5/13/2023 0 Comments Crossroads franzen review![]() ![]() ![]() It’s played straight, with nary a joke or postmodern gag in evidence. The novel itself is familiar, stepping back from Purity’s manic register, eschewing interest in the present moment and attempting a study of God and faith set in the 1970s. ![]() The book was zany, a ripping yarn that felt like it must have been fun for the author to write, especially after the dour Freedom.Ĭrossroads, Franzen’s sixth work of fiction and the first of a planned trilogy (called “A Key to All Mythologies,” after Edward Casaubon’s life’s work in Middlemarch maybe Franzen isn’t as humorless as he can seem), will doubtless reignite the familiar debates about his stature. There was still a family and big issues involved (gentrification, journalism, the fall of East Germany, and the rise of the Internet), but there was also a tone of near-absurdity. Purity, published in 2015, was, in its way, a sidestep, indebted to Dickens, full of coincidence and intrigue (secret identity, mysterious paternity, a billion-dollar fortune). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |