Glenna's Blog

Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom is enjoyable while you’re reading it but leaves you nothing to think about when you’re through. Compared to other great narratives of the past decade, especially Franzen’s own, it’s a cupcake.

Freedom is “sweeping,” meaning it explains characters’ personalities by sketching the biographies of their great grandparents. Generally the book is big on cause and effect (it is medium on silly foreign intrigue). Every action is foreshadowed, explained by reference to the character’s ancestors, explained by reference to the character’s adolescence, analogized to the actions of an unrelated character, echoed by the character’s offspring, punished, and forgiven. Walter’s “primary interest […] was to safeguard pockets of nature from loutish country people like his brother.” Walter’s daughter “sounded like Patty and was outraged like Walter, and yet she was entirely herself.” All is connected, nothing is random. You are never dizzy, you never have to squint.

Needless to say, the main characters in this neat story are fundamentally decent. Franzen’s last chapter invites us to believe that none of them will ever sin again. Harshness only comes in at the level of politics. People shouldn’t have more than two kids. Cats shouldn’t be allowed outside. Neo-cons say things like, “we have to learn to be comfortable with stretching some facts.”

To imagine a less cheesy “sweeping” novel, look at Jennifer Egan’s Visit from the Goon Squad, which came out earlier this year. There are a few too many satisfying connections made, but there are also totally repugnant yet relatable central characters, like a PR exec who freelances for a dictator and a record executive who pressures teenagers to blow him at concerts (Freedom has a rock star who bangs teenagers, but he is not repugnant; the sex is played for laughs). There are two experimental chapters: a celebrity profile and a long powerpoint presentation set in the future. In fact the whole book has an experimental structure. There are jumbo themes and foreign intrigue (the dictator) but there are no lectures about Iraq. It’s a riskier book than Freedom, and way more fun because of it.

Franzen’s previous book, The Corrections, is also messy and dark and fun. Without warning or explanation, segments are told from the point of view of an Alzheimer’s patient. The lifelong good girl seduces a married couple one spouse at a time and discovers in the process that she is both a lesbian and a sexual sadist. At the end of the book, the most capable offspring of the Alzheimer’s guy is showing the first symptom of Alzheimer’s.

The Corrections left me unnerved and a little thrilled. Freedom just pissed me off. My mistakes aren’t my grandmother’s fault, my career isn’t caused by one annoying episode when I was 17, my ex’s new girlfriend will not be killed next month in a way which has already been foreshadowed, and I am not guaranteed a happy ending, Franzen, so screw you.

A while ago I slammed an excerpt from Jonathan Franzen’s book Freedom because it was so slanted in favor of the rape victim character. Now I’m reading the book and it turns out I was wrong to judge. Although the segment is in the third person, it’s supposed to have been written by the rape victim herself. That makes it understated and wry.

The Times has a big piece about foreclosure profiteers in Florida. One of the more humungously rich lawyers defends himself:

“Should I feel ashamed that I have built a successful practice? No one references how committed I am, how I built my firm and how I work 20 hours a day.”

I abuse drugs for the good of the team.

In Friday Night Lights’ first season, Tim Riggins was a racist, Buddy Garrity was a predator, and Julie was a misanthrope. Now Tim counsels pregnant teenagers, Buddy refuses to hang out with overly competitive football dads, and Julie volunteers for Habitat for Humanity. All of the main characters always have good intentions. This show has turned into The West Wing, except there’s no token republican. Every hero is pro-choice, pro-gay, and sensitive to crack addicts.

Also I hate how they’re always shooting scenes from behind windows and inside plants. Like the cameraman is such a badass for sneaking up on interracial kissing.

“In her blue dress, with her cheeks lightly flushed, her blue, blue eyes, and her gold curls pinned up as though for the first time—pinned up to be out of the way for her flight—Mrs. Raddick’s daughter might have just dropped from this radiant heaven. Mrs. Raddick’s timid, faintly astonished, but deeply admiring glance looked as if she believed it, too; but the daughter didn’t appear any too pleased—why should she?—to have alighted on the steps of the Casino. Indeed, she was bored—bored as though Heaven had been full of casinos with snuffy old saints for croupiers and crowns to play with.”

Katherine Mansfield, “The Young Girl.”

It’s all about the word Casino. Each of the words preceding Casino is awful (they’re exactly the types of words you’d expect to find nearby a pretty girl), Casino is excellent (it represents exploitation; it ends in an “o”), and then you get three more excellent words immediately: “bored,” “snuffy,” and “croupiers.” It’s like an avalanche. “Saints” is also good because it forces you to think about heaven, which earlier in the paragraph you ignored for seeming like a cliche.

“I got my first job, and now if someone said, Hey, look at Benji’s right arm, it’s bigger than his left because he jerks off so much, I could say, No, that’s from scooping ice cream.”

Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor

I’m immune to most tearjerkers because I don’t empathize with heterosexuals. So the lesbian biopic Gia caught me off guard. When Elizabeth Mitchell said to Angelina Jolie, “I thought we’d have more time,” and she was referring to their tea date but didn’t realize Angelina was dying of AIDS, I became very upset.