But how bad could an interview be, really? It’s just an interview. It provides a context. Information about JGV’s work. Right?

Jonathan Franzen: I’m struck by how different in feel The Informers and The Sound of Things Falling are from the Latin American “boom” novels of a generation ago. I’m thinking of both their cosmopolitanism (European story elements in the first book, an American main character in the new one) and their situation in a modern urban Bogotá. To me it feels as if there’s been a kind of awakening in Latin American fiction, a clearing of the magical mists, and I’m wondering to what extent you see your work as a reaction to that of Márquez and his peers. Did you come to fiction writing with a conscious program?

To be honest, this is all I’ve read of this interview, because it’s just so stupid that I can’t go on. I may well burn this promo material as soon as I finish writing this post.

First off, where the hell has Franzen been? Not only were there a lot of Latin American writers working in non-“boom” type aesthetics at the same time that Márquez was writing, but there have been hundreds of interesting authors since that time who ripped open the “magical mists” of Latin American fiction. And seriously, “magical mists”? That is some shit.

This is the kind of bullshit question that no one would ever ask an American author. Just imagine:

I’m struck by how different in feel The Corrections and Freedom are from the American “modernist” novels of a generation ago. I’m thinking of both their disinterest in language and representations of the inner workings of the human experience (the straightforward neo-realistic prose that dominates both of them) and the obsession with the suburbs. To me it feels as if there’s been a kind of awakening in American fiction, a clearing of the obfuscating mists, and I’m working to what extent you see your work as a reaction to that of Faulkner and his peers. Did you come to fiction writing with a conscious program?

Sorry. I’m just sick of this sort of approach to reading international literature—especially Latin American literature. Implicit in Franzen’s question is the idea that there was—or is—a certain “type” of Latin American writing and that anything different than that is some sort of political statement or bold move, as if Latin American writers can’t write about Europe or America or anything modern and universal. Get back to the banana plantations and bring us some talking butterflies! Beyond being insulting to Latin American writers, it really makes the person asking the question—Franzen in this case—seem like an ignoramus. So all y’all Mexicans actually know about Europe? Holeey shit!

/end rant

The acclaimed and bestselling novelist, who denies himself access to the internet when writing, was talking at the Hay festival in Cartagena, Colombia. “Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book, I’m handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing – that’s reassuring,” said Franzen, according to the Telegraph.

“Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.”

OK, sure. Permanence. Thanks, J-Franz for once again conveying the fact to the world that you are a Victorian. (Both in terms of writing and thinking.) Even the title of this piece is strangely pre-1900 sounding: “Jonathan Franzen warns ebooks are corroding values.”

This reminds me of my favorite moment from this year’s MLA conference, when David Shields was teeing off on contemporary American writers in general (and Franzen in particular) who seemed unaware of aesthetic advancements from the past hundred years. As Shields said, it’s totally fine to write a novel like Freedom, but what’s the point of doing something so blatantly outdated?