The Savior: Does Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom' signal American literature's return to world prominence?
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Jonathan Franzen (2010)
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TORONTO -- A reading by Jonathan Franzen at the International Festival of Authors here last month was scheduled to start at 8 p.m., but the lobby outside the Fleck Dance Theatre was filling up by 7.
There were three other writers on the bill -- two Canadians and Canadian-American novelist Sara Gruen. Yet, most of the crowd was holding "Freedom," Mr. Franzen's remarkable new novel, because he was signing books after the reading.
Since "Freedom" went on sale in September, the novelist's handlers weren't granting much access to the press, so the signing was my only chance to talk to him. Yet, despite my careful planning, I was far back in the line when the reading ended.
Ms. Gruen sat all by herself at another table as the Franzen line grew longer and longer.
The Toronto event was another example of the surprising reaction to a serious novelist and his difficult and rewarding book. It's a reaction that runs counter to the conventional wisdom that traditional books have lost their importance in our culture.
American fiction always has struggled for respect since its beginnings in the shadows of its more accomplished English cousin after the Revolutionary War.
First it was illiteracy, then provincialism and its distrust of intellectualism, then that Yankee tendency to put sales figures ahead of quality that weighed down our home-grown literature.
It might have hit bottom in 2008 on the eve of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature when a Nobel official rejected American fiction writers as ignorant.
"The U.S. is too isolated, too insular," said Horace Engdahl when asked why there were no American winners since 1993. "Its writers don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining."
Mr. Engdahl's comments followed the enormous financial success of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," a novel with dubious literary merit, but the No. 1 best-seller for the better part of a year. Is this what passes for great American fiction, the literati asked?
First Published November 17, 2010 12:00 am
