THIS IS REALLY WHY WE STARTED A BLOG

Kat, no I wasn't in London last night, unfortunately. But, if I had been I would like to think that me removing items of Jonathan Franzen's clothing would be consensual rather than theft. This article is hilarious. Who would do this? Someone awesome.

You and I both knew at some point this blog was more or less going to revolve around Franzen, The New Yorker, and hand claps. Let it begin. Here's that piece that I wrote after finishing Freedom in a week to get this review in the magazine before deadline. Such great memories of those five days.

Also, not my best work, but at least we're sitting at the same table as him:

SAVING LITERARY SPACE

When Corrections was released, Jonathan Franzen was charged with saving the Great American Novel. His new release may just do that by discounting everything Americans hold dear.

Take nine years to write a novel. Sell 2.85 million copies. Take a further three years to develop the main protagonist of your follow-up. Become the sixth writer of all time to appear on the cover of Time Magazine.  It’s not the customary route for a novelist, particularly in this technologically progressive age, but Jonathan Franzen doesn’t think much of this age. In fact, in How to be Alone (a collection of essays) he had this to say: “For every reader who dies today, a viewer is born, and we seem to be witnessing the final tipping balance.” If Freedom is anything to go by, he doesn’t think much of said viewers, either.

When everything, from website-to-blog-to-Facebook-to-Twitter, and including the novelist, is downsizing and specialising, Franzen has released two 600 page novels in a decade that are all-encompassing beasts, nothing less. They develop inherently realistic characters – likeable or not, often not – with histories and flaws and birthmarks and rituals and mistakes. These characters are then placed in a socio-political context that their character is a product of as much as the world they live within is. This is often a source of conflict.

It’s not helpful to talk about what happens in a Franzen novel, because everything happens and nothing happens. Rather, why, when everything and nothing happens does one veraciously turn the page? How does Franzen make a small encyclopaedia about one middle-American familys’ issues entertaining?

Firstly, the socio-political bent, an important part of the American landscape and a source of incredible division for its people. In Freedom there is an inherent Liberal V Conservative thematic countenance, but the decisions the characters make, to sit on either side of the D.C fence are so inherently influenced by their circumstances, and so objectively argued by Franzen that one can’t help but feel sympathetic towards a Conservative ranch owner attempting to de-forest government land for mining. Similarly, some of the Liberals (of which category this writer would consider herself) are downright annoying. Did someone say patronizing?

Secondly, every sentence is a fortune-cookied piece of philosophical advice, even if it doesn’t seem like it, even if the characters do not heed their intelligent inner monologues.

Finally, nihilism. Yes, in true Franzen fashion, everything falls apart for many of the characters in the end. And it’s heartbreaking. You have followed these people throughout their entire life; you know that they hate sex because they were raped in the High School locker room at 16. Or that they are vehemently Conservative because their parents were the aforementioned patronizing Liberal Democrats who put more onus on their relationship with politicians than their children.

But at its heart Freedom is honest. It is a very detailed snapshot of America and Americans in all their contradictory, ‘Land of the [supposed] Free’ glory, and moreover, a snapshot of human nature.

And if, as Franzen notes, people viewed less and read more, said image of human nature mightn’t be quite so harrowing.

ADAPTATION

KAT, you know how we are obsessed with such things as Franzen and HP? This is my latest stream of over-indulgence (I think you will want to hand-hug me for this one):

I became obsessed with Susan Orlean, Charlie Kauffman and (believe it or not) Nicholas Cage, after reading a book on my trip to the States earlier this year called The New New Journalism.

Based around the idea that Thom Wolfe re-invented the journalism industry by incorporating real-world events into fictional novels, it suggested we had reached the second phase of this genre, whereby writers (specifically those enigmatic, intellectual babe writers from The New Yorker) took super specific areas of interest and wrote in-depth, somewhat true, somewhat false features on them. Writers who fit into this category? Eric Schlosser, Leon Dash and Jane Kramer who wrote books like Into the Wild. Most of these novels have been turned into feature films due to their amazing storytelling and ability to connect on a personal level. Enter Susan Orlean.

Orlean wrote a book called The Orchid Theif, which revolves around one particularly obsessed gardener whose life mission is to discover the 'Ghost Orchid' which apparently has only been seen by a handful of people. What begins as curiosity turns into depression and self-doubt as Orlean becomes jealous of said greenfingers, realizing that nothing in her life inspires or excites as much as orchids do for this character. It's then recounted exceptionally by the attempt of Charlie Kauffman (Cage) to adapt this novel into a screenplay in the moveAdaptation (must watch again, and again).  His depression at being able to bring the intensity of the Orchid-o-phile's obsession to the pages of his screenplay mirrors the downfall of Orlean's own feelings and brings to light such casual things as the ridiculousness of life, what things we should care about and why we are so focused on the things that we are. 

The overall plot of Adaptation / The Orchid Thief is so simple: This dude is obsessed with this one thing, but the way in which both Orlean and Kauffman handle it bring to light such significant human issues one can't help but be inspired by the aforementioned Ghost Orchid and its so-called mystical powers.

Bring on being this inspired by anything. As a result of becoming obsessed (alright, not thatobsessed) with these creatives, I have become inspired by things like cactuses, green (note aforementioned post), gardening, alphabetizing my collections and fauning over them, and imagery that evokes ridiculous plant-ness. Perks and Mini collages, probably the best thing ever: