I give up on books more than I should. Something usually irritates me within the first fifty pages (common problems: use of a second person narrator, boring subject matter, pretentious language, television marathon) and the book goes back onto my bookshelf, usually with a bookmark fifty pages in marking my failure. But I hardly ever give up on a book once I pass the magical “fifty page” mark. I figure that if I’ve devoted so much time into a book, I may as well finish the thing. But now, 302 pages into JONATHAN FRANZEN’S Freedom, I find myself looking at the empty place on the bookshelf and thinking about abandoning the book and its remaining 260 pages. But this is a MASTERPIECE a NEW YORK TIME’S BESTSELLER a TRIUMPH a YADA YADA YADA! How dare I? My reasons are as follows:
1. THE MESSSAGE: I hate books that shove the message down your throat over and over and over again until the very title makes you want to gag. By a couple of seventy-two page chapters into FRANZEN’S Freedom, the message is pretty clear. Freedom isn’t everything. In fact, too much freedom can destroy a family. FRANZEN basically has one of his characters scream the message, but we are left to be frequently reminded of it every couple of pages or so. It gets old. Fast.
2. THE CHARACTERS: Every chapter follows a different unlikable character after a different unlikable character. At page 302 I’ve just reached the last remaining good, likable character’s first time as the center of the narration and I’m already beginning to hate him.
3: EVERYTHING AND THE SOAPBOX: Besides the whole “Freedom can be bad for you” message, FRANZEN takes the opportunity throughout the book to bring in as many other hot-topic issues as he possibly can. Religion, politics, drugs, environmentalism. It quickly begins to seem that the reader is being preached to. This is annoying. Very annoying.
4. NO END IN SIGHT: The chapters are long, okay? Really, really long. There are no breaks from the preaching, message shoving, unlikable characters. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve paged forward looking for the magical chapter break only to find its another one hundred pages or so. I then almost cry out of complete and utter despair. This is an entirely rational complaint.
5. STUCK: I can’t read more than ten pages at a time without throwing the book to the side, opening my computer, and reading blogs for twenty minutes. At this rate, it will take me until July to finish the thing.
The book is still on the table by the futon. I’m not giving up yet. But I really wish that I was.
Books to Read: Anything. Else.
2 comments:
Argh, it ate my comment. I was going to say, Damn, I hated The Corrections. I quit a little less than midway through because I wanted to punch all those selfish assholes in the face.
This is my first Franzen. I think it will be my last.
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