Front cover of "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen, featuring the cerulean warbler as a central plot device. First of all, I'm a bit disappointed to learn that the cerulean warbler is an actual bird. But then, according to Anis Shivani—the same guy who wrote that compelling article about getting gentrified out of Houston's Upper Kirby District—Jonathan Franzen belongs to the realist school of novelists, so making up a species (like the pine weasel in Twin Peaks) as a central plot device just wouldn't do.
I did enjoy reading Freedom, my first encounter with a novelist about whom I have heard so many raves. It is a well-woven story, featuring moments of sublime beauty, remarkable turns of phrase, and OMG-did-I-really-just-laugh-at-that humor. Its principal characters are mostly intolerable upper-middle-class white folks, but the story through which they move overcomes that handicap, at least for a fan of character-driven fiction.
I also found quite a bit to kvetch about, although not nearly as much as Shivani did.
I did enjoy reading Freedom, my first encounter with a novelist about whom I have heard so many raves. It is a well-woven story, featuring moments of sublime beauty, remarkable turns of phrase, and OMG-did-I-really-just-laugh-at-that humor. Its principal characters are mostly intolerable upper-middle-class white folks, but the story through which they move overcomes that handicap, at least for a fan of character-driven fiction.
I also found quite a bit to kvetch about, although not nearly as much as Shivani did.
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