Jonathan Franzen seems to have a knack to chronicling America’s dysfunctional families. The Corrections was certainly memorable in that regard and in Freedom he charts the ups and downs of the decades-long relationship of Patty and Walter Berglund from St. Paul, Minnesota. The characters in Freedom offer an antidote to the St. Paul denizens of Garrison Keillor’s Minnesota ideal, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”. In Franzen’s Freedom individuals are flawed and far from perfect, and in spite of this they are very relatable and very human—they’re people you know, probably people you have Thanksgiving with (probably people you'd argue with at the Thanksgiving table). The subplot (beyond the chronicle of the Berglunds' long-suffering relationship) is a misguided attempt to purportedly create a habitat for an endangered bird, while flattening a mountaintop to do it.I thought during the course of reading this that a more apt title might have been Mistakes (and Patty does write a missive called "Mistakes Were Made"), though I suppose the freedom in the title might refer to our freedom to make mistakes, the freedom to choose the course of our lives, for good or for bad?
Anyhow, I highlighted the passage below, always on the look-out for quotes that expose the internet for its notorious unreliability and all too frequent mediocrity.
“The internet’s f__d up, isn’t it?” Jenna said…
“So f__d up, so f__d up,” he
said
…” free information’s by definition worthless.”
Guess that’s what libraries are for!
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