Sentences delivers a detailed report on the Jonathan Franzen-James Wood conversation that had been mentioned on this blog earlier.
