The Unbearable Lightness of Walter Berglund

Franzen, Jonathan. Freedom: A Novel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. 576 pp. £8.99 (paperback), ISBN: 978-0-312-60084-6, ISBN10: 0-312-60084-4. [BUY ON AMAZON]

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JONATHAN FRANZEN's latest novel, Freedom, was published to great fanfare last August. This was the long-awaited follow-up to The Corrections, and looked to be the Great American Novel, in large part because of its grand, resonant title. Early reviews were positive. The New Yorker put Franzen on its cover. Time declared him “The Great American Novelist”. The Guardian thought Freedom was the novel of the century. Franzen had clearly delivered on his promise. 

He and Oprah Winfrey buried the hatchet, marking an end to their long-running feud. Back in 2001, Franzen had grumbled and got himself disinvited from The Oprah's show when he mocked her for selecting his earlier book, The Corrections, for her Book Club. Fast forward to 2010: The Oprah made Freedom her selection of the month and invited the Franzen to discuss it on her show. He graciously accepted.

Then came the controversy. Perhaps this wasn't such a brilliant book after all. The Times Literary Supplement was not impressed. There were the misprints in the UK version that led to a recall and reprint. And, horror of horrors, Freedom wasn't even nominated for a National Book Award. Franzen had been dissed in his homeland.

It's easy to see why Freedom has been so controversial. It's a good story. It’s  cleverly written, engaging, and very hard to put down. But early reviewers were too quick off the mark. This isn’t a classic, and it’s most definitely not the novel of the century. What it is, is a good read, for the most part. It tells the story of married couple Walter and Patty Berglund: their meeting at the University of Minnesota in the late 70s, their relocation to DC and the dissolution of their marriage during the Bush years, their reconciliation back in Minnesota in the age of Obama. 

Walter, once a bright-eyed idealist, becomes jaded. Patty, once a fiercely competitive university basketball player. Patty channelled her competitiveness into her children, but becomes increasingly depressed as they grow up and fissures emerge in her family, particularly between Walter and their son, Joey. Patty has an affair with Walter's best friend, Richard Katz, a sexy, engaging rock star. 

By the time the Berglunds have relocated to DC, their children have grown up. Joey becomes a Republican, if only to spite Walter - a device that allows Franzen to rehash liberal jibes against the Bushites. Daughter Jessica becomes a prim, uptight young woman. Walter finds himself attracted to his exotic young assistant, Lalitha. When Walter discovers Patty's affair with Katz, he kicks her out of the house. She goes home to New York, and Walter is free to have his own affair. 

Walter, a deeply committed environmentalist, has spent his entire life trying to be the good guy, riding his bike to work in Minneapolis winters, taking care of his depressed wife, being a good father (though he and Joey disagree about everything), being a good employee. By the time he hits his 40s, he’s full of rage and he’s angry at the world. But he's especially mad at the Republicans for the lies and truth-twisting that led the nation to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

With his marriage falling apart and trying to deny his attraction to Lalitha, Walter nearly sells his soul in order to see his vision of nature conservation put into action. He goes to work in DC for Vin Haven, a Texas oil man and personal friend of the Bushes who wants to save a species of bird, the warbler. The plan is to create a warbler refuge in West Virginia, and to make it happen Walter has to cozy up to mining companies (and their dodgy environmental practices). For his troubles, he becomes the subject of a New York Times exposé.

Franzen once declared that he wrote novels for men, or at least tried to. That much is clear. This is a novel about Walter, and all the rest - Patty, Katz, and Jessica – are little more than props.  Walter's mid-life crisis and coming to terms with his son dominate the narrative. Everything else, including his relationship with Patty, is secondary. 

Franzen excels at examining the ways in which his characters fall down and fall apart, but he has nothing new to say here. By the last third of the novel, I felt like I was reading The Corrections II. The Corrections was a meditation on the peccadilloes, perversions, and rejuvenation of the Lamberts, a Midwestern family. Walter's mid-life crisis, his racialised affair with Lalitha, his rage, all of it was predictable and boring. When Lalitha tragically dies in a car accident, Walter retreats to a cabin in northern Minnesota searching for unencumbered solitude. Also predictable: Walter becomes the crazy man in the woods.

The other problem is that while Franzen is trying to get us to sympathise with Walter and, to a lesser extent, with Joey and Patty (Jessica is mostly an afterthought), he fails. He patronises his characters; his prose almost mocks them and their foibles. 

Ultimately, Freedom is a letdown. It aspires to be the Great American Novel of the Bush era. Instead we get The Corrections II. In trying to put his finger to the pulse of the oughts, Franzen tries too hard to be relevant, and only his skill as a writer saves Freedom from being a total failure.

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John Matthew Barlow is Current Intelligence magazine's Books Editor.