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comment by lil
lil  ·  3008 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A review tearing apart Jonathan Franzen's newest book (in 2002)

I actually read The Commitments, flags, you should too. It was a good read. Later, I read Franzen's novel about fracking, and taking the tops off mountains, and marital breakdown (what isn't about marital breakdown?): Freedom -- yes, both books are impossibly long, but you sort of miss them when they're over. And the sentences... and the experience of living the lives of the protagonists - he does that well.

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This review casts aspersion on the notion of writing a book about a parent dying, saying

    The overwriting is meant to conceal the fact that this novel is a simple mix of three of the most hackneyed storylines in American fiction:

    The picaresque adventures of a feckless male academic, borrowed from DeLillo;

    The sentimental tale of the decay and death of one’s parents as in Dave Eggers’s “masterpiece”;

    The old, old plot device of the family Christmas reunion to bring the centrifugal parents and kids back together again against all odds

I've noticed this: Parents die. They die in real life, and they die in novels.

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Remember Microserfs? For all its high tech, startuptitude, in the end it's about parents dying.

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Remember Bright Lights Big City, Jay McInerney's first novel. For all its life in New York City survivitude, in the end it's about parents dying.

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Remember the Bible: well guess what? Parents die..

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Full disclosure: I couldn't read the whole review by Dolan. To say that a novel about parents dying is a hackneyed storyline is saying that Hamlet has a hackneyed storyline because the son is trying to deal with the death of his father.

Bosh.





cgod  ·  3007 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I liked The Corrections just fine but found no appetite for his second book, felt like I'd been there and read that before.

user-inactivated  ·  3008 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I trust you, lil. So Franzen can remain on my read-eventually-as-you-see-his-books-at-random-used-book-sales list. However, I am generally skeptical of modern books and books that seem, at a glance, to be about the commonplace. The writing has to be, well, Shakespearean. Extraordinary.

So I'll find out eventually.

tacocat  ·  3008 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Franzen is pretty common at Goodwill. I got The Corrections and Freedom there but they're pretty far down my list of Goodwill to-reads.

user-inactivated  ·  3008 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah; that's where I get my impression of his writing, from the backflap summaries I've read at Goodwill. Next time I will think, but lil, and buy one.

lil  ·  3008 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Aren't you taking a long train ride to Toronto? Perfect time/place to read Franzen. Although The Brooklyn Follies is perfect for an overnight train ride. Franzen might take longer.

user-inactivated  ·  3008 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I will be driving a solid 1300 there and back. I've got some audiobooks tuned up.

We still need to talk about that by the way. Hamilton, right? Watch this space etc