I haven’t read Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, for lack of opportunity rather than lack of will. However, the loud critical response has not escaped me. How could it? The Corrections and Freedom have both been crowned with the thorns of being a ‘Great American Novel’; and he is the celebrated author of the moment, gracing the cover of Time Magazine and making regular though unseen appearances in the latest series of Gossip Girl no less.
Critics are unanimous: Freedom is ‘very good in parts’ – a green-eyed euphemism for ‘bloody brilliant’. But when it comes to Franzen himself, the man divides the sexes in America, vehemently so.
Mild in her tone, The Times’ Erica Wagner (£) is the latest to concede:
‘The cover of Time magazine? Really? In principle I suppose that I’m all for novelists being on the cover of magazines.
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