Currently Reading

[faster]

that's how i read the denser sections of finnegans wake.

m

Likewise--I tried to read as much of it that way as possible. Pretty fucking fun. In coffee shops. In Seoul.

[surfer]

You should try chanting it, incantatory style. On the subway, and in the middle of pedestrian bridges.

[walto]

[Wombatz]

Isn't that one of the awful ones, the camouflage novels, where he tries real hard to be a proper late Victorian?

[walto]

Dunno. I thought I'd read them all, and when I stumbled on this one, I first thought it was just a revision of something (or an earlier version) I knew under a different name. But I don't recognize it so far.

BTW, speaking of things I have/haven't read. The new NYer has a lengthy review of a new selection of Tagore works. There have been about a hundred of those sorts of things published already, and I can't see what the point of another one is--though, admittedly, Tagore was very prolific. Unfortunately, the reviewer doesn't provide much detail about the particular items included, so we could tell if there was a point. What he does do is run through the highlights of Tagore's life and praise a mid-90s bio that I thought was pretty bad. OTOH, the publication does have new English translations of some of the poems. The thing is, based on the comparison in the NYer, the new ones make considerably worse poems than Tagore's own translations--even if they're more "accurate" renderings of Bengali.

[surfer]

This Be The Verse said Philip.

So I finished Freedom about a week ago. I'm sorry to say found it disappointing, not for what I wanted it to be, not for what the media told me it was going to be, but for what it is, for the quality of the writing. I wanted to like it, and honestly I thought I would. I enjoyed the few references to Santa Cruz; he's kind of become a local boy. I waited more than a week to let some things settle. My biggest single issue is that Franzen is not a lyrical writer. I'm not trying to force him to be a type of writer he's not, but in my view there just isnt much poetry to be found in Freedom. Very few if any paragraphs in it compelled me to grab the nearest person and read it to them in wide-eyed amazement. "Listen to this." Franzen's writing doesnt ask to be reread, it isnt ambiguous. It means exactly what it appears to mean at first pass. There's no need to reread this book, you wont get any more out of it that you did on your first reading. Beyond that, there are just too many passages that are simply hackneyed, cliched, and poorly worded:

"The next afternoon, in Room 21, in broad daylight, with the windows open and the faded curtains billowing, they laughed and cried and fucked with a joy whose gravity and innocence it fairly wrecks the biographer to think back upon, and cried some more and fucked some more, and lay next to each other with sweating bodies and full hearts and listened to the sighing pines. Patty felt like she'd taken some powerful drug [note: author comparing "love" to a "powerful drug"] that wasnt wearing off, or like she'd fallen into an incredibly vivid dream [note: author comparing "love" to a dream-like state] that she wasnt waking up from, except that she was fully aware, from second to second to second, that it wasnt a drug or a dream but just life happening to her, a life with only a present and no past, a romance unlike any romance she'd imagined [note: did he just say that?]. Because Room 21! How could she have imagined Room 21? It was such a sweetly clean old-fashioned room, and Walter such a sweetly clean old-fashioned person. And she was 21 [note: what a coincidence!!!!!!] and could feel her 21ness in the young, clean, strong wind that was blowing down from Canada. Her little taste of eternity."

Now, regardless of one's feelings about the book, that (an important scene, fwiw) is some godawful writing plagiarized straight from a bodice-ripping dime store romance novel.

"“the emptiness of her nest … now that the kids had flown”. (Let's just leave aside the fact that birds are a major part of this novel and pray that Franzen was just writing while drunk, and not attempting the world's worst pun.)

"While the rain lashed and the sky flashed . . . . ." better than It was a dark and stormy night I suppose.

"Only Joey, who had insider access, had seen the potential in her, and this now seemed like the story of their life together: his helping and encouraging her to confound the expectations of everyone, especially his mother, who underestimated the value of her hidden assets. It was central to his faith in his future as a businessman, this ability to identify value, espy opportunity, where others didnt, and it was central to his love of Connie, too. She moved in mysterious ways! The two of them had started fucking amid the piles of twenty-dollar bills she brought home form her school."

5 finance related metaphors in two sentences.

and on and on. There are others I've bookmarked, I'm just tired of typing them. I thought the Berglund family history (Einar Dorothy and the rest) might have been the best pure writing in the book.

I feel tempted to say that Franzen does well in painting a complex psychological portrait of the main characters, but I'm not sure I can even get behind that. We have almost 600 pages of Patty, including two autobiographies (weird conceit, that), and what do we know about her really? I dont think its being reductionist to say that Franzen portrays her as a bored housewife whose mental health and marriage issues can be solved with a good solid hard fuck. She says to Walter that she thinks they had a breakthrough after he has his way with her late in the novel. Franzen's horny housewife fantasy is what, sexist? insulting? profoundly simplistic? The rape at the beginning of the novel is barely dealt with in the ensuing 500 pages (it floats over Patty's sections like a unmentioned secret), and the dialogues between her mother and her, and her father and her, I thought were particularly tin-eared, as is a lot of the dialogue in the novel.

Walter I had fewer problems with than either Patty or Richard. But he is built as a wonk and devolves into a jumble of industry jargon. I got little sense of him from his courtship of Patty. And then their marriage is falling apart. Every exchange with Patty is taken in the key of hysteria.

What do we understand of Richard? The entire book really hinges on one act, his decision to sleep with Patty. Did Franzen really set the stage for that betrayal though? During Patty and Richard's roadtrip to Chicago, I never got the sense that Richard was even remotely attracted to her, there's no sexual tension, no intellectual connection, he just seems supremely annoyed at her very presence. He leaves her alone in that tenement, goes out all night, seems to forget she's there. Even when he's dating her roommate Eliza, he doesnt seem to acknowledge her as anything other than Eliza's basketball playing friend. She has no interest in his music, no interest in music at all (until post-coital country ballads at the lakehouse). They dont seem to talk about anything. Frazen makes it very clear early and often that Richard is very protective of Walter, especially with regards to his love life. Then why the decision to sleep with Patty? There's no chemistry between Patty and Richard when she's at the lakehouse and she seduces him. I found that dialogue painful to read. Franzen in a span of 4 pages, describes Patty's heart as "racing" a total of 8 times. e.g. "The day before Walter left for Saskatchewan, her heart began to race. It was just a thing her heart was doing, this racing. The next morning, after she drove Walter to the airport in Grand Rapids and returned to the house, it was racing so much that an egg slipped out of her hand and fell on the floor while she was making pancake batter." pick another adjective, jesus.
Anyway, Richard is what, a borderline nihilist (with a heart of gold) who hates fame and other human beings generally. Franzen shows us Richard putting in pink noise earbuds and reading Bernhard. He's a amalgam of Dont Look Back (also referenced) era Dylan and Ryan Adams. I'm not sure I know much about Richard.

Lalitha. The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. La. Lee. Tha. So submissive, so willing to please, so in thrall to Walter's ideas. So much one-dimensional Orientalism. The authorial decision to kill her is the least believable plot twist in the novel, imo.

By the time we get to the first meeting of Free Space, the 3 above mentioned characters' lines of dialogue are virtually interchangeable. Its like a running monologue. Environmentalists come off as well-intentioned people who basically face an impossibly uphill battle and a raft of bad or worse choices. Carol and Blake and Coyle are the ones Franzen really has utter contempt for, the redneck conservatives. Say what you will about DFW's supposed elitism, but his Midwestern bone fides are genuine, and his empathy for and curiosity towards those he grew up around (ie the simply folk, eg "Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All" in Supposedly Fun Thing) comes through often in his writing.

I thought Joey was the most well sketched character in the novel, and his exchanges with Connie, and surprisingly with Jenna and her family, comprised some of the best writing. Interesting allusion to the coprophagia scene in Gravity's Rainbow btw. and Vin Haven is a great Pychonesque name, isnt it?

Jessica seems to be the character Franzen has the least interest in developing. She functions as a ballast to Joey's charisma. I know nothing about her.

It surprises me that anyone would categorize this as a depressing or cynical work, in fact it may be one of the most optimistic and hopeful narratives I've read in years. Every single character has, in the depths of his/her chest, a proverbial heart of gold. They may make bad choices (Freedom is the "freedom to fuck up your life" Walter/Jonathan tells us), selfish short-sighted chioces, but they're not malevolent at least as they're portrayed by Franzen. Human nature is essentially good, and reconciliations are by and large inevitable. At least they appear to be given the flurry of them we're subjected to by the last 60 pages: Walter and his brother, Patty and her father/mother/sisters (except Abby), Joey and Jessica (their bond strengthened by their parents difficulties we're told), Joey and Walter (shade-grown coffee, love it), Patty and Jessica, Patty and Joey (not really but somewhat hinted at), Walter and Connie, Patty and the memory of Lalitha (the last line of the novel is embarassingly sentimental), Walter and Richard (Songs For Walter!), and of course Walter and Patty. Its a stunning display of ribbon tying prowess.

Overall it is an intensely plot driven novel, very little writing does not move the narrative steadily forward. (the pacing is a strong point) Freedom could function passably well as a screenplay, and in that sense its very cinematic. I found myself picturing how certain scenes would work in film, and who would play each character. (I would be very surprised if this isnt optioned within the next year or two. It might actually be a better medium for this story, given the right actors.) The 600 pages fly by (its a page-turner!) almost with a will of their own.

I think this review turned a bit more sour than I intended, as I didnt actively dislike the novel. But its not much more than an unimpressive accumulation of details; details about Walter, Patty, Richard, and everyone else, and details about modern life. I have no clear sense of what they add up to, and furthermore, I would argue that mere "brushstroke counting" is not necessarily a good barometer of character construction. There are many authors whose approach to character is more impressionistic or expressionistic (not to mention minimalistic) than Franzen's, and whose total effect is more profound on me.

Finally, "Freedom" is a cheap word. Its used so much, by so many people in so many ways, for so many purposes, that's its lost even the subjective meaning it may have once had. "It's all circling around the same problem of personal liberties," Walter tells us in the passage I quoted above. "You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to. . . . . . Lalitha nodded in submissive agreement to this." I didnt find myself thinking about the idea of Freedom at all throughout the novel, or after I put it down. Its been leeched of meaning. Franzen might as well have called it "Big Idea".

Anyway, you get the idea . . . . . . .

This Be The Verse

by Philip Larkin


They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.


"Two kids good, no kids better." - Richard Katz

[walto]

Thanks for posting those _Freedom_ excerpts, Darren. Coincidentally, I *FINALLY* finished _The Corrections_ just a few days ago. I really don't think there's anything as shitty in that book. I thought it was brilliant and (mostly) very beautiful. Maybe he shot his wad.

Anyhow, based on your assessment, I feel like I don't have to worry about reading that giant book.

[jon abbey]

I thought 'Freedom' was a decidedly better version of 'The Corrections', FWIW, so if you liked the latter, I'd definitely take a shot at the former at some point.

Darren, do you like Jonathan Lethem? I just read my first (and last?) of his, Chronic City, and was pretty underwhelmed.

[Adrian]

justin cronin, 'the passage'. wow.

[surfer]

Darren, do you like Jonathan Lethem? I just read my first (and last?) of his, Chronic City, and was pretty underwhelmed.

No, I've heard of him, but never read anything. Just read his Wiki page. "He lived in California for twelve years, working as a clerk in used bookstores, including Moe's and Pegasus & Pendragon Books [in Berkeley], and writing in his own time." Unfortunately Moe's is now closed. Unfortunately Pegasus & Pendragon is still open.

[surfer]

Anyhow, based on your assessment, I feel like I don't have to worry about reading that giant book.

I agree with Jon that you might want to give it a shot, its certainly not a time commitment, you could blow through it in a week. It's the quickest 600 page novel I've ever read, and I was cruising through 40-50 pages in a sitting.

Its not only possible but likely that Franzen is just not the type of writer I find myself attracted to, and that others will find it, at the very least, entertaining (I dont mean that in a derisive sense).

[walto]

Had you read _The Corrections_ first?

[surfer]

Me? no, I havent read it.

[surfer]

Point Omega - Don DeLillo

This is minor DeLillo, but still interesting and worthwhile (and quick) if you are a fan. A novella both in form and in depth, his "late style" seems to be getting more and more economical and impressionistic. A Beckettian landscape where voices echo across rooms and deserts. The story involves 3 characters: one is a filmmaker in the mold of Errol Morris, one is a former Bush 43 advisor and DOD intellectual who was brought in to participate on an Iraqi think-tank (and whom the filmmaker wants to make a Fog of War type movie with), and the last is the intellectual's daughter, of whom we know very little. There is very little plot, but the narrative is bookended by a wonderful meditation and description of Douglas Gordon's 24 Hour Psycho, which is Hitchcock's movie stretched out and slowed down to a 24-hour loop. Not sure we'll ever return to the imo golden age of Underworld, Libra, Mao II, and White Noise, but I'll still keep reading.

[surfer]

An Elemental Thing - Eliot Weinberger

Not as good as Sebald or Weschler because there's no personal or authorial narrative to tweave the historical or cultural anecdotes together, which in turn could give it a broader scope and reach. Thus it ends up as a loose collection of interesting tidbits, mostly from the Far East, usually without any cultural or historical context whatsoever. Mildly disappointing, and yet voyeuristically interesting at the same time.

[Dohol]

Re-reading this..




I love this book...But I'm prejudiced....

[Gerardo A]

An Elemental Thing - Eliot Weinberger

Not as good as Sebald or Weschler because there's no personal or authorial narrative to tweave the historical or cultural anecdotes together, which in turn could give it a broader scope and reach. Thus it ends up as a loose collection of interesting tidbits, mostly from the Far East, usually without any cultural or historical context whatsoever. Mildly disappointing, and yet voyeuristically interesting at the same time.

Interesting, I've never read his prose, although he's a damn fine translator, particularly from Spanish XX century poetry (Paz, the Oaxaca mushroom oracle Maria Sabina, even Vicente Huidobro, whose "Altazor" is a monster work to translate).

[splityourwig]

Maurice Blanchot Aminadab

[diederich]

Point Omega - Don DeLillo

FWIW, I agree 100% with everything you said. I really loved Point Omega even though it's definitely not as high as his high points. It just all fit together well, length perfectly matching the content, and impressionistic seems exactly right to me.

I'm about 2/3 through The Pale King right now and love it. There are slow points, but they feel slow for a purpose, and there are some sections that rank among my favorite writing from Wallace, period. Definitely feels unfinished, but after re-reading the editor's preface I'm wondering how much of that so far is purposeful on Wallace's part. Honestly, the best part is the simple fact that I'm reading new Wallace. Both sad and wonderful.

[nicenick]

Maurice Blanchot Aminadab

curious to hear how this is. been wanting to read him for a while, though mainly because i love lydia davis and she's done several blanchot translations, i think. there's a bunch of his work on AAAARG but i can't read more than 10 pages on the screen - waiting to come across a copy somewhere.

Point Omega - Don DeLillo

i can never decide if i like delillo or hate him. very much enjoyed mao II and white noise but struggled with libra and really hated falling man. recently tried the names and really liked it, until about 30 pages from the end when i just didn't feel like reading any more and stopped. very odd. point omega does sound good though.

just finished:



i know i've raved about him before, as nog is one of my favorite books, but slow fade is maybe even better. much less experimental and more readable -- surprised this is his only novel still out of print. a loopy, meandering narrative that's obviously inspired by his experience with peckinpah, it certainly has a "pynchonesque" vibe (though i hate pynchon and love wurlitzer, go figure) but it has a real melancholic and vulnerable feel to it - i found it surprisingly moving. i think it will be reprinted by drag city this year though can't find much info on that. in any case, definitely worth grabbing.