Ill-Fitting Clowes

Even for someone like me, a reader who doesn't partake of many comics or graphic novels, Daniel Clowes is an artist who is at least passingly familiar, which might sound like an insult, but is actually a compliment: Clowes is an artist who has a style that is hard to miss. His cover art for several issues of The New Yorker have been excellent examples of what I take to be his signature: bright colors, a slightly exaggerated comic-book tint, and facial expressions that alternate between bemused and utterly horrified over nothing. The above cover of his latest book, Wilson, is another example. Wilson's head is huge, and his background (both literally and figuratively) is drab and depressing. He's not made out to be hideously ugly, but he's just odd-looking enough to be considered an outsider, and his eyes are drawn to look like he might just burst into tears. No, one should never judge a book by its cover, but the cover of Wilson is both an excellent preview of what's inside, as well as giving nothing about the story away. This immediate contradiction lends itself to the book as well. Wilson is a walking contradiction, a figure both repellent and begging for sympathy.



The opening page of Wilson (above) is entitled "Fellowship." While out walking his dog, he calls himself a people person, and one of his comments refers to another motif in Clowes' work, the balancing of contemporary isolation with the realization that most of our contemporary problems are at times silly.
"Every single one of us has a story to tell, and we're all part of the human family. How tragic that we've lost all sense of community with our fellow man (Clowes 7)!"
Wilson's first interaction leads to a woman bitterly complaining about computer problems, and his misanthropic tendencies are revealed immediately when he asks "For the love of Christ, don't you ever shut up?"
The story follows Wilson through his life, from middle-age to old age, detailing his verbal (and sometimes physical) battles with complete strangers, his family, his ex-wife, and his estranged daughter. The chapters are single paged slices, following a more or less chronological pattern, and most of them end with a typical twist, a "telling-it-like-it-is" moment from Wilson, most of which lead to implied awkward silences. The below passage comes from a conversation between Wilson and his daughter, who was put up for adoption when she was a child, about her adoptive parents. The implication was that Wilson and his ex-wife kidnapped her to either create a perverse composite of a family, or to explore and bring closure to the problems that led to all of them breaking apart to begin with early on. However, the true implication is that Wilson's loner tendencies and psychological problems never would have let them become a normal family.

"And I would hope that raising a child would actually enhance one's sense of community, rather than engendering fear and over-compensatory displays of class and wealth...I mean, Jesus, how many cars does one family need? What kind of example is that? Christ, it's like they're laughing at the next generation! 'Ha ha, I used up all your resources! Fuck you!'...But yeah, they're basically really amazing (Clowes 45)."



In virtually every medium, from film to literature to, in this case, graphic novels, the idea of isolation or personal facades is usually done to mask more honest, underlying problems. However, in Wilson, the character's underlying problems are also his blatant problems. I've only read parts of Clowes' Ghost World, but I've screened Terry Zwigoff's 2001 film version several times. In the film (and, while there are major differences between the film and the book), Enid's sarcasm and hipster outside are used to fend off her feelings of depression and a larger quarter-life crisis. As Wilson gets older, he tries to find happiness with a female neighbor, and learns that he has a grandchild. However, his self-destructive personality makes any sort of relationship doomed from the start. Clowes' writing is witty, dark, and thought-provoking at times; his illustrations are vivid and switch between more "realistic" styles and the intentionally cartoonish. However, for all of the great potential flourishes, Wilson is a work that eventually suffers.

I find it difficult to say that I enjoyed Wilson. The plot is very clear, yet is marked by jumps that, while intended to leave specific events to the imagination, make the linear narrative very unsteady. The emotions work much better when the works are taken as single pieces, much like the last one above. Clowes draws with great visuals and emotion, creating everyday scenes that are as weary and uncomfortable as the, well, everyday. His writing is marked by moments of great dark comedy, creating laugh-out-loud situations in the most unlikely of places. However, Wilson's personality is so abrasive, and his life has taken so many wrong turns, that it's hard to find a balance between the aforementioned sympathy and repulsion. It would be an insult to the reader's intelligence to have the book tied up with a satisfying, optimistic conclusion. The whole point of the work is that Wilson will never be satisfied or optimistic, no matter how hard he tries. However, in between moments of dark comedy, Clowes attempts to hint at more philosophical and sociological matters. These never work, since the reader grows accustomed to waiting for Wilson's punchline, the utterance that will upend any carefully crafted thoughts.

The ideas behind Wilson are refreshing. Instead of the graphic novel norms of hipsters and cliched artists, we're confronted with a tortured, depressed individual with no real motivations. It's a difficult work to write about in any real length, partly because, like any visual media, it's best to be read and seen to be fully appreciated. Clowes is very talented, yet Wilson leaves so much to be desired. More continuity wouldn't hurt the offbeat events, nor make them any less surreal. As a collection of individual pieces, this could potentially work. As a scattered story, the problems end up clouding so much of the meaning. Again, I'm still a relative newcomer to the graphic novel genre, but even taking away a literary analysis and viewing the work on its own, the issues don't go away.

Work/Images Cited:
Clowes, Daniel. Wilson. Copyright 2010 by Daniel Clowes.

In Support Of National Coming Out Day

I rarely use this blog as a forum for issues, but I feel that, with discussions and events that have happened in the last few months, it's important to bring attention to tomorrow's National Coming Out Day. While this has undoubtedly been an issue spanning multiple years, the recent surge of news regarding teen suicides after anti-gay bullying has been, sadly, dizzying. In the last month, every report of a suicide seems to be followed, too quickly, with another report. As my friend Eric's boyfriend pointed out, some of the victims haven't even been gay, yet the bullying was so traumatizing that suicide felt like the victim's only option. I'm not going to link to any of the news releases; a simple Google search will give you a sobering list of the recent epidemic. Instead, the focus should be on the positives. There are plenty of people who want to swing this into a moral or political argument. However, it's a matter of human decency. It's 2010, and GLBT citizens have made great strides towards equality, but there's still a long way to go. And the assistance of gay teens has been getting a lot of support lately.

Syndicated columnist Dan Savage has launched a YouTube channel called "It Gets Better," a forum for gay and lesbian adults to share encouragement with gay youths, to let them know that life gets better and that there are wonderful support systems in the world.



If you have a blog, think about posting a quick note or a link to support National Coming Out Day or the "It Gets Better Project." Blogs, video channels, and social networking sites have been used as forums of hate. Let's work to make them predominant forums of intelligence, communication, dialogue, and support. Again, let's put political leanings away. This posting may be a small salute, but GLBT people and their straight allies have done much more, with still more to accomplish. There are no agendas here, just a basic yearning for respect among people. Let's end anti-gay bullying, and bullying in all forms.

Women and Shadows: "Disgrace"

I suppose that one of the hallmarks of exceptional acting and directing, whether done in theater or in film, is the feeling, during exceptionally tense scenes, that you're watching something that you really shouldn't be viewing. This idea goes beyond voyeurism. In the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, the camera zooms into a bedroom window, in essence capturing Janet Leigh, in her underwear, with her lover. That's voyeurism. In Blank Line Collective's production of John O'Keefe's "Disgrace," there's a scene in which Simone (Stephanie Brown) pushes herself up against Katherine (Amanda Lucas) in a perverse "recreation" of a possible sexual offense that may or may not have happened in the past. It's one of the few blatant interpretations of the play's background, and is done so convincingly that I shifted very uncomfortably, losing the realization that it was a performance.

"Disgrace," written by John O'Keefe and directed by Erica Barnes and Melissa Law, is currently in the middle of its Chicago premiere run. The play follows the travels of three women (Katherine, Simone, and Christine, played by Melanie Renae) on the run from a myriad of potential pursuers or problems. They don't know exactly where they are, there are issues even over what time of day it is, but they do have one goal in mind: to get over the distant hill. An unseen figure named Francois is a shared memory among the three, and his implications saunter back and forth. Was he a lover? A rapist? A captor? A case could be made for all three of those designations, and as the women continue to travel, it becomes clear that much more is at stake, including their sanity. The dialogue and the costume design add further confusion to the mix: who are these women? Why are they dressed in tattered, almost Victorian white dresses? If anyone in the audience feels that they've made sense of the timing, a can of Coca-Cola is thrown into the mix for good measure.


(Photo by Nk Mooneyham; Clockwise from left: Brown, Lucas, Renae)


Is the above synopsis confusing? Yes, but "Disgrace" is the type of play that simply needs to be seen to be comprehended, and even multiple show viewings will not tie everything together. On the other hand, too much information would give away much of the play's essence, even if, by reading this, one is still left in the dark. The direction by Barnes and Law makes "Disgrace" almost literally nonstop. Even when a given scene is concentrated in one area of the space (this interpretation is performed in all areas of a loft), there's still a lot of movement or anticipation, since the set and props are scattered about, hinting at future activity. Given the strength of O'Keefe's script and the talent of the actresses, Barnes is wise to let the story do most of the work, leaving the focus on the cast and the wealth of possible clues that are revealed.

As Katherine, Amanda Lucas displays her gift of wildly different emotions and her ability to switch from one to the other fluidly (her performance in BLC's "Heloise & Abelard" was another example of this). She veers from childlike innocence to indignation to unsettling rage, all within the course of seconds. Even if one knows what's coming, her emotional range is impressive nonetheless. Renae's Christine is much more understated, much more innocent, and works more as a foil caught between two much more unstable personalities. However, even in her most innocent moments, she's not exempt from the mental deterioration that all three women both fight and succumb to at the same time.

For such an excellently cast piece, it's difficult to single someone out, but Brown's work as Simone is absolutely stunning. In addition to matching Lucas with her own displays of emotional intensity, her facial acting is just as important to the atmosphere of "Disgrace." Brown was the picture of understatement in "The New Tenant," but here, she's able to let loose, and at times adds almost comic flares to her eyes and voice, teetering on exaggerated, but in the best of ways. One of the many themes to take away from "Disgrace" is the notion of mental instability, and Brown's performance is the epitome of a work that's both intense and, at times, perversely comical in the darkest sense.

Technical definitions aside, it's tempting to classify "Disgrace" as surreal, and while there are some undeniably strange elements, I feel that it would be too simple to give it such a designation. Besides, it's also too easy claim that something is surreal based on ideas and possibilities that cannot immediately be explained. That said, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to call "Disgrace" an excellent example of the postmodern. Much like the best stories of Raymond Carver, O'Keefe's script doesn't shy away from confrontation or discomfort, but rightfully pulls away from easy answers. After grappling with wondering what "Disgrace" meant, I felt it was much more important to grapple with how it made me feel, for better or for worse. This is a stunning move up for Blank Line Collective, and one of the most provocative pieces of art that I've experienced in quite some time.

(NOTE: Blank Line Collective's production of "Disgrace" has four performances left: October 8th, 9th, 15th, and 16th, all at 8:00pm. Lacuna Lofts, 2150 South Canalport, Chicago, IL 60608. Visit the BLC website for advance tickets and more information.

The Troubling Patterns of James Patterson

This last Tuesday, September 27th, James Patterson's novel Don't Blink was published. For several years now, even with the help of co-authors, I've grown more and more shocked at the sheer number of books that he's published. To me, it was perversely fitting that this latest work was titled as it was, because it lends itself to an easy joke: "Don't blink, or you'll miss yet another James Patterson book." Before I continue, it's important to note that, by writing this post, I'm engaging in a habit that I never do, that being critiquing an author whose works I've never read. If I had to guess, I would say that I've read ten pages of fiction written by Mr. Patterson, and even if he only published works every few years or so, I would not consider myself a fan. However, the numbers keep piling up, with one or two more titles slated to be released in 2010, and it makes me uneasy. I'm defending myself and offering these understandings because I try to keep this blog above the fray. It's much too easy for someone to hide behind some paragraphs and say "so-and-so stinks" or "so-and-so is a bad writer." I've always been a firm believer in constructive criticism; however, it pains me that some people may view Patterson as an artist, rather than a brand.

I found a wonderful, detailed profile of Patterson's empire and style, written by Jonathan Mahler in the January 24th issue of the New York Times magazine. The title, "James Patterson Inc.," is a tip-off, but Mahler's essay does highlight some of Mr. Patterson's good qualities, namely his appreciation of his fans, and his commitment to children reading. It's not a stretch to assume that anybody who critiques Patterson is leaving him/herself open to charge of elitism or snobbery. However, the mass-market scene has always been booming, and with so much serious literature that has the ability to appeal to a mass audience, it's disheartening that Patterson has such a lion's share of the attention. Mahler must have known that excess criticism or excess deference would have drawn ire on either side, but his profile hints at problems with Patterson's using literature as a business model. It's cold, and while any struggling author dreams of publication and a modicum of success, Patterson has taken it to an entirely demanding level.

"Unsatisfied with publishing's informal approach to marketing meetings, Patterson had expected corporate-style presentations, complete with comprehensive market-share data and sales trends. 'A lot of authors are just grateful to be published,' Holly Parmelee, Patterson's publicist from 1992 to 2002, told me several weeks earlier. 'Not Jim. His attitude was that we were in business together, and he wanted us both to succeed, but it was not going to be fun and games (Mahler).'"



Patterson doesn't claim to be an an artist; on the contrary, he's upfront about his style."Patterson considers himself as an entertainer, not a man of letters (Mahler)." However, he's engaging in exactly the kind of hypocrisy that widens the gap between "elitism" and "everyday readers." While I've already written extensively about Jonathan Franzen as of late, I can't help but be reminded of one of his older statements. I don't have the exact quote, but he made the excellent point that writing a novel that you wouldn't want to read is the ultimate break of the contract between the writer and the reader. Patterson likes his style, but Mahler's profile paints two pictures, both of which are contradictory, and the last of which in one of the ultimate insults to writers and readers everywhere.

"Patterson's bookshelves are evenly divided between thrillers--books by Michael Connelly and Jeffrey Deaver--and more highbrow, literary fare like Philip Roth, John Cheever, and Denis Johnson. When I asked him what he was reading now, Patterson mentioned Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, the winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize, and The Power Broker, Robert Caro's doorstop biography of Robert Moses. 'My favorite books are very dense ones,' Patterson told me. 'I love One Hundred Years Of Solitude and I'm a big James Joyce fan (Mahler).'"

The below citation is, to me, the aforementioned ultimate insult:

"'Jim was sensitive to the fact that books carry a kind of elitist persona, and he wanted his books to be enticing to people who might not have done so well in school and were inclined to look at books as a headache,' [former C.E.O. of Time Warner Book Group Larry] Kirbaum says. 'He wanted his jackets to say, 'Buy me, read me, have fun--this isn't Moby Dick (Mahler).'"

Again, there are scores of great books that has mass appeal--the works of J.D. Salinger, David Sedaris, and Margaret Atwood are just a few examples. But the fact that Patterson is such a supporter of important works, and such a prolific producer of, let's just say it, literary junk food, is hard to forgive. Just as literature is having a difficult time mixing with the digital age, it's also a unique art form in the sense that Patterson's empire would be hard to imagine in any other creative context. It would be akin to the Jonas Brothers extolling the brilliance of Radiohead, or Thomas Kinkade writing a critical analysis of the works of Jackson Pollock. Again, to quote Mr. Franzen: "I call it art, you call it entertainment, we both turn the pages."

Someone may read this post and think "Well, this is just your opinion." And yes, that's absolutely true. But James Patterson is not an artist, and I do not mean that in the stereotypical "starving and lambasting people who do not understand him" sense. He's a corporation all to himself, even in conjunction with his publishers. He's going to keep churning out his works (most of which, as explained by Mahler, he only writes the outlines for; the co-authors do most of the work). People are going to keep buying them. But at the same time, actual writers are going to be doing the same thing. There's plenty of space on the best-seller lists for Patterson and the likes of actual contemporary writers. The other writers will never match his sales numbers, but the fact that their focus is primarily on creativity says it all. If Patterson would just come out and say that he's in it for the money, these critiques would die down considerably. I'm going to put him out of my mind for now, at least for the next month or two, until I go into a bookstore and see yet another of his mass-produced works occupying the shelf. If that makes me a literary snob, then I'll gladly accept that label.

Work Cited:
Mahler, Jonathan. "James Patterson Inc." The New York Times Magazine, January 24th, 2010.

Oprah and Jonathan: Take Two

Just over a week ago, following many speculations and whisperings, Oprah Winfrey selected Jonathan Franzen's Freedom as her latest Book Club pick. This didn't come as as shock to me when it was announced; as a bookseller, I had seen copies of the book affixed with the Oprah sticker (as a side note, it's a relief that the sticker actually matches the color scheme of the novel's cover, so it's not such an aesthetic eyesore). Before the announcement, some anonymous booksellers had leaked photos of Freedom as the Oprah Book Club title, thereby rendering any speculation as fact. The literary world normally doesn't lend itself to gossip, and this is fairly tame.

Whenever Oprah announces a Book Club title, said work becomes an instant best-seller, not that Franzen's latest needed any help. However, the selection would not have been such a major event had it not been for the tension between the two people back in 2001. Franzen's previous novel, The Corrections, had been selected by Oprah, and afterward, Franzen gave an interview to Powells.com, and his comments on Oprah, in addition to being both critical and praising at the same time, were very easy to take out of context. The interview can be read here in its entirety, and this part of the conversation was the center of the ensuing uproar, which led to Winfrey disinviting Franzen from her show, since he was "seemingly uncomfortable" with the invitation.

Dave [Weich]: I had recommended The Corrections to a friend. A few days later, Oprah announced that it would be her new Book Club pick. My friend soon emailed me to ask if I really thought he should read it.

Franzen: Now I've signed a big label deal and I'm playing stadiums, how good can I be?

Dave: Exactly. But this is someone I very much respect, and I don't think his asking that question can be considered at all unusual. I'm sure thousands of people won't read this book for no other reason than the fact that Oprah recommended it. If you're that popular, the thinking goes, if you speak to the masses, you can't possibly be saying anything too intelligent.

Whereas from where I sit the authors that matter are the ones that can say something intelligent and thought provoking that a reasonably smart person can digest and enjoy. If you need a scholarly background to decode it, it might be great art but to what end? You might as well be writing in Latin.

Franzen: That's one of the perverse, not to say fetishistic responses to the obliteratively ubiquitous presence of buying in our lives: to say, "I don't buy the popular stuff, I buy the small label stuff," as if that makes you any less of a consumer. But I'm somewhat guilty of it myself, and it follows a pattern. Certainly in music, suddenly the band you like because it was not produced goes to a major label and becomes heavily produced. It's hard to think of a major label Mekons recording, for example. It's impossible because they would never do it.

But I'm with you, I don't think the same applies to fiction. The problem in this case is some of Oprah's picks. She's picked some good books, but she's picked enough schmaltzy, one dimensional ones that I cringe, myself, even though I think she's really smart and she's really fighting the good fight. And she's an easy target.



There were other quotes that added fuel to this fire, namely Franzen's wondering about his place in "the high-end literary tradition" and his concern about reaching a male audience. Strangely, in all of the discussions over Franzen's comments, nobody made any mention of Weich's words, some of which seem, in context, more scathing than Franzen's comments. This led to a lot of backlash, and despite Franzen's honest apologies, he was derided as (in his words): "a pompous snob, a real asshole." Naturally, nine years was enough time for this to die down, but with Oprah's Book Club focusing on Freedom, the old "feud" has been receiving some perverse nostalgia. When I heard about the selection, my gut instinct was that it was nothing more than a publicity stunt. These initial reactions also gave way to some positives, and the praises and critiques were equally given to both Winfrey and Franzen.

Winfrey (praise): She genuinely loved Freedom, and didn't let an old, unnecessary quibble get in the way of highlighting one of the best books of the year.

Winfrey (critique): It's a publicity stunt. It's the last season her talk show, and what better way to drum up some attention than by inviting an author with whom she's had issues with in the past?

Franzen (praise): He sent Winfrey a galley copy of his novel, along with a note, and was gracious enough to accept her Book Club selection, since genuinely considers himself an artist who wants to reach most people, not a select few.

Franzen (critique): Well, pretty much the same as Oprah's.



So when the Book Club pick was made, I was fully expecting a lot more buzz than has been given this event. Sure, quite a few writers and bloggers have made note of it, just like how I'm doing now. However, it has not been the overblown "stunt" that I thought it was going to be. Freedom is still
on top of the best-seller lists, as it was before Oprah's selection. Perhaps more will be made of this once Franzen appears on her show. However, there's much beauty in the relative silence over the issue: it proves that there is none. One can be a literary artist and mesh well with a mainstream forum. It worked for Toni Morrison, it worked for Cormac McCarthy, and it will undoubtedly work for Franzen.

To close, I'd like to return to an earlier statement regarding Franzen's concern about reaching a male audience. While it definitely appears sexist at first, with a little more understanding, it's not that way at all. My essay on Freedom discussed the very important topic that female writers do not get the attention of their male counterparts. However, on the opposite end, it's very telling that men are generally less inclined to read novels than women. Last week, I had the very good fortune to attend a discussion held in Chicago with writer Gary Shteyngart. During his talk, he made explicit mention of the fact that male readers make up a dwindling percentage of readers in general. Yes, there are the insufferable categories of "chick lit" and "dick lit." But, as literature moves further into the twenty-first century, female writers need more respect, and something needs to be done to avert the trend of non-reading men. A novel like Freedom, at least in my selling of it, has been scooped up by equal numbers of men and women. An intangible subject like literature really shouldn't have to be broken down by gender, but there are still many strides that need to be made. I personally don't have any answers, but the subject is alive and being discussed, and that's a great start, especially in literary websites and blogs. What better way to tackle the problems of reading and writing than reading and write about them?

Jonathan Franzen's (And Our) America

"Freedom is not the kind of Great American Novel that [Jonathan] Franzen's predecessors wrote--not the kind Bellow and Mailer and Updike wrote. The American scene is just too complex--and too aware of its own complexity, for anything to loom that large over it again. But Freedom feels big in a different way, a way that not much other American fiction does right now. It doesn't back down from the complexity."--Lev Grossman, Time Magazine, August 23rd 2010.



I was genuinely hoping to write a review of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom without any mention of The Great American Novel. I've mentioned it here before, in varying capacities, but trying to define that term is often done to fill space, has a tendency to be needlessly rhetorical, or causes some needless hand-wringing. Franzen's latest novel has inspired both claims of being a contender for said title, but has also provoked some much needed, thoughtful dialogues on literature and gender studies (more on this later). However, in previous years, Franzen has been a leading defender of both the novel as a social tool, and as well as the novel as a tool in general (Let's get another tiresome question out of the way: Is the novel dead? Short answer: Not at all). In the age of Facebook and Twitter, the idea of sitting down with a big novel may seem strange to some, or, as Franzen has put it in much more eloquent terms, an extravagant luxury. Even in times that are both uncertain and in constant flux all at once, the novel is still a medium that can capture emotions and states and not be outdated within five years. A novel like Freedom can explore sociological norms of an era and mention names and items that may end up being put in the "history" pile, but these outer themes take second billing to the true, timeless issues: those of family, people, emotions, and life in general. These may be very broad categories, but emotions never really change, only in response to their surroundings.

Freedom is a novel in which no fewer than four characters could be classified as the "main character." In 1980s St. Paul, Minnesota, Walter and Patty Berglund, the epitome (and anti-definition) of the liberal family, are the cause of much gossip and worry in their neighborhood. Walter is an upstanding lawyer with 3M and a tireless crusader for natural and sociological projects. Patty is a former NCAA basketball star, now (seemingly) content to be a stay-at-home mother. A good friend of mine who read Freedom at the same time, consistently mentioned that she found a lot of the characters to be caricatures. This is evident from the beginning, but reading the novel as a whole reveals that the initial opinions are more than likely intentional caricatures. Patty's actions as a new transplant to the neighborhood is both intensely earnest and an honest exaggeration of her desire to make good, or to at least appear to be the model of a Good Wife and Good Mother. But, like any real human being, her personality is rife with contradictions, and this also goes for the other characters.

"To Seth Paulsen, who talked about Patty a little too often for his wife's taste, the Berglunds were the super-guilty sort of liberals who needed to forgive everybody so their own good fortune could be forgiven; who lacked the courage of their privilege. One problem with Seth's theory was that the Berglunds weren't all that privileged; their only known asset was their house, which they'd rebuilt with their own hands. Another problem, Merrie Paulsen pointed out, was that Patty was no great progressive and certainly no feminist (staying home with her birthday calendar, baking those goddamned birthday cookies) and seemed altogether allergic to politics. If you mentioned an election or a candidate to her, you could see her struggling and failing to be her usual self--see her becoming agitated and doing too much nodding, too much yeah-yeahing (Franzen 7)."

If anything seems amiss with the Berglunds, that's because everything is amiss. Walter struggles with his son Joey, a rebellious figure who eventually moves in next door with his girlfriend's Republican family; Patty devotes too much attention to Joey and too little attention to her daughter Jessica, an issue that flares up years later; as the novel progresses, it's revealed that Patty is suffering from depression and the hints of alcoholism. Freedom alternates between the past and the present, with large sections formed as Patty's autobiography, a work that's done at the suggestion of her therapist, but takes on greater significance later on. Patty and Walter meet in college, but their relationship takes awhile to develop. Patty is "friends" with an unstable drug addict named Eliza, who introduces her to Richard Katz, an up-and-coming rock musician who happens to be Walter's best friend. Richard is a defiant womanizer, and both his magnetism and repulsiveness make him attractive to both Patty (sexually) and Walter (vicariously). As Patty sinks further into her depression, seemingly inexplicable events occur. The family moves to Washington, D.C., where Walter takes a job with a coal company under the guise of establishing protected breeding habitats for a species of bird called the cerulean warbler, which also sets the stage for unprotected mountaintop coal removal. In addition, he also begins to fall for his younger assistant. Joey's college life leads to a job securing parts for a mysterious corporation selling substandard auto parts to the United States Military, all while his relationship with his girlfriend spins between breaking and becoming seriously unhealthy, not to mention his constant attractions to various other women.

While Patty, Walter, and Richard take equal turns being the focal point of the story, Patty's depression and actions not only make up a lot of the narrative, but has a trickle-down effect on everyone she knows. My aforementioned friend was irritated by how it was possible that Patty could be able to write long, detailed remembrances, along with detailed dialogues written, seemingly, word for word. While I completely understand this criticism, Franzen's writing and knack for dialogue (in Grossman's profile, he mentions how Franzen reads his dialogue aloud while writing, in order to achieve maximum success) more than makes up for this. The majority of the scenes between Patty and Richard are stunningly detailed, capturing nuances, unspoken attractions, and the constant verbal games they play. At one point, they're alone together while Richard, in his part-time job, builds the deck on Patty and Walter's summer home.

"She must have betrayed him in the way she said that, because Richard gave her a little frown. 'You OK?'
'No no no,' she said, 'I love being up here. I love it. This is my favorite place in the world. It doesn't solve anything, if you know what I mean. But I love getting up in the morning. I love smelling the air.'
'I meant are you OK with my being here.'
'Oh, totally. God. Yes. Totally. Yah! I mean, you know how Walter loves you. I feel like we've been friends with you for so long, but I've hardly ever really talked to you. It's a nice opportunity. But you truly shouldn't feel you have to stay, if you want to get back to New York. I'm so used to being alone up here. It's fine.'
This speech seemed to have taken her a very long time to get to the end of. It was followed by a brief silence between them.
'I'm just trying to hear what you're actually saying,' Richard said. 'Whether you actually want me here or not.'
'God,' she said. 'I keep saying it, don't I? Didn't I just say it (Franzen 160-161).'"



It's been quite awhile since my last reading of The Corrections, but I found that Freedom contains wonderful descriptions of the so-called "everyday moments." Given its long, painstaking sketches of city and rural life, political and corporate maneuverings, and the joys and pains of romantic and familial relationships, the smaller details are rendered just as striking, even though they could play into one of the usual criticisms of Franzen, his penchant for overflowing literary descriptions. But several passages made me smile with their reality and detail:

"That evening in Philadelphia, there was a brief dismal episode: she went down to the hotel bar with the intention of picking somebody up. She quickly discovered that the world is divided into people who know how to be comfortable by themselves on a bar chair and people who do not (Franzen 181)."

"Staying in hotels with Lalitha had become perhaps the hardest single part of their working relationship. In Washington, where she lived upstairs from him, she at least was on a different floor, and Patty was around to generally disturb the picture. At the Days Inn in Beckley, they fitted identical keycards into identical doors, fifteen feet from each other, and entered rooms whose identical profound drabness only a torrid illicit affair could have overcome (Franzen 303)."

Earlier, I mentioned that the recent applause over Freedom has been met with some relevant, honest critiques, but not of the work itself or of the author. Poet and literary critic Meghan O'Rourke published a wonderful article in Slate, and the title immediately brings up the concern: "Can a Woman Be a Great American Novelist?" Quite a few strong essays, even ones by Franzen himself, highlight the tendency of "literature" to be the domain of middle-aged white males. Of course, there have been great strides to the variety of literature. O'Rourke mentions Zadie Smith and Toni Morrison, and personally, I've been anxiously awaiting the new novel by Nicole Krauss. Both on this blog and in private conversations, I've been concerned about adding more essays on female writers, and in all of the excitement over Freedom, O'Rourke poses an excellent suggestion.



"A thought exercise, perhaps specious: If this book had been written by a woman (say, Jennifer Franzen), would it have been called 'a masterpiece of American fiction' in the first line of its front-page New York Times review; would its author, perhaps with longer hair and make-up, have been featured in Time as a GREAT AMERICAN NOVELIST; would the Guardian have called it the 'Book Of the Century'? Without detracting from Franzen, I think we can say it would not have received this trifecta of plaudits, largely because we don't ascribe literary authority as freely to women as men, and our models of literary greatness remain primarily male (and white)(O'Rourke)."

These are essential thoughts, and the fact that someone took the time to disparagingly edit O'Rourke's Wikipedia page ("Despite her Yale education and privileged life, she believes she is at a great disadvantage as a writer because she is a not a (yawn) white male") proves her point that bias still abounds. However, to put a happier spin on this without taking away from the argument, it's a testament that a major literary novel can have this trickle-down effect, being both a major piece of art in its own right and highlighting the contributions of other writers. This could be another essay in its own right, but despite the respect gained by the likes of Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Joyce Carol Oates, to name a few, it's true that women writers don't always spring to mind immediately (O'Rourke mentions being guilty of this herself). To borrow her phrase, "unconscious bias" is still bias.

This may seem like a sidetrack, but O'Rourke's essay can be an answer (one of many) to the question that has been posed, either explicitly or otherwise, in virtually every review of Freedom that I've read: "What is it about?" Really, take your pick. If you want it to be about urban gentrification, go ahead. If you want it to be about the overlap and problems of both liberal and conservative personal politics, there are plenty of examples. If you want it to be a look at fractured families and regretful yet necessary sexual relationships, there are a lot of pages devoted to those, too. It's too easy to say that Freedom is about our modern times, but the blending of the sociological and the personal makes it both large and small.

Franzen has been called pompous and an elitist, for his literary acumen, his writing style, and his anger at the novel being perceived as a less-than-serious enterprise. However, his latest work speaks for itself, and its near-universal praise shows what a lot of readers have known all along, and is stated perfectly by Grossman: "He's one of contemporary fiction's great populists and a key ally of the beleaguered modern reader."

Works Cited:
Franzen, Jonathan. Freedom. Copyright 2010 by Jonathan Franzen.

O'Rourke, Meghan. "Can a Woman Be a 'Great American Novelist?'" Slate Magazine. September 14, 2010.

Delightfully Scattered

I imagine that Sufjan Stevens has the potential to be one of the more polarizing figures in American music. He's a tremendous singer, a skilled multi-instrumentalist, and a songwriter who has the ability to shine with both symphonic, lyrically-packed epics as well as softer, more "singer-songwriter" fare. Despite these observations, my best friend, a man who studies and knows more about music than virtually anyone else I know, cannot stand Stevens's music, either lyrically or melodically. While everyone is entitled to his or her opinions, it would be impossible to deny the fact that Stevens always aims high in his work and resists any attempts to be pigeon-holed or strictly classified in a given genre. He's released works that can fall under the literal banner of folk music (Michigan and Illinois) or experimental (Enjoy Your Rabbit). I've heard Stevens referred to, musically, as a minimalist, which never fails to surprise me, since his albums are anything but: his "50 States" albums, while only two deep, are almost shocking in their expansiveness, research, and use of a wide array of instruments. Last month, with little fanfare, Stevens released All Delighted People, an EP in name only, since the work runs over an hour. The album seems intent on combining every reactionary feeling or definition that listeners want to apply to Stevens, and the result is, to put it mildly, compelling.

All Delighted People doesn't appear to be a strictly thematic album, but retains the standard "everything but the kitchen sink" model of Stevens's music. The opening title track is eleven minutes long, and has been likened to a grand homage to Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound Of Silence." It's a terrific example of everything that's made Stevens famous. He's joined by a wonderful backing chorus, and the song grows (both literally and figuratively) with swelling voices, orchestral echoes, and sometimes haunting switches between sheer optimism ("all delighted people raise their hands") and despair ("I'm still afraid/of letting go of choices I have made"). As exhilarating as it is, it could also be used as an example of why people, such as my friend, dislike his sounds. It's long, varying in its beats and structure, and is either a great piece of bombastic music or a needlessly overblown extravaganza. However, as a possibly unintentional counter, Stevens repeats the song later on in the album, presented as a "Classic Rock Version," drastically scaled down, but losing none of the musical power of the previous version. These two versions of the same track also work in highlighting what I mentioned above, the constant dynamic between Sufjan's ability to go all out or scale back heavily, but, depending on the song, not losing or sacrificing any intangible qualities.



Jumping to the end, the bulk of All Delighted People is devoted to a nearly twenty minute track entitled "Djohariah," named for Stevens's sister. It's even more expansive than the opening, incorporating a lazy brass opening before quickly working its way to scaled back vocals and a guitar interlude that's scattered and broken up, but somehow meshes perfectly in its opposition to the continuing vocal backgrounds. This continues, almost drone-like, for the majority of the track, creating (again, depending on one's opinion of Stevens or his style in general) a curiously meditative piece of sound or repetitive meandering. It then switches directions, becoming a beautiful dedication, full of little bits of life advice ("Don't be ashamed don't hide in your room") and simple, funny rhymes that work well in their simplicity ("glorious victorious"), especially given the complexities of the song's previous fifteen minutes.

To tip my cap with another Simon and Garfunkel reference, "All Delighted People" and "Djohariah" make strong, expansive bookends to the middle of the album, songs that, by themselves, would be much more deserving of the EP status. The other tracks are much more standard, but nonetheless delightful and excellent entries into the Stevens canon. There's the semi-religious track with obvious folk influences ("From the Mouth of Gabriel"), and a beautiful song that, while not place-specific, feels like it could fit very nicely on Illinois: "Enchanting Ghost." Stevens's voice and a piano is all that's really needed for a beautiful, soft track that contains a wealth of emotion without the intense productions of the the longer songs. The same goes for "Heirloom," with the only major difference being the substitute of an emphasis on guitar backings rather than piano.

Of course, as mentioned before, if you don't consider yourself a Sufjan Stevens fan, there's nothing on the album that will change your mind. However, for his admirers, this is a wonderful little collection that highlights the many dimensions of his skills. There's no real connection or unifying message, but rather a wonderful album of musical simplicity and expansion. Given the disc's quiet release, it's been gaining a lot of attention from the major music websites, but really, the beauty lies in the feeling that this is just a small offering in between his major releases. He's normally a master of the concept album, but even this culled-together gem works as its own idea, that a seemingly mixed collection can stand on its own. Perhaps the praise is giving All Delighted People more attention than Stevens anticipated, but to close with a line that I've used all too often, it's telling when an album like this is still better than a good ninety percent of the other music being released today. His latest full-length album, The Age of Adz, will be released in October, and based on the album's description on Stevens's website, listeners could be in for another side of his talents, or All Delighted People was a thematic preview of "the lack of conceptual underpinnings."

"The Age of Adz (pronounced odds) is Sufjan Stevens’ first full-length collection of original songs since 2005’s civic pop opus Illinois. This new album is probably his most unusual, first, for its lack of conceptual underpinnings, and second, for its preoccupation with Sufjan himself."

*All Delighted People is available as a $5 download from the Sufjan Stevens website.*