#JonathanFranzenHates M&Ms, jewelry, and dwarves — how could such small things be any good?
— John Fox (@bookfox) March 7, 2012
The novelist unleashes another anti-tech tirade:
Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose…it's hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters…it's like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it's like writing a novel without the letter 'P'…It's the ultimate irresponsible medium. People I care about are readers…particularly serious readers and writers, these are my people. And we do not like to yak about ourselves.
Jami Attenberg, the author who transcribed Franzen's comments at Tulane, offers the obvious retort:
He doesn’t have to do anything! He has a publicist who probably has dreams about him every night, whether he has a book coming or not. He is free to write and just be himself, while the rest of us are struggling to be heard and recognized.
Roxane Gay puts his comments in perspective:
Franzen approaches social networking with far too much gravitas. If he had been on Twitter during, say, The Grammys, he would better understand what it is all about. He doesn’t want to be on Twitter, though. The desire is not there and it’s not a matter of necessity for him. In that regard, Franzen is modeling the right attitude toward social networking—do what you like.
Margaret Lyons shifts the discussion:
Is this more than just crumudgeony griping, though? Does Franzen have a point — that Twitter is "irresponsible" as a medium, because the constantly curated life is half-unlived? #Maybe.
David Haglund notes the irony of #JonathanFranzenHates, the hashtag Franzen most recently inspired:
While he had attempted to make an argument—albeit an off-the-cuff and ham-fisted one—about the negative aspects of Twitter, the partisans of the micro-blogging platform reduced that argument to a meaningless punchline.
The Dish 