Sinead Stubbins reads the current Australian bestselling book, so you can determine whether or not it's worthy of your time too.
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Jonathan Franzen is famous, and I’m not exactly sure when it happened.
It could have been after the release of his critically acclaimed novel The Corrections in 2001, or the subsequent (media fuelled) war between Franzen and Oprah, in which Franzen was slammed for admitting that the Oprah’s Book Club sticker that was slapped on The Corrections, didn’t thrill him.
It might have been during the nine year long wait between his third book and his fourth, with people who were sick of re-reading Cormac McCarthy and watching Jon Stewart, eagerly anticipating a fresh serving of ‘How crayzeh is America?’.
It could be his short stories written in
The New Yorker from his comfortable Upper East Side apartment that did it. Or the fact that an early manuscript of his new book, chock full of grammatical errors, was accidently published in the U.K last year, and had to be recalled.
But probably not.
In any case, this guy was the first author in 10 years to be on the cover of Time magazine. There are rumours that his latest offering Freedom will win the Pulitzer Prize. Barack Obama invited him to the White House for a 20 minute chat about the book! Oprah forgave him!
He’s so happy about it!
Calm down, Franzen!
Due to the overwhelming success of this book since its release (trying to buy Freedom before Christmas was a little like trying to convince your mum at 16 that the alcohol on your breath was from a brandy soaked fruitcake. So, pretty hard. ) this book has been reviewed in wordy and comprehensive ways by every publication available. So why write a review that will take longer to read than the book itself? Dear reader, I give you the Pros and Cons of reading Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom.
Pro: This book does more than critique the American Dream, it shows how people that actually achieve it have a pretty torrid journey to get there- and how when they achieve ‘success’, they find it is not at all what it seems. The Berglund’s are the perfect liberal, white bread family. So of course, they are a ticking time bomb ready to spew secrets, greed, lust and regret all over the entire neighbourhood. But what’s great is that Franzen takes us back in time to see how Perfect Patty and Wimpy Walter have actually become living stereotypes, rather than just detailing their self destruction.
Con: It takes a very long time to explain the back story to this couple’s lives. The back story is generally interesting, but not always necessary. Whole pages can be skipped without missing too much.
Pro: It is very well written, beautiful almost. It avoids sentimentality in favour of reducing major plot points that could be painfully recounted over several pages, into single, earth shattering sentences that force you to re read them again and again just in order to digest what has happened. The opening of this book is one of the most engaging I’ve ever read.
Con: I haven’t read The Corrections, but by all accounts it is a much more carefully crafted book. Both books explore American politics through the lens of middle class, white families, so it could be said that this is a lesser version of his first big success. You also get the impression that Franzen is setting out to write The Great American Novel ™.
Pro: Jonathan Franzen is really, really funny. He paints a perfect picture of a high achieving, good neighbour Patty (“Where to recycle batteries? How to respond when a poor person of colour accuses you of destroying her neighbourhood?” Patty wonders) and capitalizes words like “Creative Sisters” and “Scary Black Youths”.
Con: There are a lot of rants about overpopulation. Lots. And then heaps more than that.
Pro: You’ll look cool reading it because Franzen was on the cover of Time and doesn’t really like Oprah.
Con: You’ll look elitist reading it because Franzen was on the cover of Time and doesn’t really like Oprah.
