"Why Bother?", originally published as "Perchance to Dream: In the Age of Images, a Reason to Write Novels", is a literary essay by American novelistJonathan Franzen. It is often referred to as "The Harper's Essay".[1][2] First published in the April 1996 issue of Harper's magazine, the essay concerns the persistence of reading within the context of technological growth and distraction. Franzen recounts his meditations on the state and possibility of the novel form, often against the backdrop of his personal experience, eventually concluding that the novel still has potential cultural agency in the United States, and often gains it by paradoxical drives of both culture and author.
The article was originally titled in reference to Hamlet, but Franzen humorously notes that most interviewers entirely missed the reference.
The essay was initially published in the April 1996 issue of Harper's between the publication of Franzen's novels Strong Motion (1992) and The Corrections (2001). Franzen expanded and revised the essay, re-titling it "Why Bother?", and published it in his 2002 essay collection How to Be Alone. In the introduction to the collection, Franzen explained his changing the title as a response to the many interviewers asking about the essay but failing to understand its intention, believing the essay to be an explicit promise on Franzen's part of a third "Big Social Novel" featuring a good deal of local detail and observation.[3] Franzen, instead, thought of the essay as a defense of reading and writing literature for its own sake in a modern world, expanding the essay later in response.[3] Franzen noted that the original title was chosen by a Harper's editor hoping for easy recognition with Hamlet's soliloquy, but that interviewers frequently referred to the work as "The Harper's Essay". The essay makes frequent reference to the Paula Fox novel Desperate Characters, the work of linguistic anthropologist Shirley Brice Heath, Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22, and previous literary manifestos of Philip Roth, Flannery O'Connor and Tom Wolfe.
Content
Franzen recounts his "despair about the American novel" beginning in 1991 during what he viewed as the media assent to the jingoism surrounding the Gulf War and the presidency of George H. W. Bush. During this time, Franzen finds parallels to his own life's ambiguities surrounding a war to those of the Brooklyn protagonist in the novel Desperate Characters dealing with the despair surrounding the Vietnam War. Franzen also notes the novel's possible interpretation that in such times literary representation may fail to rise to desperate settings, surmising that the novel may precede Phillip Roth's declaiming of the realistic novel in the 1980s. During those years, however, Franzen believed the aesthetic solution was a push towards illogical and surreal representations of contemporary culture, using as an example Joseph Heller, particularly the novel Catch-22. Franzen completed his first novel The Twenty-Seventh City in this style with the hopes that it would spark social change, but despite its being published to warm reviews, the work garnered little attention from the culture at large. Franzen found himself attributing this to the gap presented by magazines and newspapers no longer committing to book reviews in significant numbers due to the market having little use for the individual "final" product of writers, as opposed to more temporary and dispensable forms of entertainment. Franzen suspected up to the time of the late-Victorians, novels still had the cultural role and expectations of instructing and possibly constructively affronting social sensibilities; electronic media from journalism to music having taken both these roles, with the rise of visual media and its quick delivery forcing all recognition to a very literal level.
Franzen rejects the thesis presented by Tom Wolfe in "Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast" on grounds that fiction based on journalism seldom is given lasting media interest in the culture at large
Franzen finds these developments sharply in contrast to the circumstances and rewards of lasting attention promised in Tom Wolfe's literary manifesto, "Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast". In contrast, Franzen posits that in the current cultural, media, and technological circumstances, major cultural problems are themselves cognitively reduced to surface issues for which immediate cures must be found. Franzen's recognition of these trends, along with the quick rise and cultural saturation of electronic media temporarily left him in despair as to the possibility of universal cultural engagement.
During this period of personal disillusionment, Franzen came to be acquainted with Shirley Brice Heath, a linguistic anthropologist from Stanford. Franzen mentions first his astonishment at Heath's research methods, doing interviews in public places including public transit systems, airport waiting areas and resorts seeking what Heath defines as "enforced transition zones". Heath's interviews generally consist of discovering from individuals reading "substantive works of fiction" why they are reading, rather than using electronic media to stave off boredom. Heath's research found that those who continue reading this type of fiction frequently modeled on the individual enjoying reading first at a young age. Additionally, Heath found that the reading of substantive fiction is done by those of all educational backgrounds and economic positions. Heath's research divided those who developed the habit of substantively reading between those who modeled the reading of their parents, and those who found themselves social isolates as children from an early age. Those who began reading as social isolates are usually classed as more likely to become professional writers when they mature. Franzen notes that modern literature has frequently featured both writers and protagonists as social isolates, from the exiled characters of James Joyce to the self-isolates of J. D. Salinger. Extending this, he finds that many contemporary American authors have been notorious for their publicly recalcitrant nature, giving the examples of Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, and Denis Johnson.
Franzen makes frequent mention to Ancient Greek Theatre as embodying values of art still present in modern literature
In the spring of 1994, while teaching at Swarthmore College, Franzen recalls his realization that the push towards balkanization of fiction—seeking to place Women's Fiction and Gay Literature at the forefront of the curriculum — is not necessarily decided with the best interests of the authors' representative groups in mind, but more often intended as therapeutic against modern malaise, blaming "canonical" work as "Symptoms of Disease". Franzen also expresses great worry that the spread of this process will make young writers expect only to write within the context of their particular "ethnic or gender identity", ironically losing diversity of literature by seeking diverse cultural groups' literature. Franzen also cites some promise in Heath's research, finding that those who frequently read substantive fiction are those who find themselves emancipated from their original cultural heritage, making their reading a source of personal and intellectual integrity. Franzen further cites the work of Anthony Lane suggesting that while the majority of best-selling novels are of low quality, the trend holds true for a good deal of the history of the reading public. However, he does note such exceptions as Norman Mailer's ability to balance publicity with solitary work. Franzen then formulates a long-term opposition to literary culture, beginning with Plato, and extending the trend through to the contemporary arguments that literature is "undemocratic" and not politically viable. He opposes this to the long history of American literary protagonists who, though solitary, have been celebrated as exemplars of American freedom including Huckleberry Finn, Hazel Motes, and Tyrone Slothrop. Franzen suggests that the writing that shares the most political agency and aesthetic dignity would embody the values of expressive language, and urging the reader to look beyond appearances. He believes both values to be features of modern literature as well as western classics such as Oedipus Rex, but finding modern literature most effective in its tragic opposition to modern optimism. Franzen further defends the notion of literature as "depressing" by Flannery O'Connor's formulation that frequent reach for the "other" by reading marks, in fact, the absence of clinical depression. Franzen also notes that while America has always been at least in part, controlled by oppressive commerce, it has also had its victim-conquerors such as Herman Melville, who worked in spite of mental illness to deliver democratic art. Franzen concludes recounting his epiphany at being again able to read and write with a new sense of social responsibility. He advocates the possibility of tragic realism as containing potential for social change. Around this time, he also receives personal correspondence from Don DeLillo encouraging him in the path of writing as both personal freedom, with the—albeit weak—potential of changing culture in solitude as a permanent gift to writers.
Reception
In the introduction to the essay collection How to Be Alone, Franzen notes that he was frequently asked about the essay in interviews, and that may have aroused more interest than any of his fictional works.[3]
In a review of How to Be Alone for The A.V. Club, Andy Battaglia called Franzen's conclusions "a lot more heartening than might be expected", and found that the collection of essays was made far more interesting by both Franzen's tone of anxiety, as well as the controversies surrounding The Corrections being selected for Oprah's Book Club.[4]
Robert Rebein suggests that the original essay marks an intentional turning point in Franzen's style from early postmodern work to that of traditional realism.[5] Rebein further notes that if Franzen's sales numbers are any indication, The Corrections certainly accomplished some degree of the cultural notoriety he desired.[5]
Ruth Franklin, in a review of Freedom for The New Republic, found the essay to be unfocused and ultimately inconclusive as to what the goal of the Social Novel, or the novel in general should be. Her review found Franzen's novels as well as his essays to depict a great cultural urgency, but neither find ways of confronting it.[6]
In a review of The Corrections for The eXile, John Dolan criticized the novel for not realizing Franzen's ambition as expressed in the essay. Dolan suggested that while Franzen believed himself to be writing in a style influenced by social realism, he was in fact relying on film and television clichés in the construction of his novels.[7]
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career.
David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, short stories and essays, as well as a university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace is widely known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which Time magazine cited as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012.
Psychoanalytic literary criticism is literary criticism or literary theory which, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud.
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy, and interdisciplinary themes relevant to how people interpret meaning. In the humanities in modern academia, the latter style of literary scholarship is a development of critical theory. Consequently, the word theory became an umbrella term for scholarly approaches to reading texts, some of which are informed by strands of sociology and Continental philosophy.
Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.
Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections, a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist".
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with New Journalism, a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques.
William Thomas Gaddis, Jr. was an American novelist. The first and longest of his five novels, The Recognitions, was named one of TIME magazine's 100 best novels from 1923 to 2005 and two others, J R and A Frolic of His Own, won the annual U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. A collection of his essays was published posthumously as The Rush for Second Place (2002). The Letters of William Gaddis was published by Dalkey Archive Press in February 2013.
Ben Marcus is an American author and professor at Columbia University. He has written four books of fiction. His stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in publications including Harper's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, The New York Times, GQ, Salon, McSweeney's, Time, and Conjunctions. He is also the fiction editor of The American Reader. His latest book, Notes From The Fog: Stories, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in August 2018.
Oprah's Book Club was a book discussion club segment of the American talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, highlighting books chosen by host Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey started the book club in 1996, selecting a new book, usually a novel, for viewers to read and discuss each month. In total the club recommended 70 books during its 15 years.
Hysterical realism, also called recherché postmodernism, is a term coined in 2000 by English critic James Wood to describe what he sees as a literary genre typified by a strong contrast between elaborately absurd prose, plotting, or characterization, on the one hand, and careful, detailed investigations of real, specific social phenomena on the other.
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How to Be Alone is a 2002 book collecting fourteen essays by American writer Jonathan Franzen.
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"Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast" is an essay by Tom Wolfe that appeared in the November 1989 issue of Harper's Magazine criticizing the American literary establishment for retreating from realism.
Joseph Carroll is a scholar in the field of literature and evolution. He is a Curators’ Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, where he has taught since 1985.
Freedom is a 2010 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Freedom received general acclaim from book critics, and was ranked one of the best books of 2010 by several publications, and has been described as a "Great American Novel".
The Corrections is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium. The novel was awarded the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002.
"Mr. Difficult", subtitled "William Gaddis and the problem of hard-to-read books", is a 2002 essay by Jonathan Franzen that appeared in the 9/30/2002 issue of The New Yorker. It was reprinted in the paperback edition of How to Be Alone without the subtitle.
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