EXCLUSIVE: Debate with Franzen

ONLY AT THIS BLOG! Here is the full text of my debate with oft-challenged award-winning novelist Jonathan Franzen.

KING WENCLAS: I note that you support John Kerry because you think he'll give out more arts grant money. Isn't this a risky stance for you to take, given the scandal created (exposed by the ULA) when you accepted NEA taxpayer money you clearly didn't need?

FRANZEN:

KW: You gave several different versions of what you did with the NEA money. Did you ever decide how you spent it? Wasn't it a case of you simply juggling around funds? Didn't it in fact go to furnish your walls?

F:

KW: When will you apologize for slandering the ULA to the NY TIMES last February?

F:

KW: Your buddy Tom Bissell-- who seems to be every establishment writer's buddy-- is in hot water over the HARPER'S plagiarism scandal. Any comment?

F:

KW: How do you answer charges that your writing is wordy, stiff, and devoid of real intelligence?

F:

KW: Is it true that, despite your background and wealth, you're a Marxist?

F:

KW: How can you be a Marxist and be completely out of touch with working class writers?

F:

KW: Haven't you been the beneficiary of nonstop governmental, foundational, and corporate largesse?

F:

KW: Do you think the future of American literature resides in patrician authors like yourself?

F:

KW: Are you as slow-witted as you come across?

F:

KW: Is that why you won't enter on-line forums? Or are you simply above all that?

F:

KW: What does it say about contemporary letters that you're enervated, predictable, bland, cowardly, casually corrupt, and dull-- yet you're the best novelist the System has to offer?

F:

KW: Aren't you as much a propped-up stooge-- no matter how well-meaning and sincere-- as President Bush?

F:

(Who won? You be the judge.)