Jonathan franzen influenced by people who came

The essay describes the experience of being thought of as difficult by his readers and his own experience at reading difficult books.

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Franzen then provides an extended commentary on most of Gaddis's novels. The essay has attracted strong reactions. Novelist Ben Marcus had a negative opinion. The essay begins by describing some of the negative reactions his third novel, The Corrections , received. One letter writer, identified as " Mrs. M— from Maryland", had a list of 30 vocabulary words like "diurnality" and "antipodes" and some flowery phrases like "electro-pointillist Santa Claus faces" from the novel that she did not approve of.

She asked who Franzen was writing for, since it was certainly not the "average person who just enjoys a good read. Franzen finds himself ambivalent about his reaction to Mrs. He credits this ambivalence to his parents. Franzen allows that it is quite possible for a novel to fulfill both models. But he says that the models diverge when the novel is difficult.