On My Night Table


FREEDOM BY JONATHAN FRANZEN

Look they put a bird on it!

Freedom is the story of the whitest marriage, like, ever. Patty and Walter Berglund are a typical couple who we get to watch meet, fall in love, marry, fall out of love, self destruct and so on.  We meet their children, friends, neighbours, and families and by the end of this great novel, you may not love them (although I really, really do) but you will know them well.

This book demands that the pages keep getting turned as we delve deeper and deeper into these lives. The promise of the turn of the 20th century gives way to the uncertainty, fear and general morass of early the early 21st century both in American history as it unfolds and in the marriage and proclivities of the Berglunds.

Patty and Walter are so well-drawn that they seem like old friends that we don’t necessarily love to see, but through their familiarity they become almost like family.  All of their behavior is so clear to the reader in it’s pathos, motivation, and outcome (there were points in the book where I almost wished I could call them up and warn them about what they were doing or tell them to snap out of it).  These two inhabit middle-age in a way that’s at once amusing, terrifying and all-too-familiar.

Franzen has created a book that, at times, seems to ramble but always gets pulled back to being pertinent and on-topic. The structure of the novel is unlike any I’ve read before and when a literary “gimmick” works as well as this, I’m amazed and in awe. The characters are seen through a few different lenses and it only makes them more rich. He takes the subject of a marriage with all its small triumphs and mini-heartbreaks and makes it epic.  He has painted a picture of real life that is never boring and endlessly fascinating.  Filled with humor and sadness and great characters, Freedom gives his The Corrections a run for its money and comes highly recommended.