Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

Sometimes the very act of acquiring a book lowers your expectations.  This was a work that I had heard all about when it was first published, but not one that I had been particularly aiming (or not aiming) to read.

So, there I was, pushing my trolley through the throng in the newer of the two soulless sheds that Costco operate in Kaohsiung.  I came across their book section and decided a quick perusal was in order.  I'd struck lucky in the other branch some time ago when it offered up a hardback copy of one of the more readable Arkady Renko novels.

So, there it was, extremely cheap and very tempting.  It went into the grossly oversized trolley alongside some plastic cheese and a few other necessaries.  I mention all this as background, I very much did not read the book with any sort of anticipation.

The first worry comes on the cover. 'Author of 'The Corrections'' is emblazoned across it almost as big as the actual title.  This just in case you thought it was another Jonathan Franzen who had taken up his pen. I liked 'The Corrections' and it left me feeling considerably more charitable towards American fiction than I had been before I picked it up.  A friend of mine says it is the best book ever written. He's wrong, but not by that much.  It's a significant work and a challenging one to follow.  The cover simply draws attention to this.

I began reading and my trepidation-meter started to flicker.  You have a huge hit with a book about an outwardly normal yet internally dysfunctional American family and follow it up with, erm, pretty much the same.  Luckily the quality of the writing, the situations conjured up and the characters created soon had me deep into this as a work that stands on its own merits.  

Some of the details, particularly with regard to Walter's preoccupations and the environmental causes left me a little cold and waiting for that part of the story arc to develop.  Overall it felt like a film that the director had cut to two hours and couldn't bear to pare down further.  My personal opinion is that this was a ninety minute film with padding.  That said, I think that pretty much all fiction is too long these days.  Bring back the 180 page paperback!

One problem with knowing that you plan to review a book is that all the way through you keep checking in with yourself to see what you are thinking.  Until the final third, or even later, my thinking was this;  a good effort, characters that inspire interest, some locations and sequences brilliant, others just average.

Then something happens.  A something that takes you from being a mere observer of events and draws you in to the heart of the action. The whole sequence is expertly written in less than half of one of the 706 pages, yet it changed my view of the book completely.  I hadn't seen it coming or the consequences that it would have and it really made reading the preceding hundreds of pages worthwhile.

Often there is one tiny error that I notice in something that niggles with me. In this otherwise excellent book, I spotted a reference to 'Lena' Lovich. That may well be how it is pronounced, but the record sleeves always said 'Lene'.  If that's all I've got to complain about though, it can't be half bad!  The musical references, which could have felt hackneyed or levered in to the text by a less deft hand, were nicely done.  The names of the real bands and artists fitting snuggly with the narrative rather than jarring.

What was shaping up to be a decent read really upped the stakes in the final stages.  I would say that the moral is that if  you are as good at writing books about dysfunctional American families as this, it would be our loss where you not to produce more.  I can't see Franzen veering off into 'Game of Thrones' territory any time soon and that is no bad thing.

Trips to Costco are normally made with some trepidation. If they provide anything of this calibre in the future, I might even start looking forward to visiting that particular manifestation of hell on earth.