Why did Jonathan Franzen Criticize Edith Wharton?

I'm somewhat baffled that Mr. Franzen chose to "go after" Edith Wharton in a recent New Yorker article. Any thoughts on that? Anyone?

Farther Away by Jonathan Franzen

"What Franzen is getting at is the concept of being "islanded," the notion that — no matter what — we are on our own, all the time. This is among his fascinations; there's a reason his first essay collection was called "How to Be Alone." In that sense, all of it — from the kid in that car to the teenager wandering New York to the birder on Robinson Crusoe's island — is of a piece with David Foster Wallace and even Neil Armstrong: isolated dots of consciousness in a capricious universe, trying to find a point of real connection before time runs out. "The prospect of pain generally, the pain of loss, of breakup, of death, is what makes it so tempting to avoid love and stay safely in the world of liking," Franzen acknowledges, but in the end, it is the counter-argument that lingers, even (or especially) when it leaves us exposed." - David L. Ulin (from a recent LA Times book review)

Vancouver B.C.

Behold the great northwest! The photograph says it all.

Helicopter Parents and Today's Youth

"My own view remains predictably twisty, fraught, and disloyal. Parents, in my opinion, have to be finessed, thought around, even as we love them: They are so colossally wrong about so many important things. And even when they are not, paradoxically, even when they are 100 percent right, the imperative remains the same: To live an "adult" life, a meaningful life, it is necessary, I would argue, to engage in a kind of symbolic self-orphaning. The process will be different for every person. I have my own inspirational cast of characters in this regard, a set of willful, heroic self-orphaners, past and present, whom I continue to revere: Mozart, the musical child prodigy who successfully rebelled against his insanely grasping and narcissistic father (Leopold Moz art), who for years shopped him around the courts of Europe as a sort of family cash cow; Sigmund Freud, who, by way of unflinching self-analysis, discovered that it was possible to love and hate something or someone at one and the same time (mothers and fathers included) and that such painfully "mixed emotion" was also inescapably human; Virginia Woolf, who in spite of childhood loss, mental illness, and an acute sense of the sex-prejudice she saw everywhere around her, not only forged a life as a great modernist writer, but made her life an incorrigibly honest and vulnerable one.

In a journal entry from 1928 collected in A Writer's Diary, Woolf wrote the following (long after his death) about her brilliant, troubled, well-meaning, tyrannical, depressive, enormously distinguished father—Sir Leslie Stephen, model for Mr. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse and one of the great English "men of letters" of the 19th century:

Father's birthday. He would have been 96, 96, yes, today; and could have been 96, like other people one had known: but mercifully was not. His life would have entirely ended mine. What would have happened? No writing, no books—inconceivable...

The sentimental pathology of the American middle-class family—not to mention the mind-warping digitalization of everyday life—usually militates against such ruthless candor. But what the Life of the Orphan teaches—has taught me at least—is that it is indeed the self-conscious abrogation of one's inheritance, the "making strange" of received ideas, the cultivation of a willingness to defy, debunk, or just plain old disappoint one's parents, that is the absolute precondition, now more than ever, for intellectual and emotional freedom."
- Terry Castle, from Don't Pick Up: Why Kids Need to Separate from their Parents (in the most recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education)

Seattle

Seattle is one of those cities that really tugs at one's imagination - there in the Pacific Northwest at the edge of the continent, beckoning for strangers and new arrivals like my Irish grandfather, who settled there as a dispatcher for the fire department. Memories of lush greenery, dense foliage, intense trees, leaves, ferns, hilly streets, urban fish markets, marvelous skyscrapers, harbor views,  ferry boats, and yes, rain. Don't get me started on Vancouver, B.C. I love that place too...

Oh Botheration...

"Oh botheration...don't you be moral." - Sydney Carton to Mr. Stryver

The Elderly Couple

I once had a dream about a strange encounter, a dream, mind you, lest anyone get the wrong idea... I was traversing the idyllic college campus at the hour when a strange elderly couple happened to be occupying the benches on a quiet trapezoidal enclave near the quad, the old woman, covered in dignified wraps, knitting a scarf somewhat watchfully, while the old man, her spouse, dressed in suit and tie with a derby hat, was absent-mindedly fingering an old pocket watch as if counting figures in his head. As I strode past them half-oblivious to their banal postures,  contemplating my morning routine in obvious silence, trying to sail swiftly by,  through the evaporating mist, the old woman casually fixed her glare upon me and spoke, as if for the first time ever: "You are a MOST brazen young man, to walk past without paying due deference to YOUR LORD." - "Excuse me?"  I sputtered, lurching to a halt, looking around for the object of my supposed worship.  She continued: "You come to this place, you wander to these coordinates, to this very corridor,  this garden inlet, you behold us sitting here before you and you simply walk past us without bowing down in thanks and gratitude to HIM who is your ETERNAL BENEFACTOR!  He who beckons to you, who provides for you, who blesses you, who makes possible for you every good thing and fair outcome!" "Look lady," I ventured, grasping for innocuous remarks to help diffuse the situation. "I... don't... believe... we've met before, but I hope you have a great day. Really. It looks like we've got a nice one on tap, if those clouds stay where they are." But at this point her knitting falls from her hands as she becomes even more indignant, rebuking me in turn: "Such paltry small talk is unacceptable. Have ye not even one brief word of thanks to HIM, for this inimitable gift that HE bestows upon thee, this ongoing banquet, this memorable journey, this joyful drama that  HE and HE ALONE has made possible and continues to lay at your incorrigible feet?" Pausing again...  HIM? I say to myself snarkily. This old geezer sitting right here! The old man looks up smiling at me in a feeble, absent-minded way.  "Are you serious about your husband?" I offer. And she: "Quite serious. How could I not be serious. Is this not simple enough for you? Is this not accessible enough?" What?  I mumbled to myself: "Thanks a lot...there... old man for this universe you've given us... which may be in need of a tune-up soon...heh heh heh..."  "Stop!" she interrupts. "Say it to HIM. Kneel before thy LORD and tell it to HIM. And lose the sarcasm now!" By now I'm feeling strangely defensive, and, somewhat disoriented from being caught up in this surreal scene, I find myself crouching down, addressing the old man: "It's....uhm.... quite a universe you've got here. Many good things to be grateful for....like...[looking around]... birds, trees, flowers, clouds, comfortable benches, traffic signals, fresh coffee - so many amazing perks. Thank you sir....I have no immediate complaints off the top of my head - speaking for myself that is. Ha. Ha." But even then, the old lady is not mollified. "Quite a universe - humph? Is that all you can say to HIM who gives unceasingly that thou mayest live abundantly, that thou mayest flourish and prosper and learn continuously from the intricate labyrinth which even now you continue to de-value? You store up WRATH for yourself on the day of judgment!" The old man looking down at the bench feeling for splinters, seemingly humbled by the spectacle of it all, looks up at me ever so briefly as if to say: "This universe is okay then, it's not so imperfect as people seem to think? You like it well enough then - eh?" But instead of responding to these unsaid remarks I continued my dialogue with the old woman: "I beg your pardon, madam," I say, holding my temper in check for the moment "but you seem to be talking as if this gentleman, your spouse, were some sort of god or something?"" And she: " Some sort of god? Some mere random deity sent to visit you, you ingrate, you spoiled child! You impudent, wicked cretin, you insubstantial ball of clay, you dust-ridden miscreant! You small-time petty blasphemer. Puer aeternus! We simplify for your benefit. We make things tangible and accessible to you, and still you walk past us indifferent to this sublime moment of revelation! You have a most feeble memory, young man. Is this not what you yourself had once asked for during a moment of excruciating pain???" She had succeeded by now at embarrassing me. Was this some strange payback for a request I had made (in my turbulent adolescence, no doubt) to garner a direct visitation from the Almighty? (A doubting Thomas, I've been called that before, but this was ridiculous.) "I meant to say," (trying again, playing along with her premise), "that I am honored to be part of such an amazingly complicated and always-interesting universe." But at this point my inner skeptic was getting the better of me. "May I point out, however, that along with such feelings of awe and wonder, one cannot help but be stricken at times with other more ambivalent emotions, a cosmic vertigo if you like; such gratitude as we can muster is leavened with dread, angst, trepidation, bewilderment, and not a small amount of frustration, even anger at having to undergo various unasked-for pain and difficulty... It is in our nature, my good lady, to imagine how things might have been other than they in fact are...We dream, do we not, of other possible worlds, new and improved and without all the chaos...I mean we humans can't take responsibility for everything that goes wrong in this world - can we?" The woman sat silent, stone-faced. "By the way," I continue, "does your husband want to say anything in reply to my remarks?" "HE is not one for small talk. I speak for him as a rule; yet being a woman, I am quite used to being overlooked, ignored, de-valued, not to mention nay-sayed, but I am his voice, nevertheless. We work as one unit. My words typically fall by the wayside although they have upon them the divine stamp of approval, have no doubt.  "But you do understand what I'm getting at - don't you? People want to be grateful - but they do have issues. And they seldom get the direct feedback that they crave - aside from the incoherent ravings of eccentrics and would-be prophets. They don't hear back from you guys; they don't feel your presence." The woman picks up her knitting and shoots me another piercing glare. "And look you now. What is happening at this very moment? We ARE having this marvelous conversation, but you take it as an affront, an attack, an accusation, a hassle, a nuisance, a let-down, a distraction from your normal empty chatter, your wretched daily routine. So be it. And will you go away satisfied even if I should tell you all of the answers you ever longed to hear? It is not in your nature to be satisfied with anything that the divine wisdom might impart to you..." At this point, stunned by the weird circus atmosphere that I find myself at a loss for words. "Divine wisdom," I mumble to myself. Is that what this is???  "As I've said," her voice growing soft, "I am used to being slighted, disparaged, rejected, but mark my words, your perception is warped, that's why you fail to bow down and give thanks." I walk on (or wake up, rather) intending that my skeptical lawyer, Phil, should hear about this...