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Originally Posted by
Don Carlos 
LOL at picking two contrarian reviews -- one of which even acknowledges the world's throbbing hardon for Franzen -- in an attempt to suggest that general lit-crit reception of Franzen has been anything other than delivered on bended knee, with mouths gaping and hands fumbling at the belt buckle.
What an awkward way to say "positive." This is something a jilted lover with a MFA and a blog would write. I picked two contrarian reviews to illustrate that Freedom's critical reception wasn't universally favorable. I think if you look at all the
reviews put together, you'll note that while the novel was liked on the whole, its praise was hardly unqualified. In your head you are confusing mediatization, publicity, commercial success, and critical acclaim. But the weirdest thing is that you are railing against the reception of something you haven't even read (I am assuming, since you didn't bother to correct my last post), so I have no idea how you've come to the conclusion that it's overrated.
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Second, you continue to miss or ignore my point that Franzen adds nothing new to American literature. Groan at Hemingway all you want; his contribution (admittedly more to style than to subject matter) to American prose was nothing short of revolutionary. I struggle to name a post-Hemingway novelist who was not influenced by Hemingway's style. Even the New Prolixity, as practiced by Wallace, Delillo, et al., was in some ways a conscious reaction to Hemingway's influence. Franzen, on the other hand, hasn't changed anything about the way novels are written. Nor has he added anything profound to the cultural analysis of, or by, or within American letters.
If I have missed or ignored your points it's because they are so small. In general, works of art should be judged according to what they try to accomplish. If you judge every novel according to its relationship to Hemingway, then you are bound to reach some very absurd conclusions about their intrinsic merits. So when Franzen purposely ignores all of 20th century literary modernism and post-modernism and instead models his work on 19th century English and Russian realism, the correct answer is
not, "Franzen didn't follow the strictly linear path of literary evolution from A-Z, therefore his work is irrelevant to the teleological progression of the genre." The question is, rather, why does Franzen write like that, is it effective for his purpose, and what does he manage to convey? These are questions you cannot begin to discuss without actually having read the work in question, rendering any 'point' moot.
