- The world Franzen builds in this just released long novel (580 pages) is rich in detail and meaning. But typically, the reader must get beyond the estrangement and boredom of the first 100 or so pages, just like his previous novels, before the magic, like a drug, kicks in. The constant God bothering in this one will frustrate many readers too.
- He does tend to ramble on and on. The backstories are often tiresome in the extreme. He's introducing us to the Hildebrandt family - Russ, the pastor, Marion, his wife, and their four kids Clem, Becky, Perry and Judson. At first Marion comes over as batshit crazy. When Russ first met her...she was a pants-wearing, half-Jewish Catholic who lived with homosexuals. Later he resents her for having snared him into marriage.
- The kids, at least before they leave school, are bright and full of promise. But it’s a dysfunctional family in the end. Perry, although intellectually brilliant, becomes a hopeless drug addict and a major financial burden on the family. Their relationships sour.
- Franzen drowns us in a religion versus secularism debate. The emerging new consciousness of the late 60's and early 70's, including drugs, sex, and the tensions over the Vietnam war and racism loom large, and traditional religious belief is challenged.
- But Franzen holds fast and gives us very fundamentalist Christian book, while also acknowledging native Indian beliefs and criticising white colonial arrogance. 'The world’s persistent talk of God' is everywhere.
- Disappointingly the novel has serious weaknesses and they annoyed me intensely. The word 'hatred' is massively overused. Russ’s 'hatred' for his younger assistant pastor becomes absurd. It's way overdone and immature. His sexual attraction to a younger female parishioner becomes an obsession, but then he suddenly ‘hates’ her. Not long after, when he sees her again, he was flooded with voluptuous presentiment. After Becky and Clem fight...she struggled to regain her Christian bearings, but her hatred was too intense.
- Although lives are described in microscopic detail, minor incidents become highly dramatic. Commonplace emotions are over-intense - it's not just ‘hatred’ that's overused. So is the constant follow up 'sorry’. It's almost comic. The instant shifting in reactions is quite silly. Characters go from love to loathing and back again in seconds. It's over the top and overripe writing, which is very American.
- You could conclude that all these characters are as mad as cut snakes. That would be rational.
- Of course Franzen's gift for prose that's bursting with electricity is always on show: their mouths like twins or proxies of other wet parts; lambert rationality; supremely unpleasant lavatorial digression.
- I considered his 2010 novel Freedom a classic. It was a brilliant interrogation of contemporary America. (See my review here). Crossroads, unfortunately, is nowhere near as good.
No comments:
Post a Comment