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A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think

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Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.

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Transcript

Question: What is the most under-appreciated book?

Jonathan Franzen: You can’t count people who’ve gotten the Nobel Prize, right, because they’ve gotten the Nobel Prize. A book I’m surprised no one ever talks about, a book I’m disappointed no one ever talks about because I don’t really know of a better American novel from the last 20 years is Jane Smiley’s book “The Greenlanders.” It’s her finest work to my knowledge. So I would mention that.

And while we’re talking about fine novels from the last 20 years, I would have to throw out [David Foster Wallace's] “Infinite Jest.” I know that it is much more spoken of; but I still don’t think it got as much attention as it deserved. It’s a giant book, it’s a wonderful book.

These things are relative. David Wallace nor Jane Smiley--they’re not exactly unknown writers. A little bit more in that category would be Christina Stead with, “The Man Who Loved Children,” which I’m on a bit of a personal crusade to call people’s attention to; a genuine family novel masterpiece unlike any other book ever written, came out of America by an Australian ex-pat genius named Christina Stead, and I’ll plug that too.

Recorded On: April 1, 2008