High dramatics may not be completely uncalled for in a prose writer. But for the writer named ‘The Great American Novelist’ by Time, it’s hardly appropriate. Franzen has gone on several “scare-rants” about how dense, complicated literature is ruining the public’s ability to appreciate good writing. To be fair, Jonathan Franzen is talking about Ulysses, but, in a world where the most-read books are incoherent messes about vampires and abstinence, his rants seem like whiny rambling about the imperceptible differences between complex literature and slightly more complex literature. Writer Ben Marcus summed up Franzen (and perhaps all Divas) by saying Franzen is “eager for fame, but hostile to the people who confer it.”
