Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword must have had a fight with a writer.
For who can insult more sharply, who can cut deeper, who can slash an opponent to the bone like a writer, who has sharpened the tool of words throughout her whole career.
Who wants to watch while munching popcorn as the greatest literary minds of our time go at each other- sometimes on Twitter? I DO.
Writers have always fought. As opponents competing for the same slice of public attention, they’re bound to jealous. As readers and critics of one another’s work, they’re bound to find things they don’t like. As a profoundly sensitive notably egotistical group, they are ultimately bound to fight back once the feud begins.
Gore Vidal hated Truman Capote, calling him a “Kansas housewife, without all the prejudices. Hemingway and Gertrude Stein treated each other like brothers until one bad fight tore them apart and each became a very unflattering caricature in the other’s work. H.G. Wells wrote a hilarious impression of Henry James’ style that the latter was never able to forgive.
Us young folks missed out on all those, but we are deliciously lucky that writers can now openly attack one another on the internet. We can see the arena in all its glory, we can watch these skinny gladiators hack and beat at one another with attack both sharp and blunt. We can cheer for winners, jeer at losers, and each and every one of us can, like Caesar, give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
My favorite current feud started with Jonathan Franzen. Franzen published this piece in The Guardian. If you don’t feel like reading it, I’ll give you the gist: the modern world is bad. Cellphones are bad, the internet is bad, and everything was better when he was young. Writers who work at an online platform to reach readers and sell their books are actually selling out and spending their time yakking about nothing rather than being like him. He, you see, is dedicated to the purity of his ART. He name-checked a number of pretty big-deal writers, who immediately struck back.
Dear #Franzen: @MargaretAtwood @JoyceCarolOates @nycnovel @NathanEnglander @Shteyngart and I are fine with Twitter. Enjoy your ivory tower.
— Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) September 16, 2013
Franzen accused writers of “Jennifer Weiner-ish self promotion.” Weiner responded.
For the sin of Twitter, for the sin of Macs, for the sin of waving my mom's cane around, yelling "I'm Jonathan Franzen now get off my lawn!"
— Jennifer Weiner (@jenniferweiner) September 13, 2013
Franzen’s rant reeks of privilege. He uses the internet to express distaste for the internet. He attacks platforms that allow women and POC to network and subvert the old-white-man paradigm of publishing. He rambles tangentially, about the difference between Mac and PC and how it’s a metaphor for EVERYTHING. In short, Franzen hates the modern world for the same reason so many aging powerhouses hate the modern world: because it isn’t the world that gave them power in the first place. He’s getting old, his influence is waning, and all the brightness in the world is going with him. Naturally.
The best part about Franzen’s feud with Weiner/Rushdie/Oprah/Twitter/everyone under 50 is that it shows us clearly what he wants and who he is. We watch from the stands of the coliseum as he fights a new generation of writers: he with a rusty typewriter and a ream of yellowed paper, they with sharp-edged MacBooks, blunt little smartphones, and the network of connected fans behind them. I’ll watch the bloodbath with pleasure, and when the time comes to show mercy to guys like Franzen, I will turn my thumb down.
For I am Caesar and this is my proclamation: Read Salman Rushdie, Jennifer Weiner, Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, John Scalzi, Sherman Alexie, Neil Gaiman… read any writer who understands that the world of books is changing and has the sense to change with it rather than behave like a bitter fossilized hater. Don’t read Jonathan Franzen. Don’t worry, he doesn’t think you’re smart enough to understand him, anyway.