Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century

by Chuck Klosterman

My recollection of meeting Jonathan Franzen in 2010 fixates on a perpetual sense of clinical oddness. I came into the interview assuming Franzen had no idea who I was, and I don’t think he did—except when he’d toss random details into the conversation that almost felt like pointed, scolding references to things I had written in the past. I could never tell if he hated being interviewed or if he was trying to hide the fact that he kinda liked it. He had a warm smile but a clumsy laugh. It was a formal interaction, even when we talked about the Mekons. I was never particularly comfortable. Maybe he wasn’t, either? No idea. Part of my discomfort was a product of our theoretical similarity and practical imbalance. We are both working writers with vaguely similar lives. He, however, is more talented, more successful, and significantly more respected. We’re doing the same thing but getting different results. There was a power imbalance, recognized by both of us. When I interview people like Taylor Swift or Kobe Bryant, I never internalize their greatness or their success, or their public perception. It doesn’t have anything to do with me, so I feel nothing. My curiosity is impersonal. But that’s not how it was with Franzen. The whole time I was with him, I felt like his subordinate. I felt vaguely embarrassed to be there, wasting his time. Which says more about me than it says about him.