I’ll be speaking on the interview
with Jonathan Franzen about adults who read literature written for young
adults. I have a lot of respect for the things he had to say on the topic and I
think all of it was valid. No matter what he says really, it’s valid, since it’s
strictly his opinion. It almost seems as if he is being self-absorbed in the
beginning, especially when saying, “If it’s a loss, it’s their loss, not mine”.
But I don’t see it as arrogant as it may have sounded. I think when you are in
a business where you kind of fend for yourself, like writing, it’s important to
have self-focus.
What
I really liked was what Franzen had to say about WHY adults choose to read
things with such moral simplicity. He
explained that a lot of people have hard lives and the last thing most of those
people want to do, especially after “they’ve been jerked around by the world
yet again”, is go home and “rub their noses in moral complexity”. I love it because
I agree with it 100%. I get that reading can improve your intelligence and all,
but I really only enjoy reading when it’s something I WANT to read and that won’t
give me a head ache after 15 minutes of trying to understand it.
On
the topic of Jennifer Weiner, he is very straight forward and says what he
thinks. I can’t really argue or advocate for anything he says because I’m not
well-educated on her, or her work. In other articles I have read about her, the
topic is, more or less, focused in a different direction.
Overall I like what Franzen had to
say, though opinionated and blunt, isn’t that what you ask for in an interview?
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