I have to say that I voted for this book, the description provided and the commercial success seemed to me that I could be an interesting book to read. I was mistaken.
Continuing with the masterpiece debate I like in every book, I think Freedom is not a masterpiece at all. The one who wrote “a masterpiece of American fiction… Like all great novels, FREEDOM does not just tell an engrossing story. It illuminates, through the steady radiance of its author’s profound moral intelligence, the world we thought we knew” was either drunk or was earning a lot of money just telling that (maybe both). I find this book a very good one for Oprah’s followers: middle class bored people with marital problems that only want to project their lives into others’ problems. I don’t see neither a deep description of today’s American society nor an intense, well written story. Some of the characters are really unnecessary and overall I find this book an accumulation of disgraces, without sense, only chronological in Patty’s life.
Patty is annoying, Walter boring, Katz funny but all are a stereotype. If I have to choose a character I’d rather choose the cerulean warbler: is the best character, is the only one that is really suffering on the main characters’ decisions and the only one that does not have the freedom to decide its own fate.
The book is increasingly tragic (sometimes too tragic, why has Lalitha died? Was it necessary?) but the end of it is really disappointing: it is a happy ending, in which the couple reconciles and everything is allright again (come on! What was the writer thinking about?? I think only commercial success). I think this is the kind of ending that mass, main street, readers want, but betrays the way the book is written, the dramatic evolution of facts that builds the story line of the book.
I have found this book long, boring, "too many pages" as some of you said for Vargas Llosa’s. It tries to be a complex description of a couple difficult life in current society, but in my opinion only gets that done in part, it ends being an addition of characters, clichés and stereotypes that could be summarized in half of the pages (and could be done with a more profound description of the couple and less waffle around it). I think that this book is good for soap opera (culebron) followers, not for anyone with a little bit of interest in literature.
That said I would like to ask for a shorter book next time; good or bad, shorter will be better for all!
Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno. :)
I don´t think I can make it!!!
ReplyDeleteNo worries, Nayra. It is not only you!
ReplyDeleteWe have received emails from other members that are also behind schedule. We are sending an email to postpone the final discussion.
Keep the good reading!
Hey there! I actually read this book last fall for another book club. I agree with Jorge - I didn't find the characters interesting and was mostly annoyed by the book, although the other members of my book club really liked it. It's hard to care about a long story when the characters don't seem redeeming at all.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Jorge’s very critical comments, I’ll give my view of what happened, I mean, of the book.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I have liked the book, I have liked most of the characters, though extreme and exaggerated at times, but I agree that it is not a masterpiece. I’m sure I won’t even remember it in two years, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy reading it now. And yes, sometimes, I like to read about miserable people, it might be because it helps me understand other people’s lives, or because perfectly happy people aren’t interesting to read about, there has to be conflict!
I agree, I don’t see why Lalita had to die. If the author wanted to bring Patty and Walter together again, she could have just dumped him a couple years later (that would have been natural too). And the happy ending, well, I didn’t expect it at all, but I think it was a great idea to begin the book with little neighbourhood stories and close it in the same line, making me think that those little conflicts arise whenever, wherever, because we are human and more territorial than what we would initially accept. I do not agree with the term “soap opera” applied to the book, though it might have too many characters. However I did read the book quickly, it didn’t feel like too many pages. The question at the end is, will I read another Franzen? Well, maybe.