Humorous is not among the first adjectives one would use to describe either the two books or Franzen himself. The books are ambitious, exhausting and deeply moralistic, and he has a reputation for being cranky, belligerent and patronizing in his interviews and essays, particularly on the internet. In a 6,500-word excerpt from his recent book in the Guardian last year, titled “What’s Wrong With the Modern World”, he dismissed with withering scorn Amazon, Twitter and Salman Rushdie for being on ..
