Blogger Charlie Alderman for the Huffington Post writes in his blog post “Screw Irony: What Jonathan Franzen Learned From David Foster Wallace,” about literary critic, James Woods comparing Franzen to Thomas Pynchon and Zadie Smith as hysterical realists. He argues that the phrase misrepresents Franzen’s two latest books, Freedom and Corrections. Franzen goes so far as to define the Hysterical Realist Movement on his Wikipedia page as “a term coined in 2000 by the English critic James Wood in an essay on Zadie Smith's White Teeth to describe what he sees as a literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterization and careful, detailed investigations of real specific social phenomena.”
Let me know what you think? Another interesting article on James Woods here.
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July is my month and the book is Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, a fellow St. Louisan. His first book, The Corrections, was about his family life growing up in Webster Groves. He has written many articles and book reviews. I refer you to two recent ones that shed light on the book's themes.
NYT publication of his commencement address at Kenyon College, "Liking is for Cowards. Go For What Hurts." May 28, 2011 New Yorker article he wrote April 11, 2011. I really urge you to read Freedom. I think it's as important as the critics say. Even Oprah relented from her resentment over the first book (she chose it for her book list and he refused to appear on her show). They were both gracious this time. Check out what Oprah and her fans are saying at Oprah's book club.
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Kathy Corey
I'm an expert amateur or maybe an amateur expert. Archives
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