I want to apologise to Jonathan Franzen for calling his book Freedom "the novel of the century". The moment I uttered those words on this blog, after getting hold of an early proof copy, a whirlwind of aggressive comments started up. I was slightly bemused; all I'd done was praise a book by an author whose last work, The Corrections, surely made it very plausible that he might go on to write a masterpiece. As indeed he has ... but no, there I go again.
That fatal praise, "the novel of the century", kept reappearing. A hostile reviewer in the Sunday Times begged to differ with the Guardian's over-the-top "novel of the century" claim. When a publisher's error led to many British copies being exchanged, the Telegraph and Guardian reported that the "novel of the century" had been pulped. And so on until this week – as in some mordant novel about the modern condition – the comedy turned a shade darker.
A gatecrasher at the British launch party grabbed Franzen's spectacles off his face and ran off. Funny? It sounds like pretty disturbing behaviour to me: a physical manifestation of the savage "Franzenfreude" that has erupted in some circles. Somehow, Freedom – a commentary on modern America – has provoked, in us, a second novel, a story about the British in their jealousies, rage, and self-deception. Seriously, – what kind of person wants to steal this man's glasses?
So I'm genuinely remorseful if my enthusiasm contributed to a cultural farce that turns ambitious writers into figures of fun and hate. Franzen's experience in Britain is reminiscent of a novel by his elder Philip Roth. In Zuckerman Unbound, Roth, who had himself become famous with the bestselling success of Portnoy's Complaint, portrays his writer hero Zuckerman in a similar situation. Literary fame, far from being genteel, drags Zuckerman into the inferno of modern culture, where he is stalked in the street by a lunatic who demands empathy. It's as if Franzen, too, were being bullied for being top of the class.
