Freedom

Overdrive

by Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Franzen

562 pages

English language

Published Feb. 11, 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

ISBN:: 978-1-4299-7943-6
OCLC Number:: 754640344

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(70 reviews)

This novel follows several members of an American family, the Berglunds, as well as their close friends and lovers, as complex and troubled relationships unfold over many years. The book follows them through the last decades of the twentieth century and concludes near the beginning of the Obama administration. The Berglunds are the middle class suburban family that the neighbors just love to talk about. Walter, the successful and doting husband, and Patty, the tall ex varsity basketball player who bakes Christmas cookies for each resident of Barrier Street, seem like the perfect couple. But life is not the pretty picture presented to the world. When their precious first born is corrupted by the wanton girl next door, the edges fray on the Berglunds' family fabric. An old friend emerges, tall, dark and only slightly disheveled and mistakes are made.

9 editions

JoeJoh reviewed Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Review of 'Freedom' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book would have earned five stars, but the end felt entirely disconnected from the rest of the book. It was inauthentic, and felt like it was designed to appeal to a movie going audience.

The rest of the book is brilliant, though I found the entire mountain top renewal section to be superfluous. It felt like it was crammed into the book so Franzen could expound upon his environmental issues; in particular, his devotion to songbird ecology. Personally, I'm a lover of birds, and especially songbirds, but even I found no value in the constant discussion of feral and outdoor cats, the populations decimated by our technology, and the destruction of habitats. This is a book about family, and when he sticks to that, Franzen delivers a virtuoso performance.

Slight Spoiler Below This Point.

In the end, this book is weaker than The Corrections, which felt like a perfect novel about family. One of the themes that Franzen seems to be exploring on a consistent basis is the idea of the prodigal son, and I found the prodigal son of The Corrections (Chip) much more enthralling than Freedom's Joey. Joey and Walter's reconciliation felt forced (though, in all honesty, reconciliation can often feel that way.) Reconciliation, agreeability, and of course, freedom(more precisely, the excess of freedom), are the resounding themes of this book. The book mostly succeeds in exploring all of them in a fascinating and authentic way.

But man, I hate the ending.

Shawn Towner reviewed Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Review of 'Freedom' on 'Storygraph'

2 stars

I'm not ashamed to admit that I didn't make it even a quarter of the way through this novel. (The only reason I rate it 2 stars instead of 1 is out of the guilt I feel for giving the lowest rating to a book I didn't finish.) I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I cannot suffer Franzen's prose. He's supposed to be one of the titans of modern American lit, and I have to struggle to keep myself from falling asleep after just one or two of his pages. I didn't like what I read of the novel--it was dull, cranky, and filled with too much depiction of the sort of suburban malaise that I find so incredibly cliched--but what I don't like even more is the fact that I can't even keep engaged in reading one of the most important authors of my time.