Franzen's Folly: the novelist vs. high art's Dark Other.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Culture & Reviews - Brief Article

By now, you may have already forgotten Jonathan Franzen. Only last October, however, he was the most reviled author in America. In one of the few stories that managed to break through the bio-terror fog, Franzen became The Snob Who Dissed Oprah. Poor Franzen, that's as close to the role of Judas as the culture offers. But Franzen's real sin wasn't mere personal discourtesy. His crime was quite different: In his frenzy to remain within the sociological rules of writerly success, Franzen revealed the underpinnings of the literary game itself.

Here's what you know: Oprah Winfrey encourages her immense audience to read contemporary fiction. She picks a book, and features the author on her show; they have a televised dinner together. Oprah's endorsement sticker ("Oprah's Book Club") is slapped on the dust jacket. Reportedly, this process can result in huge sales--hundreds of thousands of copies--to people who would never otherwise have heard of the book. In September, Oprah picked Franzen's well-received third novel, The Corrections (already selling well), about the travails of a Midwestern family.

Oprah's authors are usually overjoyed to get lots of readers and much bigger royalties. Not Franzen. He started giving inter views in which he sounded pretty sour about the whole thing. Franzen singled out the Oprah sticker for his dyspepsia. "I know it says Oprah's Book. Club," he told one interviewer, "but it's an implied endorse ment, both for me and for hre. The reason I got into this business is because I m an independent writer, and I didn't want that corporate logo on my book." He made it clear that the Oprah thing just didn't fit into his self-image as an artist working in the "high-art literary tradition." Winfrey soon can- celled the dinner taping; and the public excoriation of Franzen began.

Why would Franzen do such a thing? Is he just an intolerable snob? Maybe, but that doesn't matter. Lots of writers are snobs. What matters is that he realizes that his natural literary community--the "high art literary" club of readers, critics, publishers, "independent" book sellers, etc.--is built on various sorts of snob bishness, especially the snobbery of "taste." This is no secret; literally everybody who pays attention to books knows it. Franzen, however, committed an unpardonable crime He said so out loud.

Franzen's lament about the book-club sticker is the quickest point of entry into the world of taste hypocrisy. He complained that having such...