strong motion, Jonathan Franzen

Here is a book I escape with.  It is funny, a good story, a little mysterious.  Characters are described by their thoughts, and they are as slippery-complicated as I have experienced people to be.  There are seductions, but not overly ardent ones.  There are earthquakes.  There are villains.  The writing isn't sloppy.  There is a killer story about the solitary life of one particular raccoon. There is something like a happy ending, though this ending makes me uncomfortable, and I think the first time I read it I was angry at the writer for setting his characters on such a quiet road toward maybe-happiness.  This time around I didn't mind it as much.  

I am almost embarrassed by how much I enjoy this book and how comforting I find it.  It has a quality I have always craved--provided partly by its richness of detail, not just descriptive detail but personal, emotional, and informative detail, scientific detail every now and then.  The humor is just right, and jokes are extended over pages in a pleasing way.  There are some subtle dalliances with words that made me very happy.  Once in a while it is too precious.  Sometimes the hero is made too much of, or demonstrates a sensitivity that doesn't require demonstration, but even these moments are part of the quality I like so much. I am still trying to name that quality.  For now I'm going to call it bounty.  There is a sense of plenitude, reading this, a sense that you are getting enough of the story, a sense that the writer isn't at all tongue-tied, that he is saying most of everything he wants to say.   

Search Post

Label :