Freedom: A Novel (original 2010; edition 2010)

BLURB..........

An international bestseller and the novel of the year, `Freedom' is an epic of contemporary love and marriage.

This is the story of the Berglunds, their son Joey, their daughter Jessica and their friend Richard Katz. It is about how we use and abuse our freedom; about the beginning and ending of love; teenage lust; the unexpectedness of adult life; why we compete with our friends; how we betray those closest to us; and why things almost never work out as they `should'. It is a story about the human heart, and what it leads us to do to ourselves and each other.

I have avoided reading this book for a year or so, somewhat put off by the size of the volume, some 600-odd pages in length........not as long as some books on the TBR pile........ Robert Littell's The Company awaits further down the line at 900'ish! I just prefer reading shorter, sharper books.

The book follows Patty and Walter Berglund, though mainly Patty through high school and college into middle age, traversing friendships, romance, marriage and parenthood and the inter-action of the older Berglunds with their neighbours, children, best (or worst) friend Richard and extended families. Franzen dissects and documents the mundane and everyday occurrences as well as those out of the ordinary. The devil is in the detail and Franzen skilfully and sometimes humorously examines the hurts and pain each one of them feels and imparts on to the others.

Franzen could be commentating on anyone of us, or all of us. There's nothing particularly special or worthy about the Berglunds, that sets them apart from the rest of us trying to negotiate a way through life. I suppose that was a big part of the novel's enjoyment for me.

To be perfectly honest though, I didn't really warm to Patty Berglund and as a result didn't connect with her pain, her traumas and her life issues, though I didn't find myself despising her at any point either.

Best bit of the book, Walter and his speech-giving, a proper laugh out loud comedy moment for me.

I haven't read Franzen before, but being the greedy, avaricious accumulator that I am, I have The Corrections and The Twenty-Seventh City on pile TBR. I'll read them some time in the next 20-years, but won't be rushing to acquire his next tome.

In my opinion, John Irving does it better, probably with a touch more of the absurd but he's made me care more for his characters particularly in "Garp" and "Owen Meany."

Some commentators have described this as the "novel of the year," NO WAY!

Good, maybe a 3 plus out of 5, okay 4 then, but I wouldn't even class it as the best book I've read this month.

My copy was acquired second-hand from one of the local charity shops in sunny Leighton Buzzard - a bargain at 50p! ( )

Remember how we used to vote in high school for "Best Hair" or "Most Athletic?" Well if there was a poll in the book industry this fall, "Most Likely to Succeed" would have been won by Jonathan Franzen's book Freedom. This book would be a shoe in. First, Franzen was featured in August on the cover of Time magazine as "the Great American Novelist". Then, President Obama was photographed reading an Advanced Readers Copy of Freedom while on vacation in Martha's Vineyard, creating high demand for a book that could not even be sold. And the clincher? Oprah picked the book for her book club. Any one of these events would launch a book onto the best seller's list, but with all three lining up simultaneously, this book was guaranteed to be the book of the year.

So I joined the crowd and picked up the audiobook. Only unlike the masses of people around me, I didn't love the book. In fact, I really didn't care for it that much. The odd thing is that I'm not really sure why. Franzen's writing style is snappy and easy to listen to. His prose really sounds like the inner dialog that we all have running through our minds and his sarcastic view of today's society is funny and spot on.

The story revolves around the Berglund family, the all-American liberal family. Walter, the father, has a job in a conservancy organization and is so strongly pro-environment that he bicycles to work daily - even in the Minnesota winter. Patty, a former all-American basketball star, has made a career out of being the ideal mother. Although on the outside, the family seems very ordinary, they each come from a pretty dysfunctional background. But, face it. Who doesn't have a dysfunctional family these days? The story follows Patty and Walter from high school all the way through middle age, encountering many life crises, including infidelity, rebellious children and betrayal by close friends. Although I initially was enjoying the book, by half way, I found myself just not caring about any of the characters. The book is long - over 23 hours in audio. I found that I would try to accelerate my listening just to finish the book - extending my run, listening while doing other things. When I caught myself listening while I was checking and replying to email, I realized that I just couldn't wait for it to finish. There were many enjoyable parts of this book, but overall in the end, I just felt like "what was the point??" I know that most people love this book. Oprah has used words like "a masterpiece", "exquisite", "a tour de force", "one of the best novels"... But, if I've learned anything from working in a bookstore, it's that one person's all time favorite is often ho-hum to someone else - different strokes for different folks. And viva la difference! This book didn't do anything for me, but give it a shot - you just might love it. ( )

It's rare that I get more than a third of the way through a book and then give up. I can usually tell pretty quickly if the story and the author's style will be interesting enough. So, this one started out so incredibly well: interesting dissection of characters; darkly humorous and sad. Then at some point, some of these wonderfully complex characters started to go on LONG, breathless rants about blah, blah, and all I could think was, "Please shut up!". I'm interested in societal issues! I care about unfairness and corruption! But really. I shouldn't have to drink coffee just to read a book. This was a big no. ( )

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. ( )