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Georgia Garvey

I hate Jonathan Franzen.

I know, I know, he’s a Great Author(TM). Super talented, apparently. But I don’t hate him on literary grounds. My hatred also has nothing to do with professional jealousy (I don’t think. Though if that’s an underlying reason, I’m fine with that, too).

The man could be the next coming of William Faulkner, Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway all wrapped up into one authorly package, and I would not only not care but I wouldn’t even know because I’ve never read a book Franzen has written.

I have, however, read many things that he’s said, and it’s upon those that I base my dislike.

You’ve probably heard about the now-decades-old controversy in which Franzen turned his nose up at being an Oprah book club selection, worried that if too many suburban housewives read his book, not enough men would. He didn’t want to be allied with the “schmaltz” that Winfrey was promoting. He didn’t want to be cast in with the vulgarians who write books with clear plots and definable genres.

Since then, though, Franzen has repeatedly doubled down on his snobbery, taking shots, for example, at “chick lit” author Jennifer Weiner when she dared suggest that literary criticism is so far up its own behind that it ignores the books people actually read.

He’s styled himself a full-time crank, lamenting technology like the internet, social media and smartphones, complaints about as fruitful as being upset that the sun sets every night.

Now, when I say that I’ve never read any books Franzen has written, I should note that I did once read an essay he wrote, a particularly invective screed against outdoor cats. Even though I agreed with nearly everything he wrote, it was the way he wrote that made me want to scream.

Case in point: In answer to a question from The Guardian about which book he was ashamed to have never read, Franzen said this:

“I can speak very knowledgeably of Proust, as if I’ve read all seven volumes of “In Search of Lost Time.” But I’m a terribly slow reader, especially of Proust.”

I mean come on.

Right now, I’m on an Edith Wharton kick, and I mean, she’s good. She’s great. She’s fantastic.

I just started reading Wharton’s “The Custom of the Country.” (On the cover, there’s a note that says Franzen wrote the introduction, which means I’m going to skip it.)

But at the same time, I’m also reading a Harlequin romance novel in which the hero is a billionaire Formula One champion and the heroine is an impoverished Irish nanny pregnant with his child. I read horror books about Southern vampires and cozy mysteries about Botswanan detectives.

My tastes are, say, eclectic.

I enjoy the kind of books often referred to as “guilty pleasures,” a term I believe should be reserved for hard drugs and infidelity. I’m with Fran Lebowitz in thinking there’s nothing particularly guilt-inducing about romance novels, and I also don’t think genre books get the kind of critical praise they deserve.

The traditionally published book that I least enjoyed was “Twilight,” and I can’t bring myself to slam even that novel, and I certainly can’t slam its writer. Obviously, the book gave readers something they wanted, and it entertained them while it was doing it. It entertained an awful lot of people, in fact, and in that, there’s skill or natural talent or dumb luck or some other positive attribute not shared by everyone who wants to or does write for a living.

I suppose, ultimately, I hate Jonathan Franzen because he hates the books I love. Not just hates them, privately, in his own head or home, as any American has a constitutional right to do, but hates them publicly, vociferously, ad nauseam.

And if he hates those books so much and so loudly, I figure I have a right to hate him, too.

We have a copy of “The Corrections” on our bookshelf, and I’m told it’s an impressive work, but it will remain unread for now. I won’t read it for a simple reason: I might like it. And I can’t have that.

In my desire to continue hating Franzen, I have an unexpected ally: Franzen himself. Apparently, he said in The New Yorker that a reader needs to like an author to enjoy their work.

“The older I get,” Franzen said, “the more I’m convinced that a fiction writer’s oeuvre is a mirror of the writer’s character.”

Now, for all I know, Franzen might be a perfectly swell guy who just so happens to hate cats and beach reads, but I can’t move past his personality to get to his books.

So, I guess, at the end of the day, if I hate Jonathan Franzen, even he can’t blame me.

— Georgia Garvey is a syndicated columnist with Creators.