Another attack on the twittering classes

JONATHAN FRANZEN, the American novelist with a refreshing hatred of ebooks, smartphones and Facebook, has caused a Twitter storm following a speech delivered at Tulane University in New Orleans on Monday says The Week.

Newsroom recently published a trilogy of articles linked to the  social media fetish, ending with one by the man who coined McFB, shorthand for the dumbing down society. If you want to refresh your mind go tohttp://www.newsroompanama.com/panama/3928-modern-times-3-in-search-of-silence.html or typeModern Times in the search box on the home page to see all three articles.

The Daily Telegraph reports Franzen ranting at the audience: "Twitter is unspeakably irritating… Twitter stands for everything I oppose.

"It's hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters… it's like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it's like writing a novel without the letter 'P'. It's the ultimate irresponsible medium."

The ensuing Twitter storm was predictable and, rather proves Franzen's point.

While the best-selling author of The Corrections and Freedom had attempted to make an argument against the negative aspects of Twitter, that argument was reduced, within minutes, to a "meaningless punchline". Fellow writer Ian Thomas Healy created the hashtag #jonathanfranzenhates which immediately saw a flurry of posts about all the things Franzen supposedly hates, like kittens, pie and people who hate Jar Jar Binks.
 
New technology does not sit well with Franzen. As one of the great novelists of our age he views words and their transmission and meaning as vital. In 2008 The Guardian  asked him to give his views on rules to great writing.

Franzen's eighth rule was that "it's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction." Asked to expand on his point, Franzen explained that what "the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination."

One tweet states that Franzen "hates emotions because it takes 600 pages to accurately convey emotions". To which the novelist might reasonably respond, "Indeed". ·