Franzen is one of those authors I keep seeing/hearing about and yet have never had any desire to read, so it's nice to know that there's at least some (secondhand) justification for my completely arbitrary antipathy! I do love me some Edith Wharton, she has that neat trick of balancing wry and satirical observation with that emotional honesty that keeps her from feeling flip—she's honest about her characters and their culture and foibles, but be damned to you if you think that means you can laugh at them from a comfortable distance, you're going to care about them!