Thanks to Lithub I May need to Reconsider Jonathon Franzen

This blurb came to me through Lithub. 

“It’s played straight, with nary a joke or postmodern gag in evidence. But that I read all 580 pages of it (too many; being presumed great means editors give you a wide berth) in three days is a testament to Franzen’s ability with the novel form. He’s a storyteller, a master at holding the reader’s attention, himself attentive to that reader’s pleasure. He’s surely among the great American novelists, but Crossroads  also finds Franzen discharging his powers in a way that feels like a departure … Nothing about the Hildebrandts’ middle-class, Midwestern anomie is new for a Franzen novel, even if it is well-done … So much, maybe too much, of Crossroads  is devoted to teenagers and their travails, but it is their parents’ stories, particularly Marion’s, that prove to be far more interesting. The complaint that Franzen is a throwback to the mid-century man of letters would be more credible were he not so adept at writing characters who happen to be women, and Marion is an example of the author at his most imaginative … Franzen depicts Russ’s benighted and troubling view of the Navajo as an inscrutable other without reducing the Navajo themselves to such on the page … I love books where language is the principal concern, narratives constructed from oblique fragments, and works of fiction that test the boundaries of how we define the novel. Crossroads is none of those things. Yet even readers like me cannot but succumb to the charms of plot and momentum, characters and conversation … Knowing this is but the first installment in a larger work changed how I read it: The novel didn’t quite satisfy, but I never expected it to be more than a first course.”

–Rumaan Alam on Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads (The Nation)

Lithub collects other reviews here and BookBrowse (another email newsletter that brings me information) has this to say:

Franzen has won wide acclaim for his excellent characterization, but he has raised the bar with Crossroads. As the story unfolds, the chapters alternate points of view so that each of the Hildebrandts is fully represented (with the exception of the youngest, Judson). Readers get to know each of them in-depth, learning their most intimate fears and desires, and through seamlessly inserted flashbacks we view formative events in their pasts as well. Shifting the focus from one character to another allows readers to see how the family members perceive each other, providing more comprehensive portraits. Pivotal events are relayed from multiple perspectives, giving readers a richer understanding of what really happened and how each character is impacted.

I have been able to get one of my notes on a Franzen novel and a bit of my opinion on the writer himself here.

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