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Jonathan Franzen: 'I defy anyone to finish it without wetting the pages with tears'

Author: Jonathan Franzen
Newspaper: The Guardian
Date: Sep 26 2017
URL: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/22/jonathan-franzen-the-book-that-had-the-greatest-influence-on-my-writing-cs-lewiss-narnia-

The book I wish I’d written

I aborted a third novel, and it’s interesting (for about five seconds) to imagine what I would have produced had I soldiered on through to the end of it. I might have liked to do groundbreaking work such as Haruki Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, but why would I want Murakami and Ferrante not to have written those books themselves?