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Strong Motion Jonathan Franzen 9781841157498 Books

Download As PDF : Strong Motion Jonathan Franzen 9781841157498 Books

Strong Motion Jonathan Franzen 9781841157498 Books

I didn't intend to stop and 'review' strong motion but I can't resist making the point that everything that I have read by JF soars so far above 'predictable', 'some twists' of 'full of surprises' as to render such categorization totally irrelevant, 'Strong Motion' no less than the rest. Franzen is widely appreciated but probably not deeply. He surely will be in the fullness of time when the ultimate critical mass of discriminating readers have weighed in and he is recognized as the American Dickens. I can only express my appreciation for his talents in terms of superlatives which cannot convey any sense of the uniqueness of his gifts for narration and characterization. His writing is powerful, sexy and deeply artistic.He simultaneously exposes writing as craft and elevates it to the highest level. I suppose you can tell I am something of a fan. Don't let that deter you.


Tags : Strong Motion [Jonathan Franzen] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The critically acclaimed second novel from the author of 'The Corrections'. Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of strange happenings -- earthquakes strike the city,Jonathan Franzen,Strong Motion,Harpercollins Pub Ltd,184115749X,Fiction

Strong Motion Jonathan Franzen 9781841157498 Books Reviews

The earth is much more fragile than we think. Convulsion of the earth crust beneath New England USA and also quakes in human dramas in Strong Motion A Novel was author Franzen's dire warning of human capitalistic greed and irresponsible exploitation of mother earth and hence accelerating its destruction? Yet another greenie's exasperated scream at the hopeless human race? Sure it was, but besides that we have the human interests of Franzen's brilliant dramatic tale (soap operaish but I love it) on the Hollands, an upper middle class well educated Bostonian family. A hippie professor father and a newly rich Brahmin breed mother (thanks to grandpa), both parents under-appreciated by their two young adult children. Intriguing web of lives revolving the family members stretching three generations from grandfather to the spoilt brat son culminating in also quakes shaking up their lives. My second Franzen tale and it was a huge leap from being impressed with the first to great admiration with the second. Many new and exciting discoveries of Franzen treasures for me. Franzen revealed his animal loving side by including long and short observations of behaviours of wild animals as well as the domestic kind. What grabbed my heart chiefly was because Franzen wrote a big pro-life chapter where he treated us to phenomenal dialogue between the pastor leading the pro-life movements and a 30 year old Rene carrying a 5 week old foetus she didn't want it or courage or nature's normal mother instincts to see the pregnancy through and raise her child like all mammals do. An engaging repartee with the Pastor coming up on top (because he won me over convincingly which was easy because he was preaching to the converted) even though he failed to dissuade Rene. Mostly because the father had taken off and her heart was broken. Like all emotional unstable people, stupid errors are committed. The cruel irony of life was brilliantly depicted when Rene would have her life involuntarily endangered and nearly expired on the day when her foetus had its life terminated against its will. Depicting yet the drama of American lives, Franzen moved us to Boston after engaging us with life in St Louis with The Twenty-Seventh City A Novel (Picador Modern Classics). I definitely enjoyed this second novel more because the plot and the characters were more engaging. A delectable Franzen writing style solidified for me. Love the deadpan humor of Franzen. He dropped gems along the way using his unique linguistic style to describe a common situations or actions. But one has to pay attention to spot them. A conspiracy theory on the gunman who shot Rene had fueled the excitement during the latter half of the book. Jealous lover? Corporate evil trying to silence the whistle blower? I had guessed wrong but they were indeed juicy endings to ponder as I approached the finale.
I undertook reading "Strong Motion" to find out how Jonathan Franzen came to his reputation as the current great American novelist even before his breakthrough "The Corrections" (2001). Written in 1992, "Strong Motion" is structured around a central system, like "Gravity's Rainbow" or "Infinite Jest," in this case the geology of earthquakes caused by deep injection wells (as in today's Oklahoma). More than that, it's the story of how a feckless male twenty-something named Louis Holland gets involved with an older Harvard geologist named Renee Seitcheck, has his "And That's How You Lose Her" moment, and is awarded a do-over by the fickle finger of fate. That Seitcheck is such a well-developed character compared to other authors' male manque love objects contributes to Franzen's reputation (the sister in "The Corrections" is another full female character). Whether he actually catches women's thought processes and worldly impositions is doubtful (even geologists must wear high heels if they happen to be women), but he probably does as well as any man can.

Franzen uses different eras of popular music (an era in popular culture being about 4-8 years) to indicate changing worldviews. Even though Louis, as a radio nerd, is a likely person to make such distinctions, it is with Renee that Franzen most applies them. To me, the use of a popular culture reference, presumably shared with the reader, as the way of communicating some aspect of the zeitgeist, seems the mark of a lazy or insufficiently articulate writer which de-universalizes the message. How well will the novel communicate in translation or to the next generation? Yet the descriptions of technology of the era (Data General computers, Xerox machines run by operators in copy centers) irrevocably binds the story to the late 70s/early 80s. So do the militant fundamentalist attacks on abortion providers of which Dr. Seitcheck becomes a target. Is it that any story, our stories, are time-bound to the culture in which they exist? Can we really understand Anton Chekov? Ishmael Beah? Or is Franzen just not up to writing something timeless and universal?

Probably it is a bit pretentious for an author to aspire to write the Great American Novel. Perhaps it is more realistic to expect an author to have a unique, interesting voice in which s/he tells complete stories about complex humans addressing the existential challenge in their own times and places. That good, Franzen is.
I didn't intend to stop and 'review' strong motion but I can't resist making the point that everything that I have read by JF soars so far above 'predictable', 'some twists' of 'full of surprises' as to render such categorization totally irrelevant, 'Strong Motion' no less than the rest. Franzen is widely appreciated but probably not deeply. He surely will be in the fullness of time when the ultimate critical mass of discriminating readers have weighed in and he is recognized as the American Dickens. I can only express my appreciation for his talents in terms of superlatives which cannot convey any sense of the uniqueness of his gifts for narration and characterization. His writing is powerful, sexy and deeply artistic.He simultaneously exposes writing as craft and elevates it to the highest level. I suppose you can tell I am something of a fan. Don't let that deter you.