Feminist 'Franzenfreude' Over Raves For 'Freedom'
original reading
read 10/06/10 after 10 more practices, 3 places edited
read 10/14/10 又练了十遍，受不了了！
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Heard on All Things Considered at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129529565
August 30, 2010 - ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
Jonathan Franzen's new novel, "Freedom," is garnering a waterfall of praise from the critics, so much praise that some other writers think it's over the top. They say it's evidence of a bias among the literary elite.
NPR's Lynn Neary has the story.
LYNN NEARY: Jonathan Franzen has a way of making people mad. When his last novel, "The Corrections," was picked by Oprah Winfrey for her book club, Franzen made it known that he was not comfortable with this populist honor. Oprah withdrew the offer.
This time around, a couple of bestselling women writers, Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner, have tweeted their disdain for what they see as critical fawning over Franzen's new novel, "Freedom". Weiner has even come up with a phrase to describe her feelings: Franzenfreude.
Ms. JENNIFER WEINER (Writer): Schadenfreude is taking pleasure in the pain of others. Franzenfreude is taking pain in the multiple and copious reviews being showered on Jonathan Franzen.
NEARY: Weiner says her angst is not just about the book or even about Franzen himself.
Ms. WEINER: It's about the establishment choosing one writer and writing about him again and again and again and again and again, while they're ignoring a lot of other worthy writers and, in the case of The New York Times, entire genres of books.
NEARY: Weiner is known for writing chick lit, which she thinks is just a snappier way of saying commercial women's fiction. And though she's done very well with the genre, she knows it's not a critical favorite. Weiner believes even literary novels by women do not get the same attention as a small group of men whose writing is taken very seriously by publications like The New York Times.
But if you ask Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times "Book Review," what criteria the publication uses to decide what to review, he'll tell you...
Mr. SAM TANENHAUS (Editor, "Book Review," The New York Times): There are none.
NEARY: Tanenhaus says The Times looks for books that will engage their readers and interest their reviewers. But Tanenhaus acknowledges the critical establishment does take certain kinds of books more seriously than others.
Mr. TANENHAUS: For us as editors, reviewers and critics, what we're really trying to do is something that's probably impossible, but in our Panglossian optimism, we hope is maybe now and again achievable. And that's to identify that fiction - that maybe really will endure.
NEARY: In his review of "Freedom," Tanenhaus declared the novel a masterpiece and compared Franzen to such literary greats as Leo Tolstoy and Thomas Mann. He believes Franzen deserves both the attention and the praise he's getting because he is that rare writer who tells us something about the secret life of the culture.
Mr. TANENHAUS: And so the extraordinary interest in Franzen derives from this, that he somehow seems to give you a panorama of the culture, but also tap into the deeper anxieties, tensions and questions that animate us today. There are very few writers at any time who ever do this.
NEARY: Tanenhaus says the interest in Franzen does not reflect any gender bias at The Times. He lists many well-known women writers The Times has reviewed recently.
But Jennifer Weiner has her own list of male writers, who she says are given a different kind of treatment in reviews.
Ms. WEINER: It's just interesting to sort of stack them up against a Lorrie Moore or against a Mona Simpson, who write books about families that are seen as excellent books about families. And then to look at a Jonathan Franzen, who writes a book about a family, but we're told this is a book about America, this is a book about the way we live now.
NEARY: One woman writer who is regularly reviewed in The Times is Jane Smiley. Jonathan Franzen has cited her novel "The Greenlanders" as a book that has inspired him, so she admits to having a favorable opinion of the writer. But Smiley says she can understand why some women writers, whose work is commercially successful but critically ignored, would be frustrated.
Ms. JANE SMILEY (Author, "The Greenlanders"): Chick lit is no longer chick lit. There's an aspect of fiction now that's being written by women that is really smart, really daring in terms of the subject matter that it takes on and really popular. And I think it's being overlooked because it's so straightforward and because the payoff is emotional rather than intellectual.
NEARY: In the end, says Smiley, it's not the critics who anoint the writers who will endure, it's the readers.
Ms. SMILEY: And whether the media elite in New York know who's really, really anointed or not, we'll never know.
NEARY: And if it is the readers who decide, it should be noted, most readers of fiction are women.
Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
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garnering 赢得
populist 民粹主义
disdain 鄙视
fawning 摇尾乞怜
Schadenfreude 幸灾乐祸
copious 丰富
angst 焦虑
snappier 迅捷
Panglossian optimism 潘格罗斯乐观
chick lit 小鸡点燃
anointed 膏. 涂油;涂油使神圣化
