Freedom from Freedom.

I got to the end of 'Freedom' finally and can add a third reason for hating it, after first acknowledging that there were moments when I warmed and even got involved with it. The third reason for my dislike was the characters. They have all been exposed too much already; like Macintosh or Monet. There's the stereotypical, middle-class bored housewife who's been denied the career she really wanted but who tries to subsume her frustration into being a 'good' woman who cooks like Betty Crocker and is first in line with the Welcome baskets. Then there is her equally stereotypical soya-drinking, teetotal, save-the-planet, be-understanding-to-everyone, make-allowances, ecogeek husband (in earlier literature they wore sandals and sported beards). There's the bright son who revels in his mother's doting love but wants sex with the girl next door who's everything his mother despises (and incurs Ma's bitter jealousy by the way). There's the daughter who resents her mother's obsession with her brother and is consequently cold toward her. There are the petty envies of neighbours and friends, along with the previous mistakes of grandparents and forebears generally to explain and define the characters of these main protagonists. There's the glamorous rock-star, an old school friend of the husband, who doesn't wear wholemeal sweaters and isn't moral or idealistic so can romp with the bored housewife with only the merest qualm. There are the signs of the times - drugs and pollution, disaffected youth.. There's the obligatory reflections on the attack on the Towers, the assault on Iraq, the immoral reasons that caused America to stop selling arms to Saddam and start whacking hell out of the country instead. It's all been done before. I'm jaded with the parent/child wars, by the divides, rebellions, identity crisises in middle-class society (not just American) I've read too many vignettes on these subjects, seen too many soaps/series and movies that cover the themes.

There was one moment when I cheered and suddenly felt the narrative had some point to it, that was when Walter (the aforementioned do-gooder Eco-geek), suddenly exposed to the fact that his wife and his best friend have betrayed him, (how corny is THAT?) reacted as any soap hero would by taking too many antidepressants (Veriteserum maybe?) which resulted in him yelling out what he really felt about a project he had been trapped into and which is about to turn poor whites into yet more wealthy middle classed red-necks, who will in turn continue the downward slide of America in its cancerous ruination of the planet. I even understood when he rued his outburst and tried to intellectualise - too late - what he had said as the whacko-aggressive social elements, always on the look-out for a cause through which to channel their anger, amass themselves behind the spirit of his ill-chosen words.

But that moment petered out.

I suspect Franzen of seeing himself as a latter-day Tolstoy since he likens one of his characters to Pierre, tilling his fields, trying to transform his futilely ideal political philosophies into a personal return to nature. It did no harm to nudge the critics in that direction.