Scratch Mag has a fantastic interview of Jonathan Franzen by Manjula Martin. Martin is friendly to Franzen, but she doesn’t shy away from taking the novelist to task on some of his opinions. The result is a great conversation that avoids some of the knee-jerk Franzen-hate that seems to pop up on the Internet every so often; and at the same time Franzen, perhaps moderated by Martin’s presence, shies away from some of his more glib critiques of things he doesn’t like.

You should read the whole thing, but here are some highlights and thoughts:

To begin with, Franzen, though he makes big money on his books, is uncomfortable with money and doesn’t like the practice of huge advances for marquee novelists:

MM: What was your first book deal like?

JF: You know, it was a saner publishing world back then. Nowadays I think The Twenty-Seventh City would have gotten a six-figure advance just because, whatever its merits are in hindsight, it was considered an impressive first novel. But when you’re spending half a million dollars on a hot first novel, well, that’s twenty-four $20,000 advances you’re not giving to twenty-four other people.

MM: So you’re not a fan of the practice of publishers giving huge advances to authors?

JF: What would be the argument for it?

Later:

JF: I think the literary novelist who makes money is like a fish in a tweed suit. Flannery O’Connor talks about the fiction writer’s concern being “a poverty fundamental to mankind.” You lose touch with that impoverishment at your own risk.

I like that—though, to be fair, it’s awfully easy to talk about how much you hate money when you’ve got boatloads of it, as Franzen does.

On the hatred Franzen frequently receives at the hands of bloggers and tweeters, Franzen and Martin seem to be in agreement:

MM: That seems to happen pretty consistently with you. The literary world tends to react strongly to things you say in public. To me, it’s beyond being about you as a writer and more about you as…

JF: As a psychological object?

MM: Yes, I was going to say as a symbol. A symbol of the literary establishment, perhaps.

That seems about right—but when the subject turns to privilege, Franzen is much less circumspect than I would like him to be about the way his place as a white male with a middle-class upbringing might inform his less popular opinions, or people’s reactions to them:

MM: It’s interesting that you compare yourself to a politician, because part of being in the position to have everybody talking about you in the first place means you already have power— you’re coming from a place of power.

JF: The only power that matters to me—and it matters a lot—is the power of writing. If the writing is weak, everything else is bullshit. But, yeah, sure, people want the famous writer to endorse this and appear at that and support this cause and comment on that current event. It’s a kind of power, I guess, but only in a fairly narrow little world. For me, the important thing to do with power is to try to stand up for those who have less of it. My pet projects have to do with threatened migratory birds, illegal hunting of migratory birds—animals that by definition have no voice in the public discussion. I also do my best to promote cliché-free writing by younger writers. I have, my whole career, tried to bring public attention to women writers who belong in the canon and who’ve been undervalued.

The power of writing is important, and bravo to Franzen using what power he has to “stand up for those who have less of it”—but “the only power that matters”? There are many kinds of power in the world—the power of politics, of money, of violence. Not having to worry about these kinds of power is a luxury that Franzen enjoys as a white male who also happens to be super-rich. He’s intelligent enough to know it, and he should absolutely acknowledge the fact.

Eventually, and inevitably, the subject turns to social media and Twitter, and it’s here where Martin—who describes herself as a “somewhat begrudging eager participant”—pushes back on Franzen. It’s fairly clear from this exchange that Franzen’s arguments against Twitter as a medium of discourse are knee-jerk, half baked, and rooted in an ignorance of the platform.

But on the media landscape the Internet has created, Franzen is spot-on. I’ve said this before, but it’s best to view Franzen’s critique of technoconsumerism as a Marxist one: The bourgeoisie (in this case tech companies) exploit the proletariat (struggling writers), greedily accruing capital while simultaneously propogating an ideology of empowerment and self-actualization (TED talks, anyone?) that fools the workers into thinking they actually have a shot at succeeding:

MM: …How do you make the connection between the tech corporations that have become global economic powers and the economic environment for writers, particularly freelancers and non-stars?

JF: I think the tech corporations are like the nineteenth-century coal magnates, and the free-lance writers are like the people slaving in the mines, the only difference being that the tech corporations can’t stop congratulating themselves on how they’ve liberated everybody.

Whatever you think of Franzen, he’s spot on in this critique—pay journalists, things shouldn’t be free, etc. The fact that Apple shareholders get rich while the journalists and writers who provide the content for people’s iPads see layoffs and pay cuts should absolutely terrify us. Franzen’s picked the wrong bogeyman, unfortunately—instead of attacking Twitter, which is a fairly innocuous medium of communication, why not go after, say, TED talks? They basically consist of a) the new technoconsumerism talking to itself about how it’s saving the world and b) content creators trying to convince themselves that they can somehow get a piece of the revenue pie if they’re just true to themselves, or something. (Put that in your next book, Franzen!)

Anyway, read the whole thing, then come back here and share your thoughts.