I recently got around to reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I had put it off for several reasons. For one thing, the whole Oprah controversy turned me off. For another, Jonathan Franzen seemed pretentious and arrogant in the interviews I read with him. And he listed among his favorite writers the very same ones I dislike for their macho grandstanding and general lack of emotion and humor.

So I was thrilled to find that I enjoyed The Corrections. This was no macho, humorless man book! This was an interesting, complex book of familial relationships with fascinating characters and an oddly optimistic ending! I was delighted. I decided to reexamine Franzen. I dug out some old interviews with him I had read back when The Corrections came out and … he still rubbed me the wrong way.

Well, apparently my initial impression was not that far off. At least, according to the New York Times review of Franzen’s new memoir The Discomfort Zone, which they call “an odious self-portrait of the artist as a young jackass: petulant, pompous, obsessive, selfish and overwhelmingly self-absorbed.”

[Franzen] tells us that he felt put upon by public entreaties to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. (”Why should I pony up for this particular disaster?”) … He describes how he once “dropped a frog into a campfire and watched it shrivel and roll down the flat side of a log.” He describes reasoning that “not having kids freed me altogether” from having to worry about things like global warming: “Not having kids was my last, best line of defense against the likes of Al Gore.” And he describes the judgmental outlook that he and his wife shared for many years: “Deploring other people — their lack of perfection — had always been our sport.”

Yikes! I suppose it’s lucky for Franzen that he is a talented writer. But, after reading this, I don’t think I would ever want to hang out with him.

UPDATE: Now that I’ve listened to Terry Gross’s interview with Franzen about his memoir, I find Franzen endearingly fumbling and more relatable. Confusing.