The opening lines of Anna Karenina came into my mind unbidden after I read the final page of Freedom. It occurred to me that there is something tragically beautiful in the tale of an unhappy marriage. Tragic, obviously. But there's real beauty there too. In the misunderstandings and the fears left unspoken, or spoken backwards. Why is there so much poetry in it?
Anyway. I liked this novel quite a bit more than I expected. I liked The Corrections, and this promised to be pretty similar (and was!), so I'm not sure why I was surprised. But I was all the same. Maybe I just didn't think I was in the mood to like something that received so much hype.
But Franzen writes the type of novel that tends to lower all my defenses. It is big and sprawling and delves deeply into the inner stories of most - if not all - of its characters. (Why do we not really get to know Jessica Berglund though?) Benefitting from something approaching omniscience, we get to see the bigger picture that the characters can't. And to wonder if it will become clear to them. And if such a thing really matters.
I suppose it is to be expected that I would think of Tolstoy, as Patty's experience of Natasha Rostova guides her thinking about fidelity to her husband. (Franzen - or Patty at least - provides a very different reading from my own about the triangle(s) of Natasha-Pierre-Andrei-that other jackass.)
I made a couple other notes, mainly about amusing cultural references like Conor Oberst, but nothing of great note. I am sorry to have forgotten a few of the other themes I had wanted to touch upon. The trouble with big books, I guess.
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