The Nature of Things

Purity by Jonathan Franzen My rating: 3 of 5 stars Purity is the legal name of the central character of this book and moral purity as a concept seems to be the philosophical idea which the author wants to explore through his characters and their stories. He does it at great length in this interesting but rather ponderous novel. (Full disclosure: I originally rated the book at a four-star read, but after sleeping on it overnight, I dialed it back to three stars. I think a bit of editing, trimming down some of those long passages that seem to go on forever repetitiously and to no great effect at advancing the plot, would have definitely made it a four-star.) Purity Tyler, by the time we meet her as a young college graduate, has adopted her school nickname, Pip, as the name that she goes by. This Pip does not have any great expectations. She's in a dead-end job, burdened by crushing college debt and a lack of direction. She is also burdened by a lack of knowledge about her family his...

In  The Corrections , his National Book Award-winning novel from 2001, Jonathan Franzen gives us the Lamberts, an American Gothic family from the Midwest: Alfred, the emotionally constipated paterfamilias, who sacrificed himself for his family in many ways that we discover as the novel proceeds and who now faces a slow death from Parkinson's Disease; his wife, Enid, a woman who longs for a warmth from her husband and children that she has never received, a woman who lives on the expectation that things will get better; Gary, the oldest son, married and living in Philadelphia with his manipulative wife Caroline who is teaching their three young sons the art of the disdainful manipulation of their father; Chip, the middle child, who we first meet as a self-absorbed twit but who grows into something more fully human by the conclusion of the book; and Denise, the youngest child, a talented chef who betrays her employer in Philadelphia through her ambiguous sexuality and loses, if not e...

The famously cranky writer Jonathan Franzen, who once dissed Oprah and her book club, has published this book of essays which gives some insight into some of his crankiness, how his mind works, and how he thinks about writing - his own and that of others. It is an eclectic collection of essays ranging from such subjects as modern technology to birding and ecology to literary criticism. I found myself most often agreeing with him about the things that annoy him and I was very interested to read of the fellow writers whom he championed here, most of whom I had never read and of some of whom I had never heard. After reading this book, I'm adding several of them to my "to be read" list. I share with Franzen a passion for birds and birding and so the most interesting essays for me were the ones related to that subject, although, often, they are not  only  about that subject. The essay which gives the book its title, "Farther Away," concerns Franzen's trip to a lo...

When Freedom came out last year, all the reviewers went into orgasmic paroxysms of delight over it. I was bemused by all the hoopla, remembering Franzen's last book, The Corrections , and the big kerfuffle that was caused when Oprah chose the book for her book club and Franzen seemed to diss her readers, opining that his "lit'rature " was much too high-brow for such low-brow readers. (No, of course, he didn't actually use those words! I'm paraphasing and interpreting.) Oprah subsequently de-selected the book and moved on. I figured it was probably too high-brow for me, too, and I never got around to reading it. But then came Freedom with a picture of the beautiful Cerulean Warbler on the cover. How could I, as a birder, resist it? It turns out that the Cerulean Warbler is an integral part of the plot of the book. Walter Berglund, a lawyer who works for 3M in outreach and philanthropy, has a strong environmentalist streak. Environmentalist causes become his ...

Remember the brouhaha several years ago when Oprah Winfrey selected The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen for her book club? Franzen was not amused. In fact, he was appalled. He made some churlish statement to the effect that he was afraid his selection by Oprah would turn off male readers, that they would think that his book was "middlebrow" and would not pick it up. Well, I don't know how male readers felt, but I was certainly turned off by Franzen's ungracious and supercilious attitude. Apparently, the only people he thought were good enough and smart enough to read his book were male PhDs! Since I don't qualify, I decided I wouldn't read his book and I never have. After his stated consternation at being given the Oprah stamp of approval, Oprah rescinded her stamp and rescinded her invitation to appear on her show. Franzen ultimately apologized for his behavior, but it was too late. Ten years passed. Now Franzen is out with another book, Freedom . ...