Label me astounded in a quiet, lunch-hour way to find myself apparently in critical lockstep agreement with Jonathan Franzen. Both K-Dub and T-Jiggy have been leaving me with various editions of The Corrections for the better part of two years. Never did I crack it, as my impression of the book a picture of pointless moroseness and navelgazing; an impression supported in part by Franzen's collision with Oprah.

Perhaps Franzen is not nearly as bad as the idea of Franzen. At the very least, I may like him a lot more as an essayist than as a novelist. Slate explains a row between Franzen and some McSweeney-ite named Marcus thusly:

Though Marcus' essay extends over 13 pages of small text, at its core is a very simple premise: Contemporary American fiction has lost its innovative edge and its interest in language as art, and Jonathan Franzen is largely, if not exclusively, to blame. In particular, Marcus focuses on Franzen's 2002 essay "Mr. Difficult," in which Franzen chronicles his growing disenchantment with the novels of William Gaddis, and more generally with the modernist-inspired ideal of "difficult" literature—the belief that "the greatest novels were tricky in their methods, resisted casual reading, and merited sustained study." Writers like Gaddis, Franzen argues, are "Status" authors, who see themselves (again, in the modernist mold) as obligated only to their art, and who for the most part ignore the interests and desires of the reader. With some reluctance, Franzen places himself in an opposing camp: "Contract" authors, who place a high value on the relationship between narrator and reader, who primarily see the novel as a device for social and cultural communication, and who take human life (rather than, say, language or ideas per se) as the ultimate subject of their fiction.

Hell, I can digest that Franzen opinion as easily as Key Lime fucking Pie.

No artist ignored the interest of the reader, unless they choose to leave their work in the garage. Assuming you have carried your art to the coffeeshop and put it on display, please quit with the suggestion that you don't crave the approval of an audience.

So I'm humbled to have to admit that Franzen appears to be dead on here, and, as is usually the case, I would have been better reading his work than offering the international symbol for "wanking off" whenever his name is mentioned.

But that's what's great about accusations of elitism/snobbery: they are completely subjective and can be launched at anyone with enough brain stem to have an opinion about anything. (A ploy I will continue to use towards folks affiliated with the McSweeney's brand [until Slate does my reading for me again]).

I suck crap.