Book Review: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

It's not that I love being a contrarian (okay, sometimes I do), but I'm going to have to go against the crowd on this one, too:  Jonathan Franzen is, admittedly, a talented writer with an admirable grip on the nuances and complications of the modern suburban family; however, this is not (for me, at least), the example of "fiction-at-its-best" that I was led to expect.  Everywhere you look reviewers are singing Franzen's praises; he's a hit and a bestseller to boot not to mention apparently very arrogant about all of his success.  And maybe this really is a case of "his old stuff was better", but for me this book and Franzen's prose simply did not live up to the hype.

I think my major problem with Freedom is that it's a hundred (if not more) pages longer than it needs to be.  Maybe his editor is just indulgent at this point, assuming the book-toting soccer moms and hipsters they're counting on to buy it will read anything with Franzen's name attached.  In any event, there is just too much background on things that ultimately don't seem terribly significant to the story, not to mention a lot of excess prose (and not even the good, "look how beautifully I can describe these things" kind of excess). 

Patty is an interesting character, I will grant that.  However, I will also say that there are definitely times in the course of the narrative where she becomes flat, becomes a caricature in many ways, and it is frustrating that despite the book being largely in her perspective or at least attempting to be, we don't always get the insight into her behavior that I for one would have liked.  Given that the protagonist falls short in this regard, it seems unlikely that there could be any hope for the remaining characters.  Indeed, Walter doesn't become interesting until the novel's final third, and even the ground he gains there is later negated by his decision to reunite with his wife despite the unhappiness of their former relationship.

Freedom paints an honest portrait of the sufferings of the 21st century middle class-- and yes, that sounds melodramatic, but there is a lot of pain in this book, and not all of it self-created.  These characters are truly pathetic in many ways, and by the novel's end very few of them have changed significantly.  This is, in my opinion, both a positive and a negative:  positive because it is definitely more true to life to have characters who simply accept that their crappy decisions have led them to a particular moment; negative because in many cases (again, at least for me), fiction is about taking what would really happen and making it better in some way, with grander insights or more hope for the future.  The dismal note on which the book concludes left me wondering what I'd just spent some 700 pages and numerous hours on.  If I wanted to see a portrait of a dysfunctional family, I'd look around at my own or those of my friends and neighbors; or else I'd read one of the many better literary presentations of such a family. 

Sorry to disappoint, but the Franzen fan train is more than free to leave the station without me.