Freedom

A Novel

By: Jonathan Franzen

Narrated by: David LeDoux

Length: 24 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

From the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections, a darkly comedic novel about family.

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world. But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz - outré rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival - still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become “a very different kind of neighbor,” an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's intensely realized characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

©2010 Jonathan Franzen (P)2010 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"The Great American Novel." ( Esquire)

"It’s refreshing to see a novelist who wants to engage the questions of our time in the tradition of 20th-century greats like John Steinbeck and Sinclair Lewis . . . [This] is a book you’ll still be thinking about long after you’ve finished reading it." (Patrick Condon, Associated Press)

“Writing in prose that is at once visceral and lapidary, Mr. Franzen shows us how his characters strive to navigate a world of technological gadgetry and ever-shifting mores, how they struggle to balance the equation between their expectations of life and dull reality, their political ideals and mercenary personal urges. He proves himself as adept at adolescent comedy as he is at grown-up tragedy; as skilled at holding a mirror to the world his people inhabit day by dreary day as he is at limning their messy inner lives . . . Mr. Franzen has written his most deeply felt novel yet—a novel that turns out to be both a compelling biography of a dysfunctional family and an indelible portrait of our times." (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)

So-So

Sociology does not make for great or even good literature -- and this is sociology by the numbers. As if written from index cards, the characters of the book are carefully constructed from minute and plentiful place-time details, that approximate authenticity, but fail to engage. What's all the fuss?

FREEDOM by Jonathan Franzen

I don't like it. Can't even finish the first segment. Not my type of book. I couldn't possibly care any less about any of the characters. But I may not be someone you should pay any attention to, when considering a purchase. I listened to a couple of the "Rabbit" books by John Updike with the same results. I don't get what the attraction is. Boring, somewhat shallow people from backgrounds I can't relate to, living their lives. BFD! Who cares?!

Just the worst!

All of the characters were terrible people and they never got any better. One star because I’m so happy that I don’t have anyone like these people in my life.

Boring

Could care less about the people!! They are all a group of self centered people!!! Who cares.

Freedom from misery

I am finally free from this miserable book. I'm not sure why I listened through the end, unless I hoped it would redeem itself -- it wasn't worth it! The characters were whiny and I didn't like any of them. If I could give it 0 stars, I would!

Revelations of Self-Absorbed Bores

This is the latest in a relentlessly tiresome genre -- no plot, just people-watching, and self-absorbed bores to boot! Following the activities of pathetic people does not a good journey make. Unless you're interested in watching a bore discover how shallow she really is, skip this, and in my opinion, skip all the authors who think that whipping back and forth from the perspective of one character to another is the clever new norm. It's not new anymore; in fact, it's passe, or should be.

Freedom

Very Very slow book. I kept reading waiting for something to happen. I never did. I want those hours back.

Not what it was cracked up to be

The author was adept at things like character development, keeping the story neatly tied together even with going back and forth in time. But, essentially not very inspired writing. I am looking for a book to demonstrate the beauty of the English language. But when you use words like "stuff" and "realness", it's not happening. He wasted opportunities at pivotal points in the plot. Could hae been a great literary moment, but just kind of plowed through them.
I'm going back to classics.....

A good novel, performance is hard to listen to

There is of course much to like here. Listening is quite enjoyable when there is no dialogue. Unfortunately, there is a lot of dialogue in this one. The narrator has a rare talent for making each and every character sound far more petty, unpleasant and ridiculous than they are in the book. Each also loses at least 40 IQ points in this rendition. This makes a potentially great experience far less so. It is as if the narrator has no sympathy for any characters and finds the worst in each. Not great overall.

So... What's the Point?

The book was kind of interesting at first. That is, in the character it created. However, after a couple chapters I began to ask myself, "What's the point."

I guess if one likes to peer into the fictional lives of others, it might be interesting. I have never been one to appreciate gossip, especially when it is made-up gossip.

There was no learning or inspiration with this novel. It was just a bunch of fictional dirt about fictional lives.