Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen is an American novelist whose works have a way of pulling readers in, creating stories that represent humanity’s best and worst sides. He’s receiving acclaim for his latest novel “Purity” and has been compared to the likes of his contemporaries Philip Roth and Don DeLillo. Jonathan Franzen’s works focus on contemporary themes, thriving on social and environmental issues as well as thoughts and comments on the decline of modern society. He explores his characters’ individual relationships and quests for identity while they struggle in both their internal and external worlds.
Franzen effectively uses the modern family as a lens to display the difficulties within American culture, the intricate struggles between parents and children and the obstacles of coming of age in a culture that often feels too large for the individual. Through his characters he expresses the importance of honing one’s own self-awareness, asserting how shallow this culture can often feel and how difficult one’s identity can be. He navigates the moral complexities of discovering the depths of one’s own mind and choices in relationships between friends, parents and lovers.
Jonathan Franzen became well-known with his third novel, “The Corrections”. It is a family saga set in the American Midwest, exploring the struggles within the crumbling old order of American values as a new one emerges. Franzen captures an entire family’s history in a sweeping story of generational love and loneliness, authentic and often heartbreaking reflections of parental struggle, and ultimately a beautiful account of the magnitude of family connections. It earned Franzen his first National Book Award and catapulted him to fame in the United States. He then went on to write “Freedom”, a story of a couple whose relationships and convictions are tested by their society in a manner similar to that of “The Corrections”.
His eighth novel, “Purity”, explores the successes and failures of the internet age and how it affected human connection in how we perceive ourselves, relationships to the past and the interconnectedness of the world. The novel centers on the character Purity Tyler, a young woman struggling with her own generational confusion about who she is and why. Through her she is able to show how an entire generation is attempting to find individuality and how their openness to the internet leads to some questionable decisions.
Jonathan Franzen is a master of contemporary fiction, focusing on the American experience in a hypnotic, poetic and often heart-breaking manner. His stories are genuine, refreshing and often tinged with humor and both subtle and unsubtle criticism of his characters’ choices. His novels are often wordy and require patience, but they are finely crafted works of art that reward both close readings and the ability to allow oneself to be immersed in his characters and their stories. With each read, his audience gains a greater understanding of their own journey within the turbulence of their own times.
