Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. And quite frankly I’m over it. I don’t care what happens to these characters any more than the character Vin Haven cares about the Cerulean Warbler. Freedom is on loan from my mum. She runs a recommended reading program for me, where she loans me books of hers that she thinks I should read. She is trying to wean me off my restricted diet of crime novels. I think my reading is actually quite balanced as it covers both sides of the Atlantic – hard-boiled American crime fiction by James Ellroy, and hard-boiled Irish crime fiction by Ken Bruen.
It’s almost as hard to get off my mum’s recommended reading list as it is to get on to Oprah’s. The one thing I’m liking is the story of how Freedom was initially selected then rejected by Oprah, after Franzen said some ‘equivocal’ things about being chosen as book of the month. They've since kissed and made up.
I guess Freedom is not that bad really. After all, it's a number one bestseller and my blog has 7 followers (but you're all lovely!), so I'm hardly in a position to criticise. But be prepared for the book to go on a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment