Strong Motion

A Novel

Paperback, 528 pages

English language

Published Sept. 8, 2001 by Picador, Picador USA.

ISBN:
978-0-312-42051-2
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OCLC Number:
47959557

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4 stars (3 reviews)

Another second novel. As always Franzen’s scope is immense, and his talent is clear on every page. If Palanuick is the very best writer, sentence to sentence, then Franzen is clearly the best living novelist. This story involves one Louis Holland, and a Harvard seismologist named Dr. Reneé Seitchek, and it revolves around abortion activists, big corporations, and strange sudden earthquakes appearing near Boston, which every Harvard seismologist knows is very strange indeed. It writes about the evil of corporations, but in a stronger, more mature way than Palanuick. Franzen is a historian, and he tells us exactly why the world is bad, how it came to be that way. He goes all the way back to the colonization of America, but not in a preachy or boring way. He personifies a raccoon for five pages, which is strangely one of the most poignant parts of the whole book.

The …

4 editions

Review of 'Strong Motion' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

After reading Jonathan Franzen's more recent blockbusters, I'd expected to be disappointed in this earlier novel. I was not. In some ways, it was more substantial and more relevant to me than his latest tome, Purity.

For one thing, I do enjoy and find fascinating his digressions, how he annexes history lectures and background information as part of his story, instead of bogging us readers down with end notes. I felt that this information added to my appreciation of what was going on in the present.

There were times when I wanted to smack some of the characters, but that's normal. Really, Franzen always introduces us to people with peculiar problems who don't make the best decisions. The heroine of the novel, Renee Seitchek, was very well drawn. I came to like her, problems and all.

Franzen's writing is superb, and I'm impressed with the scope of this plot. I …

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Subjects

  • Modern fiction
  • Popular American Fiction
  • Fiction
  • Fiction - General
  • General
  • Fiction / General