Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Franzen is widely credited with bringing realistic fiction back into vogue--straight forward story telling with no fanciful post-modern flourishes. He writes about families, with all their misunderstandings, hurts, secrets, and unresolved psychological problems. Evidently this resonates with many readers. I feel like saying to his characters, "Just GET OVER IT!"

This is the story of the Berglunds: Walter and Patty, an environmental lawyer and his seemingly perfect stay-at-home wife; and their children Jessica, a serious over-achiever, and Joey, a charming manipulator. Other major players include Walter's best friend Richard, a feckless musician who incites in Patty a long-lived fascination and lust, and Connie, Joey's girl friend who immolates her entire self in order to bind him. Everything goes downhill fast, as the father finds himself involved in a seemingly environmentally friendly cause, only to find out that it is greed-based exploitation, and the mother yields to her long-repressed sexual impulses. This is all played out in the George W. Bush years, with much of the action centered around the "moral corruption" of the people and the time.

So this is a family drama about people who screw up royally (literally and figuratively) mainly because they had really bad parenting. (Actually, all the parents had been fairly well-intentioned and nobody was tortured or deprived, but anyway.) All the characters are smart and analyze their feelings obsessively, but they still behave badly. What is missing here are real family love, some sort of moral code, less self-involvement. This may be a picture of a typical modern upper-middle-class American family in the 21st century, but it is not a family that I have ever known.

Franzen tells a good story and keeps the reader's interest, even if the reader (me) is terribly frustrated with the selfishness of the characters. He inserts much reference to War and Peace, seemingly hoping to copy its template of family drama against the larger backdrop of historical events. He also rather obviously highlights many of his own pet opinions about environmental concerns and liberalism versus conservatism in America. Not that I am not in agreement with him much of the time, but his preaching did somewhat obtrude.

This novel is an interesting read, but I don't agree with many critics that it was at all a great novel. It is too long, includes too much preaching, includes story lines left unfinished and others too needlessly explored, has implausible plot elements, and, finally, has no really sympathetic characters. I'm glad I read it, but I won't read it again.