Franzen: s/d

It did strike me while reading Crossroads what kind of massive confidence it must take to write those standard issue Franzen sex scenes, go through the whole revision and editing process, know that thousands of people are going to read them, and still feel comfortable leaving them in as is.

Was thinking something similar when I read the book, for sure

Maybe he finds nothing embarrassing about them, maybe he thinks the prose is stellar

Again -- possibly being overcharitable -- but I think he's comfortable having his characters indulge in embarrassing or inappropriate or pretentious modes of thinking, and he doesn't overuse irony or stylistic excess to keep an authorial distance from that.

Yeah, I agree and actually don't think that's overcharitable, just the level of charitability we should extend to any author/artwork

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Crossroads and I fucking love this novel. I read the Corrections probably 20 years ago, it was a chore for me at the time; took over a year to finish, I just could not make myself care about most of those people and the ending seemed extremely anticlimactic. I would probably feel differently about it now, and should revisit it. But I feel much more empathy for the characters in Crossroads; each of them, fallible and stupid in their own ways.

Those are the best quarters of the novel, lol. But yeah I still think it's one of his best.

yeah, I found the ending a bit disappointing (finished this morning); a bit on the nose ('all these people are at a CROSSROADS in their life do you see'), and it kind of left Perry dangling there although maybe there wasn't much that could be convincingly conveyed from his POV. Though I did like the retreat from Russ and Marion's POVs ... we spent a lot of time in their heads and seeing how that resolved from the outside was a nice change. Anyway, yeah, good book so now I'm reading Freedom.

The whole desert trip chapter, especially the farcical sequence where Russ is trying to find somewhere to fuck, is an incredible/nerve-jangling bit of writing — but yeah, everything that comes after was a bit of a disappointment. On the whole an amazing book though.

Now I'm going back and reading Freedom which also sat on my shelf for years unread. 1/4 of the way through it now, it's also great.

Perry was the most fun character, and his punishment was excessive in a "this is your brain on drugs" way that felt moralistic, Franzen did him dirty from what I remember.

ok, well, just about done with Freedom which I mostly loved but it was depressing as fuck so I need to read something affirming now.

ok now I'm finished with it and was actually taken by surprise at the denouement.