Blog #7, Reaction to Debates

    I will first start off with the discussion seen between Jonathan Franzen and SL. The first topic they discuss is the matter of adults reading YA, (Young Adult). While we see Ruth Graham slamming the adults who read and recommend YA, Franzen is seen saying that he couldn't care what people read and while some people read it for the encouraging, uplifting messages in that genre that is not seen in the others. Which surprised the interviewer.
   My take on YA is one similar to Franzen's. I do not care what other people read as long as it doesn't affect me. As long as I can be left to myself with what genres I read and to what I do with that I am as happy as I'll ever be. However, once others start to force these "great pieces of literature" onto me, I become slightly irate and annoyed at the consistency and perseverance to get me to read those books. YA might not be my favorite genre but I certainly won't trash on it.
   Another topic brought up in this discussion is women in literature. The main part of this topic was how women are given less press time than men, and following this SL asks Franzen about what he thinks of Jennifer Weiner. Now as I have never heard of this writer I assumed she might be a new upcoming writer or one of books I don't read. But as it turns out with a little research, shes been writing for quite a while. SL goes on to ask about her being the head of this organization leading the charge to equal representation for women in the writing field, but Franzen doesn't quite like this "leader". What Franzen tells us about Weiner is that she uses this organization and attention to get more readers to herself, while being the only one to benefit and not the other women who she is supposedly representing. He also says that he has never read any of her books because he has heard of no one ever recommending them.
   While that last thing is quite confusing, there is some truth to it. The leader of the association is one of little merit and apparently has little to offer the literary world. If infact, she does use VIDA to just purely benefit herself, it would show one way that she cares little for furthering the literary world. However, as I know little about this organization and what they do, I can't say much, but I can say that I do not believe women are misrepresented in the media or press.