too much of a good thing.

Kat says...

I think the fact that Franzen made it into a casual one-liner on Gossip Girl is…A good thing?

I have put a fair amount of thought into this and have settled, somewhat uncomfortably, on the conclusion that we cannot complain that a great writer featured amongst the chocolate covered stick thin girls, digital printed chiffon and grand piano sex. However I refuse to believe that the Franzen-Glasses-Theft was a shameless PR stunt because then we’d find ourselves in very dark alleyway where ghost-writers and scripted spontaneous interviews mugged us every 7 minutes.

Those cheeky Gossip Girl scriptwriters like to reference only the latest, trendiest elements of pop culture. So we should be grateful that we got Franzen at Blair’s get together. The line could’ve been some quip about where Lady Gaga manages to buy wearable, organic meat or in which bar Miley Cyrus’ Mum drinks away her conscience.

I’m more concerned about overexposure. Franzen’s face has been smiling courteously and wisely at me from all manners of media. I have more or less accepted that we all live and breathe ‘cult of personality’ so I’m not too surprised that Franzen’s heart has been publically stitched to his sleeve by a pretty efficient PR machine. (If I believed in illogical extended metaphors, I would have made that ‘PR sewing machine.’ Just as well I prefer brackets).

It’s not enough to simply have a great actor, singer or author anymore. Us technologically advanced vampires need all the life force too. I have always been relatively nonplussed about knowing every stage of Brad Pitt’s facial hair or where he’ll snaffle his next kid from but I was addicted to any kind of interview associated with Franzen. Past tense used as I have recently decided to go cold turkey. It’s not been easy, but I’ve managed to distract myself by taking up such activities as compulsively googling my own name and, well, stalking other authors instead.

I began to realise that my perception of his latest book ‘Freedom’ was becoming utterly impersonal. Every other line was intrinsically linked to some element of his divorce, friendship with David Foster Wallace or turbulent relationship with his Mother. I know I’m making an obvious point but I’d rather know as little as possible about the author. Even gender. I like my subjectivity to be born out of old fashioned objectivity.

So while I’m relieved that a man of substance found himself at Blair’s party, I’m concerned that this overexposure is the only path to success for any great writer. Although perhaps I’ve just been slow to cotton on, and in fact the literary world has always been like an episode of Californication? So Courtney, to sum up I’m basically at a loss too.

I never, ever thought I’d be so baffled by an episode of Gossip Girl.