![]() ![]() They are, in fact, repellently mundane when presented in summary. ![]() Because technique is critical for a novelist like Franzen, whose stories, put simply, are not interesting (I say this, incidentally, as an admirer). Those two novels also perfected what might be called The Franzen Framing Technique. ![]() It’s safe to say, however, that, if you already hate his work, you might hate this one least of all.Ĭrossroads is much less pretentious than Franzen’s 2001 blockbuster, The Corrections, with its long chapter called “Everything I Know About Science and Patents,” or his 2011 follow-up, Freedom, both of which seemed to imply a near-omniscient understanding of Life in America. ![]() It’s one of Franzen’s professional distinctions that his prose can so consummately repulse a reader in so short a sample. That being said, Crossroads is not the sort of book where, if someone said they were turned off by the first ten pages, you’d tell them to persevere. Jonathan Franzen’s new novel Crossroads, his sixth, is also his best: brilliantly plotted and paced, as heavy with ideas as with heart, and showing on literally every page a careful interweaving of story and theme. ![]()
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