B.R. Myers tears apart Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. "[T]he novel is a 576-page monument to insignificance." Ouch.
It's easy to take his point. I didn't much care about these damaged & damaging people, their squabbling and snapping. Reading it was like watching television. Mostly without the commercials.
Contrast Myers's review with the breathy enthusiasm of the Sam Tanenhaus review that graced the cover of the New York Times Book Review, August 19, 2010.
After what must certainly have been a careful reading, Tanenhaus concludes that Freedom " ... illuminates, through the steady radiance of its author’s profound moral intelligence, the world we thought we knew."
Hmmm. What is the "world we thought we knew" anyhow? Thought who knew? And who knew what? etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment