Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage

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Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage is the first critical biography of one of todays most important novelists. Drawing on unpublished emails and both published and private interviews, Philip Weinstein conveys the feel and heft of Franzens voice as he ponders the purposes and problems of his life and art, from his earliest fiction to his most recent novel, Purity. Franzens work raises major questions about the possibilities of contemporary fiction: how does one appeal to a wide audience of mainstream readers, on the one hand, while persuading connoisseurs, on the other, that ones fiction has staying power, is high art More acutely, how did Franzen move from the rage that animates his first two novels to the more generous comic stance of the later novels on which his reputation rests Wrestling with these questions, Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage unpacks the becoming of Franzen as a person and a writerfrom his ultra-sensitive Midwestern childhood, through his heady years at Swarthmore College, his marriage, and the alienating decade of the 1990s, up to his spectacular ascent and assimilation into pop culture as one of the literary figures of his generation. Weinstein joins biography and criticism in ways that fully respect their differences, but that also grant that the work comes, however unpredictably, out of the life.

Reviews

...synthesizes from Franzens conversations and correspondence with Weinstein, extant interviews, and Franzens own writings a convincing psychological portrait of an author who recovered from depressive years of being angry with himself by projecting that anger and rage outward and then finding love of himself and others. -- Tom LeClair * The Daily Beast *
From The Twenty-Seventh City (1988) to Freedom (2010), and with some reference to Franzens newest novel, Purity (2015), Weinstein traces the author's oeuvre to uncover its creative impulse. He asserts that Franzen's artistic drive rests on his ambivalence, his simultaneous desire to both critique his world and be accepted and loved by it, a conflict that Weinstein defines as the "comedy of rage." Chapter-length close readings and biographical details frame, contextualize, and expand upon Franzens major works. Drawing on the novelists essays and previously published interviews as well as personal interviews and emails (Weinstein met Franzen when both taught at Swarthmore College), Weinstein assembles a careful and convincing argument. VERDICT Fluent and immersive, Weinsteins criticism will interest not only scholars but also writers. Strongly recommended for academic libraries. (Starred review) * Library Journal *
Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage is a virtuoso performance, a triumph of rigorous thought, canny, profound insight, verbal prowess, creative imagination, and magisterial judiciousness. Weinsteins wise, sensitive, and witty account of Franzens growth and development makes a compelling argument for Franzens place as Americas preeminent writer. Like Franzens fiction, Weinstein contemplates issues that fascinate and vex us all: the nature of values, personal growth, pain and suffering, intimate relationships, failure and frustration, hope and happiness. Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage is literary and cultural critique of the highest order. * Robert H. Bell, Frederick Latimer Wells Professor of English, Williams College, USA *
Weinsteins rigorously critical approach to The Corrections and Freedom reminds us that while Franzen is a legitimate contender for the mantle of literary greatness, the jury is still out. Instead of simply declaring victory for his man, Weinstein invites the reader to engage in a serious conversation about the art of modern American fiction. What more could one ask * David R. Riggs, Professor Emeritus of English, Stanford University, USA, and author of Ben Johnson: A Life and The World of Christopher Marlowe *
Philip Weinsteins new book on Jonathan Franzen is a probing and incisive study of an American novelist who has become one of the most recognized figures of the millennial generation. In this convincing auteur study, biographical detail and intensive close readings of the work are seamlessly combined to produce illuminating discussions of Franzens career and celebrity status, his difficulties with writers block, the encyclopedic range of his novels, and his relationship with David Foster Wallace. Weinstein successfully establishes the centrality of Franzens work at mid-career and at a moment when his image and capacities as an important writer are beginning to emerge more clearly from the chemical bath of contemporary canon-formation. * Patrick ODonnell, Professor of English, Michigan State University, USA *
In Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage, Philip Weinstein traces an increasingly well-known story about his subjectYet Weinstein is troubled: Weinstein finds it difficult to square what he sees as [Franzens] toing and froing between mainstream and elite concerns. He asks: 'How do the suspicious intellectual loner and the mainstream writer idolized by millions (and despised by sizable numbers) come together as one person' * Times Literary Supplement (Roz Dineen) *
Excerpted * Salon *
Weinstein's Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage is a must read for writers who want to understand how a novelist puts a body of work together. Weinstein (Swarthmore College) looks at how Franzens obsessions become the threads of his novels. Franzenwhose breakout novel was The Corrections (2001)taps into all the anger, rage, disappointment, and insanity of an American family. When one reads Franzen, one is entertained. Weinstein reveals the building blocks of that entertainmentsex, bad parenting, misogyny, and the miserable pain that family members can perpetrate on each other. Being human is a messy business, and writing about how messy it is can be messy. Weinstein unravels how writing about that messy process takes placehow Franzen takes all that is wrong in the US and writes domestic novels that make him both a best-selling author and the darling of the literati. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. -- K. Gale, University of Nebraska * CHOICE *

Author Bio

Philip Weinstein is the Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English at Swarthmore College, USA. The recipient of several NEH Fellowships and an ACLS Fellowship, and past President of the Faulkner Society, Weinstein has written books that range from James to Faulkner and Morrison (in American literature), and from Dickens through Joyce (in British literature). These include Faulkner's Subject: A Cosmos No One Owns (1992), What Else But Love The Ordeal of Race in Faulkner and Morrison (1996), Unknowing: The Work of Modernist Fiction (2005). Weinstein's Becoming Faulkner (2010) was the recipient of the Hugh Holman Award for the best book written on Southern Literature. He is also the editor of The Cambridge Companion to William Faulkner (1995).