Freedom (2010)

Franzen is a bold, ambitious writer. He tackles contemporary issues of greed, waste, the environmental movement, feminism, and how American families raise their young. I couldn't put the book down, it was so full of vivid and surprising twists and turns of a married couple's struggle to keep together. But I resented his occasional overwriting and showiness because the novel seems a bit too long. The main character, Patty, in the beginning of the book, is a victim of a crime, then the victim of an obsessive drug addict. Her character wavers from being the most competitive member of a basketball team, to the nicest person on her gentrified block in St. Paul. She is at turns manipulative, mean, indecisive, passive, and passionate. It is hard to know if Franzen wants to create a portrait of a complex human being, or if he thinks women are a pain in the ass.

Freedom's male characters are easier to understand. Richard is a rock musician with the best lines in the book. As the one true free person in the novel, unattached, drifting, yet ambitious as an artist, his sexiness and appeal yet orneriness are consistent and recognizable traits in a believable character.

I love the way Franzen describes the American fabric of family life as being competitive. Children vie for the affection of their parents, spouses cheat. Musicians rack up groupies as if it were a sport. The war in Iraq is spun into a war about freedom when it was really a confusing mess. And still is.

There is a lot to think about in this book. For that I am grateful. ( )

Walter and Patty Berglund were classic gentrifiers of St. Paul: present, communicative parents, advocates for healthy food and a better environment, model citizens. The two were the envy of their neighbors–a perfect example of a happy marriage. In the new millennium, though, things have started to go awry. When their teenage son moves in with the neighbors, Walter quits his job to work for Big Coal, and Patty seems to go a little batty, people start to wonder about what has happened to their neighbors.

Franzen is one of those divisive writers people either love or love to hate. His follow up to The Corrections is an ambitious, epically sprawling novel that tries to encapsulate the feelings of the new millennium through a nuclear family, but it falls short of its ultimate goal. Despite an intriguing premise and an intricately-woven narrative (told in alternating perspectives from some of the book’s characters), Franzen’s novel ultimately feels a little unsatisfying.

Part of the problem is the novel’s own self-involvement. Although Franzen’s main point–that the word “freedom” has become a sort of a catch-all for the pursuit of individual liberties–as well as becoming synonymous with “power,” the novel ends up so obsessed with the word “freedom” that every time the word (or a version of it) appears, it seems to scream “LOOK! THEME! THEME! THEME!” The fact that Franzen beats the reader over the head with his point is not particularly endearing.

Neither, then, are his characters. While they are certainly compelling characters (with, perhaps, the exception of the Berglund’s son Joey, who is slimy and weaselly and completely disgusting), none are particularly likable. The characters are richly drawn and deeply flawed, but their flaws make them whiny, selfish, and annoying. It doesn’t seem as though any one of them learns a thing about themselves, and in a novel this long, that’s…a difficult pill to swallow.

All of this isn’t to say that this reader didn’t enjoy the novel. Parts of it are particularly enjoyable–Franzen’s tour through parts of the Twin Cities are fun for Minnesotans especially. Rich writing and well-developed characters make for an interesting (if not always completely engaging) read. However, Franzen’s tone–which goes from sardonic and archly ironic to flat-out tragic–makes the book’s ending hard to take.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 2010. Purchased copy. ( )

The first 50 pages and the last 50 pages were the only sections of the book I enjoyed. Everything else was awful. The last chapter redeemed the main characters in minute ways; however, overall they were all self-involved jerks. It took decades for these people to grow up.

Bottom line: Oprah was wrong. This is not one of the best novels I've ever read. There's no denying Franzen is a great writer, maybe even a spectacular writer. But there was a lot wrong with this novel. For example, his characters were these overly dramatic pictures of what Franzen wants an "average" American family to be.

I found it difficult to switch the voice between the "autobiographer" and everyone else. The Patty sections I felt were Patty...but I also felt that everything else was Patty (and I'm sure it wasn't supposed to be....)

I feel like everyone that thinks this book is great is suffering from some serious hive-mind. ( )

This story of Patty and Walter and their marriage is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking. As they love and hate and irritate and resent and each make their own assortment of mistakes through the years, they ultimately learn (in Patty's words) that, "they were not just the worst thing that ever happened to each other, they were also the best thing." ( )

After about 300 pages, I gave up on this book. Frankly, I was bored. Franzen is such a talented writer; his prose is never clunky, often really gorgeous. But there's something about the way he treats his characters that rubs me the wrong way, like maybe he doesn't care about them, so why should I? And in the middle of the book, the character ranting got so tedious. I've heard that the book gets better again at the end, and maybe I'll pick it up again someday, but there are too many wonderful books out there to stick with something that just isn't right for me. ( )