When blogging about New York Times critic Michikio Kakutani’s chart, I discovered that The Corrections author Jonathan Franzen called her, according to New York Magazine, “the stupidest person in New York.”

Franzen, if you recall, is the man who snubbed Oprah Winfrey’s book club and his own nomination to it. He later retracted and sat with Oprah calling the visit “an honor.”

I had to take a look at the chart of this man who both hates his critics and his fans. If you criticize him, you are stupid. If you like him but are not a worthy person in his eyes, you are stupid as well.

Franzen has sun in Leo and moon in Leo’s opposite sign of Aquarius. Leo, now that’s a sign that loves attention and lots of it. Franzen’s memoirs, in fact, attest to his love of attention.

Leo rules the heart and while Leo loves attention to the point of pushing others off the stage, the open heart and loving nature of Leo usually makes up for this need for full, center stage. A big, sincere hug and a dozen roses wash away resentments caused by Leo’s need to shine.

Juanes, Colombian rock star, has both sun and moon in Leo. While he may be insufferable to those near him, he can be seen in Internet images hugging his adoring female fans. Leo Juanes loves his fans. Leo Franzen does not.

Why doesn’t Franzen open his hairy Leo paws to his adoring fans? What’s gone wrong?

While Franzen’s sun is in Leo, the moon is in the opposite sign of Aquarius. Leo is about self-expression and Aquarius is about shared, community goals. That’s the natural polarity and natural conflict.

But I don’t think that’s the problem here. Aquarius loves groups as much as Leo, just differently. Aquarius is the friend who calls 100 people every time he/she goes out the door. Aquarius is friend to everyone, best friend to no one.

I think Franzen’s disdain of critics and fans is due to  a conjunction of Mars and Venus in Virgo with Pluto shadowing in the early degrees of Virgo.

Virgo is about perfection, nit-picky perfection. Virgo is also concerned with work and health.

Venus is about pleasure. Mars is about action. Franzen is actively seeking the perfect pleasure – the perfect dinner, the perfect wine, the perfect book, the perfect companion, the perfect date, the perfect pen and, it seems, the perfect fan.

This is a man who sends the steak back with specific instructions on medium rare. This is a man who changes seats ten times in the theater to find the perfect spot. This is a man who insults you loudly if you sit in front of him after he’s found the best spot in the theater.

Mars conjunct Venus, according to my meetup astrologer, indicates that “you want to fight with the one you love.” In Virgo it should be called “nit picking with the one you love.”

Franzen says in his memoirs that he and his ex-wife did just that. He says, “Deploring other people — their lack of perfection — had always been our sport.”

Wow! That’s Venus and Mars in Virgo talking. I don’t have Franzen’s time of birth but for this Venus and Mars conjunction in Virgo to override his Leo nature, it probably is on his ascendant.

If this conjunction is on the ascendant, then the Leo sun is in the 12^th house, the “hidden house,” the house of secrets. When your sun is in this house, you rarely show your true personality.

This assumption would put Neptune and Jupiter, both in Scorpio, in the 3^rd house of communications. Hmm. I like this. Franzen’s writing involves lots of sex and masturbation, very Scorpio.

Trying to determine time of birth from events in one’s life is called rectification. My rectification would put moon in Aquarius in the 6^th suggesting health problems involving nerves, breathing and circulation. Aquarius is a unique, unusual sign so there may be a health problem that is just odd. Like the third finger on the left hand having no sensation. Or some perceptual oddity.

Franzen’s public image appears to be ruled by three planets in Virgo – Venus, Mars and Pluto. Yet there is so much more in his chart than this schoolmarm of a sign.

Maybe if Franzen showed more of that loving Leo nature the world would love him in return in the way he wants to be loved, naturally. Instead his Virgo is saying “love me perfect or I don’t want your love.”

What’s so vulnerable about being a Leo, the king of the jungle? Franzen is botching the energy of this wonderful sign. People love Leo, naturally. The Virgo in him needs to stop analyzing why.