Have a Laugh at Jonathan Franzen's Expense!

[Straker]

Try this:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/01/30/jonathan_franzen_ebooks_are_not_for_serious_readers_.html

Then this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-shaffer/jonathan-franzen-e-books_b_1242185.html

[Sean Patrick Fox]

Classic. Doesn't bother me if someone prefers print version over eBook - I was certainly like that before I got my Kindle - but I wouldn't go around demeaning the entire medium.

[Grumbles]

I can somewhat relate.  I find that I have replaced paperback copies with eBooks, for those that I would have purchased in hardback I am still buying in hardback.  The hardback "library" copies still have a certain timelessness to them, I am not interested in getting those in electronic form (not yet anyway-- but I am a recent convert as of December).

It isn't an original thought, but I look forward to books coming with an electronic copy in the same way vinyl records do.  If you buy vinyl, you get a code for the free download to put on your iPod.  Similarly, if you by certain movies, you get a dvd/blue-ray and the digital copy.  I think it is eventually going to happen, but it won't be anytime soon...

[MichelleR]

Franzen is incapable of opening his mouth without snobbery spewing out. Remember how he didn't want Oprah to pick The Corrections?

So much of reading is sustained in this country, I think, by the fact that women read while men are off golfing or watching football on TV or playing with their flight simulator or whatever. I worry — I'm sorry that it's, uh — I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience and I've heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say "If I hadn't heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it." Those are male readers speaking. I see this as my book, my creation

So, in short, men who read print books are a million times cooler than a woman with a Kindle. 

[Todd Trumpet]

I couldn't finish "THE CORRECTIONS".  I thought the prose was brilliant, but after 150 pages, I couldn't stand to spend any more time with the characters.

Now I worry I might have the same reaction to Jonathan Franzen himself...

Todd

[Lursa (aka 9MMare)]

If images/charts/pics etc arent a factor, it all comes down to ergonomics and comfort for me, and I'll read a book on my Kindle any day over a hard copy.


That said, I am still purchasing most of my non-fiction in hard copy and still have a shelf of hard copy books - fiction and non - to be read. And $$ is a factor too...if there's something I want to read and the e-book price is too high and the hard copy is on sale....bingo!

But I do prefer to read on my K.

[Jon Olson]

I love Franzen's books, but he has a way of putting his foot in his mouth.

[Tony Rabig]

If memory serves, when The Talisman had just been published, Stephen King and Peter Straub gave a number of interviews; in one of them the subject of expensive collector's market limited editions came up, and there was a brief discussion of these.  Either King or Straub (I no longer remember which) said that if you had the book printed on long rolls of brown butcher paper it was still the book, that it was the words that counted.

Printed volume, rolls of brown butcher paper, ereader screen -- it's the words that count.  If Franzen can't get that maybe he's not quite the serious person he thinks he is.

[John A. A. Logan]

The deep irony here, so deep that I'm surprised Mr Franzen wandered into this subject area of "hard copy having more of a sense of permanence", is that when the UK edition of his novel FREEDOM was published in 2010, he was invited on to a BBC arts programme to do a reading from the novel. He had to stop mid-reading, red-faced, as he realised that the UK edition of his novel was not the version that had been supposed to go to press. Thousands of copies of the hardback subsequently had to be pulped. Readers who had already bought it were offered refunds by British book-shops. Even more ironical, however, was that the novel had already been reviewed and no critic had noticed the typos and other mistakes that necessitated the book's hard-copy recall.

[DYB]

The deep irony here, so deep that I'm surprised Mr Franzen wandered into this subject area of "hard copy having more of a sense of permanence", is that when the UK edition of his novel FREEDOM was published in 2010, he was invited on to a BBC arts programme to do a reading from the novel. He had to stop mid-reading, red-faced, as he realised that the UK edition of his novel was not the version that had been supposed to go to press. Thousands of copies of the hardback subsequently had to be pulped. Readers who had already bought it were offered refunds by British book-shops. Even more ironical, however, was that the novel had already been reviewed and no critic had noticed the typos and other mistakes that necessitated the book's hard-copy recall.

Love it!

[DYB]

And paper isn't permanent at all.  It yellows and disintegrates.  But stone doesn't!  I've love to see Franzen commission Stone Editions of his works.  To be more permanent.  Oh wait.  Stone can crack and break.  Let's do a Steel Edition!  Every word of his novels engraved into Steel.  Talk about permanence!

[mgohearn]

I see in the Slate photo that he uses a microphone (and an entire audio system's worth of electronics) to speak on stage.

[JimJ]

Franzen is incapable of opening his mouth without snobbery spewing out. Remember how he didn't want Oprah to pick The Corrections?

So much of reading is sustained in this country, I think, by the fact that women read while men are off golfing or watching football on TV or playing with their flight simulator or whatever. I worry — I'm sorry that it's, uh — I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience and I've heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say "If I hadn't heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it." Those are male readers speaking. I see this as my book, my creation

So, in short, men who read print books are a million times cooler than a woman with a Kindle. 

I understand his point there though. If you want to reach a male audience, having Oprah endorse your book is the kiss of death. He could've worded it better though (flight simulator? LOL).

As for his theory about hard copy books being more permanent, give me a copy of The Corrections and some white out and I'll disprove that pretty quick.

[Chad Winters]

not to mention all the books I cannot read because they are out of print because they were only available in "permanent" editions that are impossible to get a hold of and not worth it to a publisher to re-print.

How is having your book out of print and unavailable better? Does he not understand the old-fashioned publisher system and how hard it is to keep mid-list books in print?

[QuantumIguana]

Paper books to have some advantages, and so do e-books. The snobbery gets ridiculous. People get caught up in bubbles. Those who sneer at e-books are more likely to have friends who also sneer at e-books. Reading a book is reading a book, regardless of the format.

If I get a book on my Kindle, I have every reason to expect that it hasn't been altered, the same with paper books. But even paper books aren't permanent, it isn't uncommon to have future editions of paper books with changes. And even if the author doesn't make changes, changes can be made. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is available both in paper and e-book.

Some people claimed that the Kindle display is pixelated, I haven't noticed any pixelation. My reading experience on the Kindle is the same as in paper. Of course, with the Kindle, my hand doesn't get tired holding the book open.

And even if we accept that his type of books are "serious" and others are not (I reject this), it simply isn't true that e-reader owners aren't reading the "serious" books. Of course, the snobs will accuse the e-reader owners of lying if they claim to read "serious" books.

[CS]

Some people claimed that the Kindle display is pixelated, I haven't noticed any pixelation.

They might be referring to those horrible Topaz books. Pixelated isn't the word I'd use for those, but they do look terrible.

[Elizabeth Ann West]

And paper isn't permanent at all.  It yellows and disintegrates.  But stone doesn't!  I've love to see Franzen commission Stone Editions of his works.  To be more permanent.  Oh wait.  Stone can crack and break.  Let's do a Steel Edition!  Every word of his novels engraved into Steel.  Talk about permanence!

Until it gets a microscopic scratch and rusts. LOL.

Nothing is permanent. Paper permanent, indeed. Though I was tickled pink to find my old college and high school .doc files on an old back up CD-ROM this past weekend. Files, over 13 years old, still able to open and change like it was yesterday...

[QuantumIguana]

Project Gutenberg's list of top 100 downloads.

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/scores/top

That people with e-readers download these books refutes his claims. Of course, some people will claim that people merely download them, but don't read them. And even for books that people have to pay for, I've seen people desperately claim that people are paying for them but not reading them. Most people read the books they pay for, and while not every free classic is read, a whole lot are.

Some of these people seem to think we're all reading Captain Underpants. I just now looked it up, Captain Underpants is not available for the Kindle, it is only available in paper. Yes, it is the paper book readers who are reading Captain Underpants. Should we assume the author of the article is a reader of Captain Underpants? It would be grossly unfair, but turnabout is fair play.

[4eyesbooks]

If he feels so strongly against e-books why does he utlize that medium for some of his very own works?  Do you think he washes his horrid, dirty e-book money before he uses it?

[MichelleR]

I understand his point there though. If you want to reach a male audience, having Oprah endorse your book is the kiss of death. He could've worded it better though (flight simulator? LOL).

I know every writer has an ideal reader in their head, and that apparently his ideal reader needs to have a penis, but I still don't get the importance. Women read more than men do, an Oprah endorsement sells books, and any man who is scared to read something because a lot of women are also reading it has more issues than The National Geographic.

Oprah also picked a couple Dickens books -- did they become girly all of a sudden? How about Cormac McCarthy, Eli Weisel, Ken Follett, William Faulkner, Steinbeck, Tolstoy? What he chose to do was disdain the readers he had, in order to court readers who disdain books not based on quality, but on who else is reading them.

Yes, there are some books that appeal more to women, some more to men, but this is why the Good Lord invented blurbs.