Just a test post here the day we are doing Freedom by Jonathan Frantzen who I am now deeply devoted to as my favorite author. If you have gotten this far, then congrats as this indicated that it won't be long before you can post whatever review or anything we fancy on our book club website!
I thought it would be good to put some of the things I have read to prepare for tonight's meeting, so here is the review from The Guardian that I just read which I thought was quite good, but not having read The Corrections completely (I started it, but really it is such an unremittingly grim view of family relations that I turned away part way thru in slight disgust at watching so many emotional car crashes by thoroughly unlikeable characters) I could only feel that I now need to go and read The Corrections completely and not shy away from the very clear-eyed view of his characters as they go about reeking havoc on each other emotionally and on their own lives.
The Wikipedia entry on Jonathan Frantzen is the next thing I looked at. I love it that he didn't want to have the Oprah logo on his book as it would put off male readers. And I do think he is quite right that it might have done. He agrees with feminists and female authors who complain that their work is not viewed as seriously as that of male authors.
I copied this from Wikipedia (as one does) as I thought Frantzen's rules for aspiring writers were quite enlightening about his view of his role as an author.
"In February 2010, Franzen (along with writers including Richard Ford, Zadie Smith and Anne Enright) was asked by The Guardian to contribute what he believed were ten serious rules to abide by for aspiring writers. Franzen's rules ran as follows:
Anyway I am in awe of his writing and his humour. Here is the story of how he had his glasses stolen at the launch party for Freedom. Apparently he found the incident amusing. Anyway I will email this to you all and if you have gotten this far congrats! See you later.
- The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.
- Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money.
- Never use the word "then" as a conjunction – we have "and" for this purpose. Substituting "then" is the lazy or tone-deaf writer's non-solution to the problem of too many "ands" on the page.
- Write in the third person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly.
- When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.
- The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than "The Metamorphosis".
- You see more sitting still than chasing after.
- It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction [the TIME magazine cover story detailed how Franzen physically disables the Net portal on his writing laptop].
- Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.
- You have to love before you can be relentless."
