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Jul. 1st, 2004 02:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
decemberthirtyI finished How to Be Alone. Interestingly, I suddenly got much more involved in it after my last post. Somehow the cumulative effect of all the essays gave me a very intimate sense of Franzen's personality, and as I neared the end of the book I began to feel closer and closer to him. And I decided that I really like him. I like his thoughtfulness and earnestness and scrupulous honesty, and the way he's willing to expose himself in his writing. For some reason, by the end of the book I was really wishing I could meet him in person. A strange reaction to a book of essays, but there it is.
Also, I managed to take the time to sit down and really think and write seriously about one of the essays, the way I'd been wanting to. The result is rather long, but I would love to discuss these issues, so I will post it here.
The most interesting essay, in my opinion, was one called “Mr. Difficult,” originally published in The New Yorker a year or two ago. The essay deals primarily with William Gaddis, whom I've never read, but I found it interesting for the way it investigates the issue of difficulty in literature.
Franzen starts with the seemingly common assumption that “difficulty in fiction is the tool of socially privileged readers and writers who turn up their noses at the natural pleasure of a ‘good read' in favor of the invidious, artificial pleasure of feeling superior to other people.” He then goes on to outline two different models of how people think about fiction and its relationship with its audience. In what Franzen calls the Status Model, “the best novels are works of art, the people who manage to write them deserve extraordinary credit, and if the average reader rejects the work it’s because the average reader is a philistine.” According to this model, “the value of any novel, even a mediocre one, exists independent of whether people are able to enjoy it,” and the discourse is of “genius and art-historical importance.” Franzen’s other model is the Contract Model, in which “a novel represents a compact between the writer and the reader, with the writer providing words out of which the reader creates a pleasurable experience. Writing thus entails a balancing of self-expression and communication with a group, whether the group consists of Finnegans Wake enthusiasts or fans of Barbara Cartland.” In this model, “every writer is first a member of a community of readers and the deepest purpose of reading and writing fiction is to sustain a sense of connectedness, to resist existential loneliness,” and the discourse is of “pleasure and connection.”
Franzen acknowledges that these two models are not always mutually exclusive, that there are books that can comfortably be categorized as both art and entertainment, and that fulfill the requirements of both the Status and Contract Models. (His examples, in case you’re curious, are War and Peace and The House of Mirth.)
In Franzen’s view, the difference between the two models manifests itself most when readers in each school of thought encounter difficult books. For Contract readers, difficulty can indicate a breach of the contract—in pursuit of self-expression or critical acclaim or feelings of superiority or whatever, the author has intentionally thwarted his readers’ desire for connection. For Status readers on the other hand, difficulty is a sign of excellence, proof that the author has refused to compromise his artistic vision. For Status readers, “easy fiction has little value… Pleasure that demands hard work, the slow penetration of mystery, the outlasting of lesser readers, is the pleasure most worth having.”
Having defined his two models, Franzen goes on to basically espouse the Contract Model. He debunks the postmodern “notion of formal experimentation as a heroic act of resistance,” and argues against the ideas that “difficulty is a ‘strategy’ to protect art from co-optation and that the purpose of this art is to ‘upset’ or ‘compel’ or ‘challenge’ or ‘subvert’ or ‘scar’ the…reader.”
It seems important to note that Franzen doesn’t want every book to be simple and unchallenging. He writes, “I know the pleasures of a book aren’t always easy. I expect to work; I want to work.” What he doesn’t want, however, is difficulty for difficulty’s sake, difficulty with no reward for the hardworking reader at the end, and on this point I am in complete agreement with him.
The most interesting thing about this essay for me was that it made me examine my own views about difficulty in literature. On the surface, I appear to be an adherent of the Status Model. I fully believe that "pleasure that demands hard work, the slow penetration of mystery...is...most worth having." Many of my favorite authors are famous for their difficulty. Faulkner, Burgess, Nabokov, Rushdie… Hell, I will openly state that I love Ulysses, a book that is an absolute lightning rod for this type of difficulty debate, and I will defend it to the death in all its intentionally impossible glory. Yet I can’t quite identify myself as a member of the Status school, because while I enjoy the challenge posed by books like these, the things I truly love about these books are pure Contract: the characters, the relationships, the tragedies, all that good old fashioned stuff. I love the fact that inside Ulysses and Lolita and The Sound and the Fury, wrapped up in all that erudition and experimentation, there are heartbreaking stories enacted by characters that I can identify with. I appreciate the erudition and experimentation, and enjoy the work I have to do to read these books, but if those stories were not there I would not love them the way I do. I need something that can touch both head and heart.
Also, there are many Contract writers that I love: Michael Chabon, Pat Barker, Michael Cunningham, Ursula K. LeGuin, etc. I refuse to believe that because they tell their stories in straightforward manners and develop their characters in conventional ways they are lesser writers.
I apologize for the extreme length of this post. If anyone has managed to slog through to the end, I would very much like to discuss these issues. What are your thoughts on the role of difficulty in fiction? Do you find that the relative difficulty of a book has a positive or negative impact on your opinion of that book?
Also, I managed to take the time to sit down and really think and write seriously about one of the essays, the way I'd been wanting to. The result is rather long, but I would love to discuss these issues, so I will post it here.
The most interesting essay, in my opinion, was one called “Mr. Difficult,” originally published in The New Yorker a year or two ago. The essay deals primarily with William Gaddis, whom I've never read, but I found it interesting for the way it investigates the issue of difficulty in literature.
Franzen starts with the seemingly common assumption that “difficulty in fiction is the tool of socially privileged readers and writers who turn up their noses at the natural pleasure of a ‘good read' in favor of the invidious, artificial pleasure of feeling superior to other people.” He then goes on to outline two different models of how people think about fiction and its relationship with its audience. In what Franzen calls the Status Model, “the best novels are works of art, the people who manage to write them deserve extraordinary credit, and if the average reader rejects the work it’s because the average reader is a philistine.” According to this model, “the value of any novel, even a mediocre one, exists independent of whether people are able to enjoy it,” and the discourse is of “genius and art-historical importance.” Franzen’s other model is the Contract Model, in which “a novel represents a compact between the writer and the reader, with the writer providing words out of which the reader creates a pleasurable experience. Writing thus entails a balancing of self-expression and communication with a group, whether the group consists of Finnegans Wake enthusiasts or fans of Barbara Cartland.” In this model, “every writer is first a member of a community of readers and the deepest purpose of reading and writing fiction is to sustain a sense of connectedness, to resist existential loneliness,” and the discourse is of “pleasure and connection.”
Franzen acknowledges that these two models are not always mutually exclusive, that there are books that can comfortably be categorized as both art and entertainment, and that fulfill the requirements of both the Status and Contract Models. (His examples, in case you’re curious, are War and Peace and The House of Mirth.)
In Franzen’s view, the difference between the two models manifests itself most when readers in each school of thought encounter difficult books. For Contract readers, difficulty can indicate a breach of the contract—in pursuit of self-expression or critical acclaim or feelings of superiority or whatever, the author has intentionally thwarted his readers’ desire for connection. For Status readers on the other hand, difficulty is a sign of excellence, proof that the author has refused to compromise his artistic vision. For Status readers, “easy fiction has little value… Pleasure that demands hard work, the slow penetration of mystery, the outlasting of lesser readers, is the pleasure most worth having.”
Having defined his two models, Franzen goes on to basically espouse the Contract Model. He debunks the postmodern “notion of formal experimentation as a heroic act of resistance,” and argues against the ideas that “difficulty is a ‘strategy’ to protect art from co-optation and that the purpose of this art is to ‘upset’ or ‘compel’ or ‘challenge’ or ‘subvert’ or ‘scar’ the…reader.”
It seems important to note that Franzen doesn’t want every book to be simple and unchallenging. He writes, “I know the pleasures of a book aren’t always easy. I expect to work; I want to work.” What he doesn’t want, however, is difficulty for difficulty’s sake, difficulty with no reward for the hardworking reader at the end, and on this point I am in complete agreement with him.
The most interesting thing about this essay for me was that it made me examine my own views about difficulty in literature. On the surface, I appear to be an adherent of the Status Model. I fully believe that "pleasure that demands hard work, the slow penetration of mystery...is...most worth having." Many of my favorite authors are famous for their difficulty. Faulkner, Burgess, Nabokov, Rushdie… Hell, I will openly state that I love Ulysses, a book that is an absolute lightning rod for this type of difficulty debate, and I will defend it to the death in all its intentionally impossible glory. Yet I can’t quite identify myself as a member of the Status school, because while I enjoy the challenge posed by books like these, the things I truly love about these books are pure Contract: the characters, the relationships, the tragedies, all that good old fashioned stuff. I love the fact that inside Ulysses and Lolita and The Sound and the Fury, wrapped up in all that erudition and experimentation, there are heartbreaking stories enacted by characters that I can identify with. I appreciate the erudition and experimentation, and enjoy the work I have to do to read these books, but if those stories were not there I would not love them the way I do. I need something that can touch both head and heart.
Also, there are many Contract writers that I love: Michael Chabon, Pat Barker, Michael Cunningham, Ursula K. LeGuin, etc. I refuse to believe that because they tell their stories in straightforward manners and develop their characters in conventional ways they are lesser writers.
I apologize for the extreme length of this post. If anyone has managed to slog through to the end, I would very much like to discuss these issues. What are your thoughts on the role of difficulty in fiction? Do you find that the relative difficulty of a book has a positive or negative impact on your opinion of that book?
