Jonathan Franzen on Good Art. Or, "Fuck you, Jonathan Franzen."

[thehefner]

"Good art doesn’t and shouldn’t give me the answer. At its best it might bring you painfully into awareness of how unanswerable the question is."
— Jonathan Franzen, from his interview in today's Calgary Herald-Sun.

That is one of the most cynical goddamn things I’ve ever read. Thank you, Mr. Franzen, for perfectly encapsulating the mentality that makes it impossible for me to find any enjoyment in the art and literary world.

Do I think art should be a mirror for reality, even the ugliest and harshest bits? Fuck yes I do. But if your “at best” scenario is a crushing view of impotence and impossibility, then fuck you, give me superheroes and fairy tales and detective noir and anything else from the so-called “escapist” genres over your version of “art.”

Look, life is hard anyway, and I don’t need my art to just give me a clearer, more eloquent understanding of just HOW hard it is. Great art reminds me of why we keep going, even through the worst humanity and the universe have to offer. Dostoevsky and Shakespeare both understood these extremes, which is why they’re Fucking Dostoevsky and Motherfucking Shakespeare.

Art doesn’t and shouldn’t “give” you actual answers, he’s right about that. But great art can give you hope. And hope is the single greatest non-answer answer that we humans possess.

...

...

This is one of those times where I REALLY should just limit my response to a couple tight, punchy sentences, something that destroys Franzen's soundbite as effectively as the way he said it in the first place. But fuck that, I'm so fed up with that mentality that it just makes me want to spew Red Lantern rage, all the more so after I actually read that interview and discovered what his latest book was about:

In his latest novel Freedom, the cerulean warbler is a symbol of life's personal and political complexities, part of a sprawling plot about a liberal middle-class family imploding with the pressures of teenage rebellion, infidelity, regret and professional frustration.

... Fuck it, I'm macroing this shit. Mr. Cobblepot, your opinion?

Comments

[oddityangel.livejournal.com]

To be fair, unanswerable questions are not always a bad thing (which seems to be what you were driving at with that 'hope' bit), and despite the 'painfully aware' phrasing it doesn't seem overly cynical to me. Accepting a non-answer can sometimes mean the difference between soul searching and navel gazing. I don't think he necessarily means art should inspire existential dread (There are no answers, it's meaningless to try to answer the great questions. Everything is dark. Isn't the void of space terrifying?), perhaps he only means that there is as much to examine and take from the question itself as its 'answer', and that generally leads to more questions and eventually you realize you're less sure than when you started.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure what I'm getting at here, I'm pretty sleepy.

That said, I do like the occasional affirmation of ideals I believe to be important in the things I choose to watch/read, which is where the 'lighter' (in terms of spirit, not content) novels and comics come in.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's not always a bad thing, and wasn't trying to say that it should NEVER be that way. But he seems to be putting it out there as THE blanket law of "Good Art," and even if he isn't, it's one that's followed by far too many out there. THAT is cynical to me.

, ... perhaps he only means that there is as much to examine and take from the question itself as its 'answer', and that generally leads to more questions and eventually you realize you're less sure than when you started.

It's a great thing to see art that challenges and provokes thought and introspection, but Jesus, I think that naval-gazing wankery is every bit as bad as the other end, where idiots watch movies for empty enjoyment and look down upon others for daring to think at all.