randomWalks

Status and anxiety figure prominently in his recent essay in the New Yorker on novelist William Gaddis ("Carpenter's Gothic," "JR"). In it, Franzen divides novelists into two camps: "Status" authors see difficulty as a signal of excellence that "the author has disdained cheap compromise and stayed true to an artistic vision." "Contract" writers want to entertain and connect with readers. This, Franzen says, is what he is. He then confesses, "I have started (in many cases, more than once) 'Moby-Dick,' 'The Man Without Qualities,' 'Mason & Dixon,' 'Don Quixote,' 'Remembrance of Things Past,' 'Doctor Faustus,' 'Naked Lunch,' 'The Golden Bowl' and 'The Golden Notebook' without coming anywhere near finishing them." Difficult books, he says, are no longer what he aspires to write.