Jonathan Franzen : the comedy of rage /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Weinstein, Philip M., author.
Imprint:New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, 2015.
©2015
Description:xi, 230 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 23 cm
Language:English
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/10384673
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9781501307171
1501307177
Notes:Includes index.
Summary:"Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage is the first critical biography of one of today's most important novelists. Drawing on unpublished emails and a private interview (along with published ones), Philip Weinstein conveys the feel and heft of Franzen's voice as he ponders the purposes and problems of his life and his art, from his earliest fiction to his most recent novel, Purity. Franzen's work raises major questions about the possibilities of contemporary fiction: how does one appeal to a broad mass of mainstream readers, on the one hand, while persuading connoisseurs, on the other, that one's fiction has staying power, is high art? Even more acutely, how did Franzen move from the rage that animates his first two novels to the more generous comic stance of the two 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 writer-from 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"--
"The first critical biography of Jonathan Franzen, exploring the trajectory of his career and the intersections of his life and work"--
Description
Summary:

Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage is the first critical biography of one of today's most important novelists. Drawing on unpublished emails and both published and private interviews, Philip Weinstein conveys the feel and heft of Franzen's voice as he ponders the purposes and problems of his life and art, from his earliest fiction to his most recent novel, Purity .

Franzen's 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 one's 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 Rag e unpacks the becoming of Franzen as a person and a writer--from 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.

Item Description:Includes index.
Physical Description:xi, 230 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 23 cm
ISBN:9781501307171
1501307177