Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Some of us had finished the book, others were just beginning, so here is a quick summary from: http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/0312600844

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter’s dreams. Together with Walter—environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man—she was doing her small part to build a better world.But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outré rocker and Walter’s college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become “a very different kind of neighbor,” an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street’s attentive eyes?In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom’s characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

I have summarized out thoughts in the way we brought up the topics – with “story starters.”

The older you get…
• The more your tolerance increases.
• The less you care about “amazing” things and are content with what you have.
• The more some things just don’t matter anymore.
• The more you can self reflect and be glad about where you are and not just where you wanted to be.
• The more you realize that you don’t “grow up” until you get much older.
• Them more you realize that you need to separate and find your own passion (or have separated and found your passion).
• The more you realize you don’t need to be entirely wrapped up in someone else (or that you are but you can be yourself, too!).

In the story, a great big passion is…
• Patty’s love of Richard
• Richard’s love of Walter
• Richard’s love of music
• Walter’s love of the earth (bird survival and population control)
• Walter’s love of Lolitha
• Lolitha’s love of Walter
• Connie’s love of Patty and Walter’s son
• Patty’s college roommate’s love of Patty
• Parent’s love of their kids (the parent keeps trying to “get it right” but is not quite meeting the child’s expectations)

Marriage brings to mind…
• Whether being married to Walter and having basic needs met is enough.
• That someone, like Walter, might become your great, big passion.
• In Chinese culture, your “doors have to match,” meaning marriage about compatibility.
• In some culture, arranged marriages aren’t about great, big passion, but they still work out and many people grow to love their partners.

Patty, Walter, Richard had an interesting triangular relationship with each other…
• They both loved Walter
• Walter trusted unconditionally

Connie, Patty, and Patty’s son had an interesting triangular relationship with each other…
• Patty didn’t like Connie
• Connie loved Patty’s son unconditionally
• Connie was simple and honest and didn’t try to pretend, whereas Patty has been hiding herself from the time she was date raped in high school
• Patty’s son couldn’t admit to himself that he loved Connie

Freedom is…
• To age and gain experience
• To accept oneself and others (and all the faults)
• To feel relief
• To let go of the past, longing for someone, and fear
• Found in forgiveness
• To not have to be perfect
• To protect animals and habitat for future generations (know that the earth will survive)
• Accepting that you are the parent that you are and can do no better, even when you try (Patty confronted her mother about never having gone to any of her games and her mother implied that she didn’t want to impose and cause Patty to not have all the glory)

Other questions that created interesting discussion:
What did you think of Jonathan Franzen’s writing?
Do you think that Franzen captures the “mind of a woman”?
What do you think of the phone sex (and other sex scenes)?