I laughed when I saw it: surely this was some kind of hilarious New Yorker meta-joke, an article by Jonathan Franzen, a writer with whom I struggle entirely on the basis of his privilege, about struggling to sympathize with Edith Wharton on the basis of her privilege? What delicious irony! For who could be less qualified to discuss the writing of women than a straight white male writer, purportedly worth $70 million at this point, who once expressed his distress that women, encouraged by Oprah, might read and ruin his manly, manly books? Could there be any better pot-kettle-black joke than this?

”

—

The Rejectionist: Special Guest Post: Meg Clark on Jonathan Franzen

Franzen angers me.