Purity

by Jonathan Franzen
563 pgs

Purity, the most recent novel by Jonathan Franzen, at its core, is the story of Purity Tyler and her search for her identity and place in the world. Purity goes by Pip and is a young college graduate living in Oakland, California. She lives rent free in a house shared by multiple roommates, including a married man she's obsessed with. She works for a telemarketing company, where she struggles to earn enough to make the payments on the $130,000 in student loans she's carrying.

Growing up, Pip was raised by her mother, Penelope, in a small remote cabin somewhere in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Her mother is an emotionally unstable woman, who hid Pip's existence from her father. Pip knows that Penelope is not her mother's real name, but her mother refuses to tell her who she used to be, and the identity of her father.

Andreas Wolf grew up in East Germany. He has led a privileged, but deviant life. He has some serious skeletons in his closet, including the killing of the father of a teenage girl he was in love with when he was 27. He's now the founder of an organization called The Sunshine Project, which is a competitor to WikiLeaks and is headquartered in Bolivia.

One evening, a woman named Annagret stops by the house Pip lives in to visit one of her roommates. Annagret is involved with The Sunshine Project and is so impressed with Pip that she encourages her to come to Bolivia to work for them. She informs Pip that Andreas Wolf could probably help her track down the identity of her father, so Pip agrees and takes the job.

The book moves around a lot from this point, as Franzen weaves together the lives of Pip, Andreas Wolf, and those of her parents. Things which at first seem coincidental, are quickly revealed not to be, and the crimes of Wolf's past have, and will continue to play a pivotal role in Pip's life.

Franzen is a great storyteller. This is only the second book by him that I've read, and while I didn't enjoy it as much as I did Freedom, I still consider it a pretty good book. Pip wasn't the most likeable character for me, but fortunately she exists the narrative for significant stretches of time throughout the book, and by the end, she'd redeemed herself enough to leave me satisfied with the book as a whole.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Freedom

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Books like Freedom are the reason I love to read. Most of the books I read are fast-moving thrillers, full of suspense, twists, and turns - the exact opposite of this book. However, I feel like I would have missed a wonderful experience if I hadn't decided to read a book by Jonathan Franzen. Nine years ago Franzen won the National Book Award with Corrections. The fact that it was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection prevented me from picking it up though. Nothing against her personally, I just assumed our tastes in literature wouldn't coincide. Fortunately for me I bought Freedom before Oprah selected it for her book club as well.

Walter and Patty Berglund are a typical Midwestern couple. They marry young and while Walter fell head-over-heals in love with Patty the moment he first laid eyes on her, Patty never felt that way about Walter. In her mind, she feels like she always settled for Walter. She loves the way he treats her more than she loves him. He's an environmental crusader, always looking after the little guy, which eventually leads him to the plight of American songbirds. She's a former high school and college athlete who was initially attracted to Walter's roommate but agrees to date Walter only after his roommate rejects her advances.

The brilliance of this book is Franzen's characters. He follows the Berglunds and their two children throughout their lives. He exposes their flaws and shortcomings as well as their humanity in a way that I can't remember reading in another book. I can't say that I considered any single character in the book "likable," yet each one resonated with me, and ultimately I ended up caring about every one of them. My only qualification with recommending this book is its frequent adult content. Some will find that aspect of the book off-putting. But it would be shame if they put the book down because of it. The book as a whole is very rewarding and is sure to appear on every "Best of . . . " list for years to come.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★