Book thread

[heyzeus]

I just finished 'House of Leaves' and it was quite an experience. It is experimental fiction I guess. The Never Ending Story meets Chuck Palahniuk--not that it's for kids, that's just the best way to describe the story within a frame dual narrative. It's about a guy who discovers a document by a crazy old man about a haunted house (though that's hardly a just summary).

It's an interesting read. I didn't love it, but it was very intriguing and definitely worth reading or at least checking out. I got pretty caught up in it. You got decent literature, bad literature, academic writing, fake entries from real people (Stephen King, Harold Bloom), full-on pornographic literature, copious footnotes, some drawings, weird post script matter, experimental, narrative layout--lots of stuff going on. It works really well because the story at the center is very interesting. At times it's a little tedious, but it's very readable and a unique experience.

I may move straight into Mark Danielewski's second book, though the two aren't related.

I had the same experience with the book as you, I think. It's conceptually quite interesting, but once you get past the novel format and layout, it's basically just a haunted house story with some gen x 'tude.

[heyzeus]

Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story" is a very clever, plausible and less annoying, take on the not too distant American future than Idiocracy.

Franzen's "Freedom" is goodish, but grossly overrated. The characters are caricatures, the political ideology beats you over the head, and it's full of unearned pathos. Everyone's bummed all the time, but it's never exactly clear why, or why we should care.

On the other hand, one of the characters is a super-cool rocker sex god who happens to share my (fairly rare) last name. And another is an environmental lawyer. So I feel like Franzen is writing about me.

[cardinalkarp]

For all the Dexter fans out there I highly recommend the books. Certain aspects of the show come out in the books but as a whole they are different and more enjoyable. Also read "The Bullpen Gospels" which was another entertaining book for baseball lovers.

[thrill]

Franzen's "Freedom" is goodish, but grossly overrated. The characters are caricatures, the political ideology beats you over the head, and it's full of unearned pathos. Everyone's bummed all the time, but it's never exactly clear why, or why we should care.

On the other hand, one of the characters is a super-cool rocker sex god who happens to share my (fairly rare) last name. And another is an environmental lawyer. So I feel like Franzen is writing about me.

I just bought it and you have me very excited to put off reading it now.

[Radbird]

Made a deal with the kid. I'm reading Harry Potter. She's reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Just did a page count (or more precisely googled it). 4,175 vs. 1,492. Looks like I'm an effective negotiator.

[Donnie Ebert]

Franzen's "Freedom" is goodish, but grossly overrated. The characters are caricatures, the political ideology beats you over the head, and it's full of unearned pathos. Everyone's bummed all the time, but it's never exactly clear why, or why we should care.

On the other hand, one of the characters is a super-cool rocker sex god who happens to share my (fairly rare) last name. And another is an environmental lawyer. So I feel like Franzen is writing about me.

I just bought it and you have me very excited to put off reading it now.

Freedom feels very much like The Corrections, without the satirical tone, so I didn't think it was as good as its predecessor. I quite like the satire, in fact. The Corrections had me laughing all throughout (Al's "I am dubious" had me laughing constantly), whereas Freedom was a bit more subdued, "bummed all the time but not sure why" is a good way to say it. I love the little wordplay and the way Franzen writes, however, so I still think it's a good read. But I agree with heyzeus that the ideology in Freedom starts to get a bit overwrought.

[Smith Corks One]

Franzen's "Freedom" is goodish, but grossly overrated. The characters are caricatures, the political ideology beats you over the head, and it's full of unearned pathos. Everyone's bummed all the time, but it's never exactly clear why, or why we should care.

On the other hand, one of the characters is a super-cool rocker sex god who happens to share my (fairly rare) last name. And another is an environmental lawyer. So I feel like Franzen is writing about me.

I just bought it and you have me very excited to put off reading it now.

Yeah, don't waste your time. Nothing but whiny, self-obsessed characters being whiny and self-obsessed. Wish I hadn't bothered.

[Swirls]

Made a deal with the kid. I'm reading Harry Potter. She's reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Just did a page count (or more precisely googled it). 4,175 vs. 1,492. Looks like I'm an effective negotiator.

There are several other fantasy epics that are as good or better than both LotR and HP. I'm a homer for the Wheel of Time series, who's shortest novel is about the length of the longest Harry Potter books (~700ish pages). Another immensely popular series is A Song of Ice and Fire.

I needed a book to read on the plane tomorrow from Syracuse to St. Louis, so I bought the latest novel from Rick Riordan, who was the author of the young adult series "Percy Jackson and the Olympians." The first book of that series, "The Lightning Thief," was out in theaters early this year - January maybe? - and they absolutely butchered the book. For a Harry Potter length though (200ish pages), the books weren't too bad. This book is called "The Lost Hero," and is the first book in his new series "The Heroes of Olympus," which is apparently a spin-off of his Percy Jackson series, as it takes place in the same camp for demigod children that the Percy Jackson series did.

[wart57]

Franzen's "Freedom" is goodish, but grossly overrated. The characters are caricatures, the political ideology beats you over the head, and it's full of unearned pathos. Everyone's bummed all the time, but it's never exactly clear why, or why we should care.

On the other hand, one of the characters is a super-cool rocker sex god who happens to share my (fairly rare) last name. And another is an environmental lawyer. So I feel like Franzen is writing about me.

I just bought it and you have me very excited to put off reading it now.

Yeah, don't waste your time. Nothing but whiny, self-obsessed characters being whiny and self-obsessed. Wish I hadn't bothered.

Hmmmm..... Sounds familiar.

[heyzeus]

Franzen's "Freedom" is goodish, but grossly overrated. The characters are caricatures, the political ideology beats you over the head, and it's full of unearned pathos. Everyone's bummed all the time, but it's never exactly clear why, or why we should care.

On the other hand, one of the characters is a super-cool rocker sex god who happens to share my (fairly rare) last name. And another is an environmental lawyer. So I feel like Franzen is writing about me.

I just bought it and you have me very excited to put off reading it now.

Freedom feels very much like The Corrections, without the satirical tone, so I didn't think it was as good as its predecessor. I quite like the satire, in fact. The Corrections had me laughing all throughout (Al's "I am dubious" had me laughing constantly), whereas Freedom was a bit more subdued, "bummed all the time but not sure why" is a good way to say it. I love the little wordplay and the way Franzen writes, however, so I still think it's a good read. But I agree with heyzeus that the ideology in Freedom starts to get a bit overwrought.

The ideology is exactly what is overrought, and what differentiates Freedom (negatively) from The Corrections for me. It seems that Franzen spent the Bush years quietly fuming, and decided to write a family drama with the subtext "Republicans evil, Democrats good." My personal opinion is that the greatest books are subtle, the characters are multifaceted and can surprise you, and you learn something about humanity and how we react. Nothing about Freedom does that. The more I thought about the book, the more disappointed I was. If you have a lot of time to take on a big fiction project, go get Infinite Jest instead. Or just read The Corrections.