Saturday, November 13, 2010
Finally (Foolishly?) Finished Franzen's "Freedom"
I did it! I finished Jonathan Franzen's 562-page novel, "Freedom." If you read my interim reports on 11/8/10 and 11/11/10, you know that I was not enjoying, and was not impressed by, this novel, but because of all the critical attention it was getting, and at a certain point because of all the time I had already invested in it, I felt compelled to continue to the end. So I won! I wrestled the novel to the ground! I was able to leave Walter, Patty, Richard, Joey (although I kind of liked Joey), Jessica, Carol, Connie, and Lalitha behind with relief and no regrets! Hurray! On the other hand, I spent many, many hours on a novel that was pretty unsatisfying and that I had to struggle through, so maybe I actually lost? In any case, maybe I have saved some of you from spending time on this vaunted but disappointing novel.
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Thanks for the postings on Freedom. My book club has been waiting for it to come out in paper, but maybe we should reconsider. There are lots of other good books to read, many of which you've reviewed here. I loved Franzen's Corrections so I'm sorry to hear this one doesn't live up to his earlier tome.
ReplyDeleteSarah, quite a few reviewers (but not all...see the Atlantic review I mentioned) think otherwise, but I just couldn't see what the fuss was all about, and as I said, had to struggle to finish the book. It intermittently caught my interest, but mostly it was a slog through tedium. If you and/or the book club do end up reading it, please let me know what you think!
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