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)

I hated this book!

I'm sorry to say this, but this book sucked! There is not a single character who is likable, everyone is a deciever and a cheat. Totally evil and self centered. I could not finish it, and I wish I could return it. Lousy listen!

Annoying and Unlikeable Characters

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I've tried a few times to get into this book but am going to save myself 20 hours and skip it.

What was most disappointing about Jonathan Franzen’s story?

The characters are annoying, the constant picking apart of people, it's like listening to gossip non-stop for 24 hours. Ugh. I bought it because I enjoyed The Corrections, but this book is just plain depressing, and for no good reason.

Reader doesn't do it for me

The two stars are for the audio interpretation, not the book itself! I was so looking forward to this one not only because of the hype but because I liked The Corrections. Now that I'm to the end of Part One I am about to give up. I had trouble with the reader from the very beginning--had to keep relistening to the first half an hour several times because his reading just didn't manage to create any of the story or the characters in my mind. Once I got over that I went along thinking I could ignore his interpretation but I am afraid that I might have to decide putting down the audiobook and instead buying the print version. As another reviewer suggested there's something irritating about the sing-song inflection he gives his reading that makes it seem overdone (in an unproductive way). What a bummer!

ALERT! - bad narration

This is a great book, but the narration is terrible.

The problem is that the reader has a harsh - almost sarcastic - tone that causes the characters to come across as bitter, cruel, or whiny. This is unfortunate because Franzen's dialogue is much more nuanced, at once compassionate, funny, and sad. The bad narration is particularly problematic in the passages that are narrated from Patty's perspective. The reader's delivery is so whiny, that I found myself repeating each line in my head in a more natural tone, just as to not completely ruin the experience. (That was around the time I decided to buy the book instead.)

Definitely read the book, but skip this audio version.

Unpleasant without art

I don't want to spend much time reviewing this book, but will add my voice to the negatives. The author has compiled a long list of the small and large personal and political defects of northern American upper middle class people over the last several decades, then inflicted them on a cardboard family, their friends, and neighbors. These uniformly unsympathetic characters are made to suffer for their sins over the first nine-tenths of the book, then--miracle--everything turns out fine. The tone of the book is made even worse by the narrator, whose snide reading provides overkill where a more subtle approach might have made listening more bearable. Good novels can and often do hold up a mirror to the less than perfect aspects of life, but in order to be effective there must be true sympathy and art in the writing. "Freedom" has neither.

Don't know what all the fuss is about.

Sorry, don't agree with Oprah on this one. I found it to be monotonous and depressing. If I had started reading the book instead of listening to the audio version, I never would have finished it. Most of the characters were so self involved and demented in many ways. With the state of the world today, I rather read a book to entertain me, not to depress me.

Just can't finish it

I used a credit to purchase this book shortly after it was released and was really excited to listen to it. However, several months and multiple attempts at listening later I'm only about 5 hours in. I listen to many audibooks of different genres each month but I just cannot seem to get into this one. Maybe this is one that just does not translate well into the audio format or perhaps its just not interesting subject matter to me. I gave it two stars because I do think it has potential and maybe one day I will finish it. But at this point it just seems like such a tedious chore to listen to everytime I turn it on.

Freedom: A Novel

Try as I might, I was unable to enjoy the story because of the arrogant and condescending tone of the narrator. This is the first audiobook in over a year of listening that I turned off after a few hours, and felt relieved.

Tiring

Listening to this just made me tired. I finished it only because I make it a point to try and finish all books I start.

Franzen insults his readership.....again

While I fully give Franzen his props for generally being a fantastic writer, the characters in this book made me want to end all contact with humanity. I don't mean to "pick", but Walter's continuous diatribe against American consumerism resulted in me wanting to punch him in the face......if he were real. I was about 2/3 of the way through the book before I had that icky feeling that the book itself was a big "middle finger" to the general American populous. Ever since Franzen's beef with Oprah over "The Corrections", I've had a sneaking suspicion that he generally loathes the readers who buy his books. "Freedom" effectively confirmed that, and by the end of the novel, I couldn't care less what happened to Walter, Patty and Joey. I really just wanted to buy an SUV and a pack of Chiclets.