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Freedom

3.65 of 5 stars 3.65 · rating details · 74,836 ratings · 10,003 reviews

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter’s dreams. Together wi

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Hardcover, First Edition, 576 pages

Published September 17th 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 2010)

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Nov 13, 2011 RandomAnthony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read Freedom the week before Christmas. What was I thinking? Did I want a bleak, almost sullen, portrayal of America in the new century? And not a complete one, either, but limited to privileged white people? Why didn’t I just sit on the couch, get drunk, and watch Salt and Easy A? Ok, I did that, too, but my kids were off of school and apparently believe they should get to watch television as well, so I went upstairs and read away a few afternoons. Stupid Freedom. Mr. Franzen, you’re good. Mo...more I read Freedom the week before Christmas. What was I thinking? Did I want a bleak, almost sullen, portrayal of America in the new century? And not a complete one, either, but limited to privileged white people? Why didn’t I just sit on the couch, get drunk, and watch Salt and Easy A? Ok, I did that, too, but my kids were off of school and apparently believe they should get to watch television as well, so I went upstairs and read away a few afternoons. Stupid Freedom. Mr. Franzen, you’re good. Most writers couldn’t touch your talent. However, I think I’d rather read something less technically adept but also less dismal and self-involved. If Freedom were a teenager the novel would be that really smart and well-intentioned affluent kid worried about impressing Harvard in his application and doing community service at a soup kitchen but washing his hands about 100 times when he finished and then becoming aware he was washing his hands about 100 times and feeling self-loathing and then writing a sincere application essay about self-loathing and washing hands and soup kitchens. I like that kid. He means well. It’s not like I’m working in a coal mine or whatever so I can’t criticize that kid too much. What’s he supposed to do? Leave college and become homeless just to look more authentic? Screw that. But I don’t want to hang out with that kid and I doubt he wants to hang out with me, and he maybe is a little too self-aware to notice other people’s stories except when listening makes him look like a good listener. And if this story is the Great American Novel that's because people like Franzen create and pay attention to literary magazines and talk about which book is the Great American Novel while the rest of the country does something else. I'm ok with that. I don't believe any book is the Great American Novel and no story can own everyone. Freedom tells one subculture's story well but seems to imply it's telling everyone's story.

I get the feeling Franzen has read a lot of endless Russian novels and aspired to write his own. I read the novel quickly and slipped easily into Franzen’s buttery sentences and narrative structure. Near page four hundred I was reading through laced fingers. I felt like I was watching a particularly intellectual movie in which the characters make some really stupid stupid fucking choices. Freedom is complex and well-written but, while the characters’ inner monologues ring truthful, their broad decisions and circumstances often do not. I think Franzen is addressing the “freedom” theme with a focus on how Americans in particular face such a intimidating array of potentialities and the sense that you made the “right” one is almost impossible to attain. On Tuesday you might be in love with your husband but six months later leaving him might feel perfect. Which choice is a sign of truth and which of selfishness? Are you repressing emotions you don’t understand? How well do you know your own motivations? If you stay in a dead marriage are you dooming yourself to decades of regret? What if the marriage isn’t really dead but dormant? What internal perspectives do you control that transcend success and failures? Who can you trust if you don’t know yourself, and how well, really, can you know yourself? These are important questions, and Franzen starts the colloquy well, but these people and storylines function as privileged archetypes except when the plot-architect in Franzen’s consciousness decides to throw a curve here and there because he knows he’s supposed to do so. Franzen is sometimes too meta for his own novels’ good.

Freedom also lacks timelessness. In twenty years readers will need endnotes with designations like “Jeff Tweedy: leader of Wilco, an influential country rock band” or “NPR: National Public Radio, an over-the-airwaves audio news station often associated with affluent liberals”. In attempting to catch the spirit of the age Franzen has focused on details that will lack future context. I guess that’s ok. I doubt he’s writing for people 100 years down the road and the details add to the novel’s landscape. This is a book for white people (uh, except Oprah, I guess) with good intentions who listen to NPR, went to college, and kind of hate themselves sometimes. Some of these people, apparently, assign awards and press coverage to literature and a weird cottage industry has emerged around slamming/endorsing Jonathan Franzen’s work. I’m going to leave that conversation to others because I don’t care much one way or the other. You want to argue that one, knock yourself out. I’ll be over here. Franzen mistakes aiming high with these characters, as far as themes are considered, for universiality. And I’m not sure that some of the characters’ wild swerves are more than the author’s personal regrets and fantasies. Listen. I’m going to say that Franzen doesn’t tread this territory as well as, say, Dostoevsky. But remember, then, I’m placing his work in the same sentence as Dostoevsky. I can’t think of many writers alive who can touch his technique. Future generations’ English majors will probably read this novel in a class called “American novels: 2000-2050” and write term papers with titles like “Materialism and Self-Identity in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom”. They’ll probably get A’s. Franzen, I think, has lived in that literary subculture for a long time, and he’s good at delivering material that exemplifies the best it has to offer. He’s a brilliant technician, and I like brilliant technique, but I’m not sure I loved Freedom as much as I admired it. Freedom is commendable but not great, expansive but nervous in its own expanse.

Also, I wish I read something less fucking depressing the week before Christmas. But that’s my fault. I should know better. (less)

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Sep 23, 2010 Kemper rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: plain-old-fiction, signed-by-author, modern-lit, favorites, we-are-family

*Update 9/23 - Jonathan Franzen was in town doing a reading & signing last night, and after listening to him talk, I’m officially backing off of theory #1 below. He does not seem like a douche bag, at all. In fact, despite all the Oprah hoopla (Which he described as a fiasco, not because of anything that he or Oprah did, but because the whole thing got blown out of proportion.) and the backlash after the early raves for Freedom, Franzen came across as remarkably down-to-earth and funny. He s...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: really-big-timeconsumers, novels

This book hoovers you into its world from the first page and before you know what's what you've missed your bus stop and you are into it. But there are problems. Yes. I will tell you about some of them. You would expect no less of me.

I was reading along with the main character Patty Berglund’s autobiographical statement “Mistakes Were Made” (p 27 – 187) and was lapping it up until soap bubbles began appearing between me and the page. The bubbles became suds – undeniable suds. I could not divest...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Ben rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Here's the thing about this book: I was really expecting to enjoy it. I say that for two reasons. The first is The Corrections. Not the book itself, which is still quietly residing on my shelf, waiting for its day in the sun… Nay, I speak of the buzz. You see, I know people. And a lot of those people read things. And some of those things were their own copies of The Corrections. And the buzz was, as far as I could tell, that the people that I know liked The Corrections. In fact, their only compl...more Here's the thing about this book: I was really expecting to enjoy it. I say that for two reasons. The first is The Corrections. Not the book itself, which is still quietly residing on my shelf, waiting for its day in the sun… Nay, I speak of the buzz. You see, I know people. And a lot of those people read things. And some of those things were their own copies of The Corrections. And the buzz was, as far as I could tell, that the people that I know liked The Corrections. In fact, their only complaint seemed to be that there were no likeable characters in the book, that they all seemed petty and kind of horrible. But,… (and here's the twist),… that actually sounded like a selling point to me. Because, I'm actually a little petty myself, I'm prone to dabble in misanthropy and, besides, who doesn't love a good antihero?

The second reason that I was ready to love Freedom is that I have read a touch of Franzen in my day. Not much, mind you. But I found How To Be Alone an incredibly well-crafted and insightful read. I was struck by the way the collection dealt reasonably with the complicated position of literarily minded folk in a digital age. I was so taken with How To Be Alone, in fact, that I thought there was simply no way that Freedom could be bad. Even if it wasn't overflowing with goodness, it certainly wouldn't be unpleasant. In short, my formal adoration of Freedom was simply a forgone conclusion, an eventuality waiting to transpire.

Oh, me.

Let me break off a little truth for you. I hated reading this book. The thing that's frustrating about it is that there is no one quality that makes it bad. The characters are unlikeable, but not in a devil-may-care, what-will-they-do-next kind of way. The characters are odious because they are self-absorbed and petty… but more than that, they're insufferably boring. It's not that they don't wander around hurting each other; it's that their sins are largely those of inaction or inertia; that they sit around and complain to themselves and moan on about their disappointments, and you find yourself relieved when they actually take action of some kind, no matter what it is, simply because it means something is happening in the book, that you are reading a novel wherein events happen that have significance. And you quickly find that you not only start to wish the characters thorough unhappiness, but further, you actually long for some kind horrible nuclear disaster to clear the slate so that Franzen can just start over with an entirely new cast midway through the novel.

The truth is that I tried really, really hard to hold out hope for the novel. The point of no return for me was right around when the author intimates that everyone secretly enjoys the smell of their own flatulence. [Cue my head slamming into the table I was reading at.] In all honesty, I didn't just dislike the book. I came to resent the very existence of the world in which the characters existed. It made me wish the Genesis had never happened, that God had refrained from rendering form out of the formless at all. I would rather read Jonathon Franzen's descriptions of the void than another wretched moment in the lives of these abysmal characters.
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Sep 25, 2010 Sandy Tjan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, contemporary-fiction, ebook

Have you ever…

had a dysfunctional relationship with your parents?

had a college best friend that turned out to be toxic?

started up as an idealist but then compromised into working for the dark side?

cheated on your nice guy husband with his cool best friend?

had a teenage son who ran away from home to shack up with the neighbor’s underage daughter?

been corrupted by the military-industrial complex?

If you answer "yes" to any of the above queries, you would probably be able to recognize a part of your...more

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Aug 16, 2011 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

After reading Wuthering Heights, I had this idea: I should make a bookshelf called "Assholes and Asshats," a little place that could serve as a warning to people who immediately disregard books containing characters they have trouble relating to and sympathizing with. You know, jerks, dickwads, the stoney cold and self-involved, the pompously mean and rich or bitterly poor and junk-addled characters loitering about within the pages of many harder-to-swallow books. Personally, I have both experie...more

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Sep 17, 2010 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: see review

Recommended to Jessica by: my mom (she BOUGHT me a copy, though once I read it I did detect a selfish motive.)

Shelves: chicklits, crazy-ladies, groups-of-people, love-and-other-indoor-sports, dicklits

Okay, so earlier this summer I was waiting to see The National play Prospect Park ("Of course you were, Jessica...." -- but bear with me, that's my point), and I sent a text message to the guy who'd given me the tickets, thanking him again and observing that "White People don't LIKE seeing The National play Prospect Park; White People LOVE seeing The National play Prospect Park." This was a reference, of course, to the oft-quoted blog that holds a very high place on the seemingly endless list it...more

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Sep 12, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: Shiela

Shelves: oprah, drama, sex, environment

Frank, honest, sad yet not in any way melodramatic. These are, for me, what make Freedom stands out from the other American contemporary novels that emphatically talk about dysfunctional families without eliciting reactions from your tear ducts. Franzen made a lot of sense when he expressed his concern over the inclusion of The Corrections among Oprah's books because most of Oprah’s books are told in the point of view of women and so they are womanly in perspectives and so they are read mostly b...more Frank, honest, sad yet not in any way melodramatic. These are, for me, what make Freedom stands out from the other American contemporary novels that emphatically talk about dysfunctional families without eliciting reactions from your tear ducts. Franzen made a lot of sense when he expressed his concern over the inclusion of The Corrections among Oprah's books because most of Oprah’s books are told in the point of view of women and so they are womanly in perspectives and so they are read mostly by women. Franzen’s storytelling is direct, cerebral and not in any way squeamish when it comes to sex, sexual organs and sexual acts. These in-your-face 21st-century yet sensible frankness differentiates him from other male authors delving in the same theme - American family - like Pat Conroy or Wally Lamb. For example is this part when Walter is preparing for a day after having sex with his mistress-assistant Lalitha:”It would have been useful to be able to add that there was nothing between him and his assistant, but in fact, his hands and face and nose were so impregnated with the smell of her vagina that it persisted faintly even after showering.” Glorious. Heavenly. I mean the prose.

To say that Freedom is just about a dysfunctional family is an oversimplification of this novel's theme. My take is that it is more of a marital journey of the Berglund couple, Walter and Patty, and how their marriage affects the marriage of their son, Joey, to their neighbor’s daughter, Connie and her family. The mistakes made in the previous generation affect the next ones. The things we saw in our parents, we try to recreate with our kids. There is no school for parenting. All of us, parents, went into it, without any classroom lectures. We thought that since we came out okay, if we use the same formula our parents used to us, our kids would turn out okay too. Little did we know that things change and what we saw in our parents might no longer be applicable for us to use to our children. “When I was your age…” becomes our opening statement in every guidance session we have with our kids, only to hear from them “Things have changed, daddy.”

Like The Corrections, Franzen presents the family amidst the changing world: politics, trade, culture and global terrorism. I thought that I would not see anything new until Franzen made us of the environmental issues as his very novel backdrop. The way that he interwoven these – simple American family, global and local issues plus the environment – is so brilliant you can’t help but admire his storytelling prowess that is so distinctly Franzen. When I read in Wiki that President Obama read this book during his last summer break, I believed it. This book is worth reading by every American citizen who wants to be inspired by the story of this Berglund couple. Oh, there is nothing grandiose or extraordinary about them. They are just your typical married Americans. But it will give you that feeling that what you are going through in your life is not something that you go through alone. Also, the story ends at the beginning of Obama administration so everything was positive and hopeful.

Now if only there is a similar book that deals about Filipino families. Argggh.
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Dec 25, 2012 Jimmy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

It seems ironically bold yet appropriate for a contemporary novelist to explore relevant American social issues through the artistic lens of undiluted realism. Within the context of a dying book industry, one desperately trying to convince consumers that fiction is still an appealing, worthwhile commodity to invest their time and money in, it’s often better to play it safe and tug on heartstrings and connect, than to fuss around with experimentation in the interest of moving things forward. And...more

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Aug 21, 2010 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Okay, 3 stars might seem cussedly contrary, a cheap goldilocks diversion away from the current hyped-up epidemic of 5s and the utterly derisive lowballers who JF just rubs the wrong way* (and sidestepping, too, the inevitable anti-Franzen backlash, coming soon to a review near you).

'Cause there are things I love here. Franzen sculpts, particularly in the brilliant first hundred (or so) pages, a precise and subtly eccentric narrative structure which defines an expansiveness--literally, in the fir...more

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Sep 27, 2010 Jen Knox rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Freedom has the two-and-a-half-dimensional feel of reality television. I enjoy reading it, but I'm not convinced that any of the characters (especially Patty) is really so good at taking punches. I read this book as I might Greek mythology. Franzen the jovial God, getting kicks out of kicking his characters but never quite believing any of them could ever really exist. I don't believe any of them could exist either, but then again, who cares?
It's definitely a five-star so far. Very fun to read....more Freedom has the two-and-a-half-dimensional feel of reality television. I enjoy reading it, but I'm not convinced that any of the characters (especially Patty) is really so good at taking punches. I read this book as I might Greek mythology. Franzen the jovial God, getting kicks out of kicking his characters but never quite believing any of them could ever really exist. I don't believe any of them could exist either, but then again, who cares?
It's definitely a five-star so far. Very fun to read. No flowery, pretentious prose, just smart writing.
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Half-way through: the characters are getting there; even though I'm still not buying Patty, Walter and Richard came to life immediately. Perhaps Franzen shouldn't write female characters? To be fair, I don't remember thinking this when reading The Corrections, but I don't recall.

All in all, still going strong. There are passages in which I start thinking of other things I should be doing, or I start thinking maybe I'll take a nap. Then I read a few minutes longer, and I'm pulled back in.
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Still smart, still a tad unbalanced.

I'm getting distinct glimpses of Rabbit, Run; I Am Charlotte Simmons; something else...
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O.K., final assessment: strong writing, a little dry in places; Franzen could use more humor to balance out the seriousness of the characters and their situations (yes, literature needs humor (yes, I'm referring to this book as literature)). Some of the secondary characters seem more alive than the main characters. The story is mostly realistic and contains remarkable insight, bravely displayed, but the way it is disclosed sometimes--the awkward dialog, for example--is lacking.

I wonder why all the women characters are not only depressed, but on medication for depression and why none of the characters are capable of being faithful sexually. There are ways, other than infidelity, to abuse ourselves and loved ones. The political discussions, namely the discussions on population control, a taboo subject, won me over. Largely, a very good book.
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Sep 07, 2010 Alison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this in slightly less than 24 hours and am currently nursing the most painful kind of book hangover. You know the old how can this be over? how can I possible follow this up? did I really sit up reading this until 4 am? sort of feeling. Freedom really is that good, good in that way that you will so absorbed while reading it that it won't even occur to you how good it was until you hate to turn the last page.

Anyway, I'll save the longer review for a few weeks.

In the meantime, enjoy it.

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Jun 07, 2012 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dead-tree-edition, for-kindle, 2011, reviewed

I’m using this space, not to review Freedom (because I wouldn’t be able to do it justice), but to point out that THIS RIGHT HERE is actually the best review of this book on Goodreads. So go there and “like” it.

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Dec 21, 2010 Gary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

God, I saw Jonathan in person at Christ's church Cathedral. Over 800 people there. I got my book signed,and when we first talked, I said "Hey" and he said "Hey" back. Cool Dude. We talked about how I got a copy of Time with his picture on the cover. I had tried to find a copy in the store with no luck, so a friend of mine, I had mentioned that to, stole a copy from her eye doctor's office. I told Jonathan about that,and he smirked and kinda chuckled,and signed my books, and the cover of the maga...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Totally felt Tolstoyan, specifically the triangulation of characters and flowing transparent prose that's nevertheless never spare. Criticisms (see below) seem sort of nitpicky -- yet imperfections are possibly absolutely a necessary part of what this one's about -- considering how alive the characters seemed, how they spanned time, how they engagingly struggled with personal/political imperfections and therefore seemed to squirm inside the story, asking me to open the book and get back to them...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Adam Floridia rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Background: I decided to give in to the hype and read this book by the new American voice of our generation, the first author to grace the cover of Time in more than a decade, Jonathan Franzen only after I heard him speak in Hartford. He seemed like a nice guy, with a kinda dry, almost bashful humor. Plus, he was friends with David Foster Wallace. So why not give Freedom a read? It seemed fairly reasonable to expect this to be “good literature.”

Explanatory Digression: The state of CT uses the CA...more

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Jan 03, 2011 Thomas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-outside-of-school, own-physical

If this book is a harbinger for the rest of my reading experiences in 2011, it will definitely be an interesting, albeit slightly annoying year.

I tend to read books fast - flipping through the pages at a breakneck speed so I can move on to the next one - but Freedom made me slow down to appreciate Jonathan Franzen's beautiful, ingenious prose. He possesses a style of writing I have never had the pleasure to read before; it's poetic yet concise, and the narrative is cunning and intelligent. There...more

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Feb 22, 2011 Leah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: tob

ohhhh, well. i might need to process this book more before i review it, but i'm going to attempt something now.

first of all, keep in mind that i'm a character person. as long as the characters are interesting and the writing is interesting then i'm hooked. i don't really care if there's a plot, which is good, cause this book didn't really have one. but i *really* enjoyed the characters - i found them all, for the most part, fascinating, flawed, nuanced, angsty, confused, depressed, occasionally...more

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Jun 05, 2012 F.R. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As the author of humble thrillers, I am occasionally introduced to people at parties and told that I will get along with them because he/she is also writing a book. So I shake hands, say Hello and then they ask me a bit about writing. And when I tell them about the books I’ve produced, some of them perhaps nod sympathetically, before going on to tell me about their own in-progress masterpiece. You see their book isn’t a bizarre murder mystery, or a spin on Faust, their book is about something. T...more As the author of humble thrillers, I am occasionally introduced to people at parties and told that I will get along with them because he/she is also writing a book. So I shake hands, say Hello and then they ask me a bit about writing. And when I tell them about the books I’ve produced, some of them perhaps nod sympathetically, before going on to tell me about their own in-progress masterpiece. You see their book isn’t a bizarre murder mystery, or a spin on Faust, their book is about something. That fact can be seen in the gleam of their eyes – their novel will be an important masterpiece, one to be hailed across the ages and recognised as a cornerstone of Twenty-First century literature.

Of course at this point I nod a little sympathetically, as I’ve had versions of this spiel given to me at least a dozen times and never – to the best of my knowledge – has one of these oh so important books ever been finished, let alone published. (Maybe the type of person who likes to proclaim the greatness of their unfinished masterwork to random people at parties, is someone who likes talking more about their book than actually writing it). Now ‘Freedom’ is definitely a book that’s been published and is very successful, but the reason for this lengthy preamble is that it strikes me that Jonathan Franzen is an author who believes his own books are incredibly important.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked ‘Freedom’ a lot – it’s touching, funny and has real depth. But it’s also a book consciously aiming to be ‘The Great American Novel’, and so there’s a worthiness and slight pomposity throughout. (Even when mocking one of the central character’s own worthiness, it can’t help but have a certain po-faced quality.) This isn’t just another collection of words bound in book form, this is the new Jonathan Franzen novel and as such we should all be grateful it is in our world.

It is of course an ambitious tale, ostensibly detailing the marriage of Patty and Walter, and their relationships with their kids, their extended families and – in particular – an old friend. Franzen shows a true mastery of his material, bouncing around in time, changing narrative point of views (although, for some reason the character of the daughter remains somewhat on the sidelines, which I think unbalances it a little) and has created passages of exquisite brilliance. There are points where it is very funny as well, but there is such an overlying seriousness, a self-consciousness that this is a book to be taken very seriously, which means that it is not as much fun as it could be.

Undeniably this is a good book, just not as good as it thinks it is.
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Sep 08, 2010 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

Scattered observations:

*Writers probably can't ever ditch certain fundamental aspects of their style. With DFW it's the slightly manic, ever-looping association of ideas as his brain connects his current thought to stuff you would never have imagined. Franzen seems unable to dodge the unevenness trap - brilliant for long stretches, interspersed with material that is either preachy, superfluous, or both.

*Less powerful than "The Corrections" because his characters are less universal. Arguably they...more Scattered observations:

*Writers probably can't ever ditch certain fundamental aspects of their style. With DFW it's the slightly manic, ever-looping association of ideas as his brain connects his current thought to stuff you would never have imagined. Franzen seems unable to dodge the unevenness trap - brilliant for long stretches, interspersed with material that is either preachy, superfluous, or both.

*Less powerful than "The Corrections" because his characters are less universal. Arguably they are all stand-ins for Franzen's own concerns and insecurities. Which are not uninteresting. But neither are they super-interesting.

*Why are they all so uptight? Even when kicking over the traces, nobody seems to be having much fun.

*So much emphasis on life's constraints and limitations. A "great" book/author should leave us with a heightened sense of life's possibilities? (Should it?)

*Despite the superficially broad canvas, at the 400-page mark it feels really, really claustrophobic.

*Clear pluses - writing is smooth; invariably, just when you feel you'll never get out of a particular dull patch, Franzen delivers something that's not just good, but kind of awesome.

It's hard to provide a coherent summary. In its favor, "Freedom" is a very enjoyable read, it's structured very smartly (though this is obvious only in retrospect), and benefits from Franzen's ability to nail aspects of the culture with enviable precision. Its mixture of small-scale concerns (the Berglund family dynamics) with larger societal issues is laudable, ambitious, not entirely successful, but certainly a worthy and interesting effort. It does suffer from some of the Franzen tics mentioned above. The variation in quality (some characters are superbly realized, others remain flat), occasional bloating (Franzen's particular hobby-horses relating to the environment and population control get quite a workout), and restriction in focus (to a very narrow section of white, upper middle class intellectuals and their concerns) prevent it from being a great novel. There's also that sense of claustrophobia, bordering on joylessness, that hangs over much of the central part of the book, though this is mitigated somewhat towards the end, which was surprisingly powerful and quite moving.

It is, nonetheless, a very good novel. Franzen cannot be blamed for the extraordinary hype that it has generated, and it shouldn't be held against him. Though I don't think "Freedom" quite matched the brilliance of "The Corrections", it's still one of the best books you're likely to come across this year.

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Aug 11, 2011 Stephen M rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 3-cheers-4-complex-characters, idiot-heart, to-plant-for-my-garden

Jonathan Franzen has a thing for doody.

And when I say doody I mean human fecal matter in all its wondrous metaphorical implications.* If you didn’t think that poopy could make for an effect literary device, then wait till your eyes digest a few specific pages of this bad boy. It might make you defecate in excitement! When primary character, Joey Bergland, is pulling apart a piece of his own crapola to save his wedding band from the assured irretrievability of the Texas sewage system, you go ah,...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Lori (Hellian) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Let's see if "the greatest American writer" captivates me more with this than The Corrections, which I discarded about 2/3 of the way through. The man can certainly write, but I'm not sure I'm going to like any of these characters much more than the ones in The Corrections.

9/30 update: Well, once again I will prove just how uncool I am, because I'm thinking this is really very good, I'm engrossed, I like the characters flaws and all, unlike The Corrections this book has heart.

Finished last week,...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Emily marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: chuckles-chuckles, contemporary, i-love-you-mom

marianne, the hippie friend would come over and sip bud light with emily, whose caramel skin shone like one who spends countless hours at the beach with her boyfriend on the weekends, sipping wine and discussing which midwestern grad school they'd wind up at together. it was a thursday night ritual. three forties for five dollars was a price you couldn't sneeze at they both surmized. and, after all, time with girlfriends was a very much needed way to be rid of stress and very "in vogue." sex and...more

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Mar 31, 2011 Kelanth, numquam risit ubi dracones vivunt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: narrativa, favorites

Franzen è capace di rendere le vite normali delle persone delle storie che non smetteresti mai di leggere. E’ praticamente difficile riuscire ad abbandonare la lettura una volta iniziata. Sembra di avere colla tra le mani, più che un libro di narrativa. Posato il libro attendi il momento per poterlo riprendere per vedere cosa sta succedendo, come se la vita dei personaggi attendesse sospesa le dita del lettore affamato.
L’autore si rivela immediatamente, come uno dei migliori contemporanei, capac...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Kinga rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

UPDATED.

To keep in style of the book this review will be just a lot of rambling.

I mean, it was mostly a soap opera. And I just don’t do soap operas. I can just about manage about 10 minutes every 5th episode, but that’s about it. And Franzen submitted me to 570 bloody pages of a soap opera which I had to digest in a few sittings.
Like in all soap operas, everything ends well and love conquers all, of course some characters might have to be killed off along the way, but it seems like a small pri...more

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Mar 08, 2011 Maia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

Well, I finished Freedom quite a while ago and one of my Bookclubs has already discussed it (ad nauseam, I may add) to a predictably contradictory and confusing mix of reviews. Unsurprisingly, at least half the members were unequivocally 'for' while another half were just as 'against' and then a few--such as myself--remained on the fence, not yet 100% sure. I'm still not sure. I waited this long before posting an actual review because I've still been digesting--not the book, exactly, or even its...more Well, I finished Freedom quite a while ago and one of my Bookclubs has already discussed it (ad nauseam, I may add) to a predictably contradictory and confusing mix of reviews. Unsurprisingly, at least half the members were unequivocally 'for' while another half were just as 'against' and then a few--such as myself--remained on the fence, not yet 100% sure. I'm still not sure. I waited this long before posting an actual review because I've still been digesting--not the book, exactly, or even its merits, but my own reaction to it. Which in and of itself may be one of the novel's core strengths. However you look at it, if enough people are left musing over what you've written, you must have done something right.

This is why I give it 3 stars--would have given it 3.5 stars if possible. Even though I can't honestly say I a) enjoyed the book (half of it bored me to tears, a quarter of it at least I did not believe in) or b) rate it as high literature. I'll be frank: Franzen's writing and his view on life, humanity, America, whatever left me with a sour feeling which I don't rate as 'art' (not the same sour feeling, for e.g., that I experienced the first time I read Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' in high school). Many, many times as I read this novel I wished he was right there in front of me so I could insult him and kick him in the shins! :) Ok, joking aside. I simply don't buy the 90% reviews all over the lit landscape/blogsphere/newspapers etc that place this guy/this novel up there as an American Tolstoy or War and Peace. Seriously! What a disservice to poor Tolstoy, what a minimization of War and Peace. I also most definitely do not consider Franzen the 'first great 21st C writer' or some such nonsense as spouted by others--and I actually consider THAT a disservice to Franzen himself, since it hangs the bar so high that posterity (the real judge) has no chance of judging accordingly.

But I do believe Franzen has a particular talent all his own, and that he hits certain cultural chords right. There were plenty of times as I read Freedom when I was nodding my head and feeling that warm fuzzy sense of recognition and identification.

From a purely structural POV, my biggest gripe with this novel is voice. The beginning is quite terrific--a sort of mordant, tongue-in-cheek tone, a literary 'Desperate Housewives' vibe that sets up the scene wonderfully. I could 'see' everything Franzen wanted me to see. Then he moves the reader to a particular POV, which is ex-jock/stay-at-home mother Patty, and here the problems start. Patty's voice doesn't seem any different from the earlier voice, that of the omnipresent narrator. Worse, her voice doesn't seem at all to match the Patty earlier presented by that narrator. Even worse, it does not seem to be the voice of a female, much less a jock, even less a mother. Simply put, I could 'see' Franzen's authorial hand at pretty much every juncture and my suspense of disbelief was always off. I kept waiting for the moment when the writing would gather momentum and Patty would become real to me--as real as she was in the introductory chapter--but that moment never came, and I stopped believing in her as anything other than a lit device, a symbol for something else. So that's Patty: a wasted opportunity, in my view.

Then we have the male characters, who are all universally and uniformly awful. There's no way around that, they're all just plain awful. Well, Patty--when in her own voice--is pretty awful too but, since she never seems real to me, I could let that go. The male characters, on the other hand, DID seem real, in a Franzen-sort of way and, because of that, their awfulness seems more inexcusable. Of all the awful males, Richard Katz is funnily enough the least awful, maybe because he's supposed to be awful? Walter, on the other hand, is simply impossible. I couldn't stand him from the first moment he appears. In Walter I saw every smart, nerdy, annoying guy I've ever known. Those guys I'd never have dreamed of dating (ever!) and yet who seemed to believe that simply by virtue of being male and 'wanting' to date me (or another girl/woman) they had a right to. I wanted to shake him and I despised him, his underlying narcissistic sexism despite his often spouted 'feminism'. That's not true feminism at all. I was brought up by a feminist dad and my dad would have labeled Walter a hypocrite.

Lastly, we have Joey--possibly, the most awful of all the awful male characters. As a mother of boys, I'd be weeping on my knees if my sons ever turn out like Joey. I'd be ashamed of myself and begging forgiveness to all future females unlucky enough to cross paths with him!! Joey is simply disgusting and I'm glad to say that as a mother and a teacher I rarely encounter young men his age as awful as that. In fact, quite the opposite. Joey is clearly the product of an older man's imagination (Franzen's), and not representative of his generation.

Talking of Joey--possibly the most gut-wrenching awfulness of the book is the character of Connie and her relationship to Joey. Connie is like some sort of backwater, boondog recreation, dim-witted yet 'wise' in her savage naturalness. I am happy to say I have never in my entire life come upon a girl like that, and hope I never will.

So, considering all these 'awfulness' why do I still give it 3 stars? Would have given it another half star if the GR system allowed it? Because I actually respect Franzen for writing this book. I respect his writing, and I was for the most part immersed in it even when I was conscious the entire time that his view of humanity is polar opposite to mine and that Franzen himself is most likely a man I would despise, if I ever met him in person. Already I despise a lot of him simply by reading his books. But I still think he's a good writer, a strong and courageous writer. And I believe he successfully created an entire world, one I believed in for a while on some levels while I was writing. I most certainly do not for one minute believe him to be any sort of 'genius'--and I'd be a lot that history will prove me right--but I do believe that with Freedom he's created an accurate and very postmodern slice of American life. (less)

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Feb 06, 2011 Katie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, boooooring, never-trust-popular-opinion

Freedom is Terrible, by Katie G.
(Abridged for your convenience in list form)

Before you think I'm mean, please note that "freedom is terrible" is kind of the point of Franzen's book: Freedom doesn't get you what you want. Uninhibited, it brings a whole slew of problems along with it and, assuming you're not a slave or living in North Korea, the fact that your life is miserable is not due to a lack of freedom.

Ironically, you can also substitute the book Freedom for the word freedom above, and i...more

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Aug 27, 2012 Petula Darling rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 14, 2011 Brent Legault rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shamelessly conventional, both in style (especially in style) and subject. Packed with adverbs. Multitudes of awkward passages. Lacking in musicality. Poetryless. Written as if English were a tool rather than an instrument. Super shrill -- three of the four main characters seem to speak and even think at only the highest volume. There are no conversations, only arguments. Timid of mystery and everything is explained. Chock full of contemporary zzzzzzzz trivia and contemporary zzzzzzz culture. At...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I loved FREEDOM's encyclopedic, virtuoso command of culture and the minute attention to our cultural moment in history. It's simply incredible how Franzen weaves his story of a dysfunctional love triangle played out over decades with the larger themes (environmental, political) that plague us in 2010. I loved how no character was without flaw, and characters you thought were one dimensional turn out to be fully rounded and believable. Having lived in the Twin Cities and attended UVA, I can vouch...more

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About Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen is the author of The Corrections, winner of the 2001 National Book Award for fiction; the novels The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion; and two works of nonfiction, How to Be Alone and The Discomfort Zone, all published by FSG. His fourth novel, Freedom, was published in the fall of 2010.

Franzen's other honors include a 1988 Whiting Writers' Award, Granta's Best Of Young Ameri...more

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“Nice people don't necessarily fall in love with nice people.” — 244 people liked it

“You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to.” — 100 people liked it

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