Literary Readings: Jonathan Franzen and Lorrie Moore (11/13/2010)

mandy — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

New York, New York

In the deeply downtrodden, recession smashed state that the publishing industry is in, and in a culture in which few people seem to have the attention span to read an entire novel (much less one nearly 600 pages long), it seemed unlikely that America would ever crown yet another Great American Novelist. However, Jonathan Franzen has been given such a title by many media outlets, some of which showed a photo of President Obama carrying Franzen's latest work, Freedom. Franzen’s readings across the country have lead to lines around the block, giving life to a dying industry. But all of the fawning and attention directed at Franzen has lead some writers, like Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner, to wonder if writing by men is automatically taken more seriously than writing by women, who are often written off as "chick lit" or left to play second fiddle.

This question seemed to be in the air at the opening of the 92nd Street Y’s talk with Lorrie Moore and Jonathan Franzen. Despite being a well known and prolific writer, Moore was the first to read, and functioned much like the opening act at a concert, warming up the crowd for the headliner. She even made a joke out of the situation, choosing to begin by reciting the lines: “Opening acts,/opening acts/I’m not a girl complaining,/I’m just facing facts.” Moore then launched into singing part of the song “We Shall Overcome,” poking fun at her underdog status.

While the majority of the attendees seemed to be there for Franzen, Moore managed to solicit more laughs in the end with her warm, laid back nature as she read from her novel A Gate at the Stairs. Franzen’s reading of his recent, critically lauded Freedom was, by comparison, a bit hurried and self-conscious. He did not stop to pause over the language and coy jokes the way Moore did as she languidly hovered over the lines in her story that drew the most laughter. This caused her work to come across as more humorous than Frazen’s, though they both implanted plenty of wry observation into their respective works.

Both authors chose to read passages that depicted women naively giving all of themselves to men who do not love them quite as much as they assume, with Moore’s being from the woman’s point of view and Franzen from the man’s. The similarity of their two plots made it seem as though they were reading two sides of the same story.

Following the reading, a moderator took questions from the audience. One audience member questioned whether there was a connection between being from the Midwest and writing humorously. Moore responded that perhaps it is the result of the terrible weather in the Midwest, and that they have to find ways to amuse themselves. Franzed added that “those who can leave the Midwest must have mastered one coping skill, such as flight,” and Moore noted that perhaps humor is another of those coping skills.

During the course of the evening, Moore’s warmth and Franzen’s self-consciousness showed that, unlike stars of other artistic mediums, those of the literary realm are much more grounded, even when endless lines of fans wait in rapt anticipation for them to autograph their newly purchased books.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, November 25th 2010

Gabriel García Márquez: A Life

admin — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Gerald Martin

Alfred A. Knopf

In his exhaustively researched biography of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Gerald Martin, who spent seventeen years examining every aspect of Marquez’s life and interviewing over 300 people, beautifully takes the reader through the life and times of one of Latin America’s most influential writers, a Nobel Prize winner, and one of the most popular novelist in the last fifty years.

Martin traces Márquez’s (or “Gabo” as he is affectionately referred to throughout the biography) early beginnings back to Aratacata’s early days and to the life of Colonel Nicholás R. Márquez Mejia, Gabo’s maternal grandfather, who played an influential and supportive role in the young boy’s life until he was swooped up by his nomadic parents at nine years old. It’s during that time, Martin writes, that the inspiration for One Hundred Years of Solitude was born and where Gabo learned of magic via his superstitious grandmother.

Living with his parents, Martin writes of the antagonistic relationship with his philandering father, his secondary school years where writes poetry and is acknowledged as a brilliant young scholar, to his University days as a law student, who has no interest in the law, but in literature.

Martin painstakingly examines Gabo’s career as an investigative journalist, his travels to Europe and later to Mexico, where he wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude. The novel was published six years later, catapulting Márquez to fame, fortune and friendships with notable leaders of the left including Spain’s Felipe Gonzàlez, France’s François Mitterand, and Cuba’s Fidel Castro—a source of controversy and criticism for the author who has been a lifelong Liberal.

Gabriel García Márquez: A Life is a magical and intoxicating book that is much more than one man’s life story; it is part history, part cultural studies, and part political science. Gerald Martin provides a mesmerizing tribute to an extraordinary writer.

Written by: Rebeca Schiller, June 28th 2009