I'm going to read Jonathan Franzen's new book Freedom. And then I'm going to review it here.
Some pre-emptive disclosure is necessary: I hated The Corrections (it was a long, boring book filled with whiny and unlikable people), and Franzen himself seems like a smug asshole (no one thinks you're hip and cool for turning down Oprah, not even my smug asshole hipster friends, dude, so give it a rest already). So I have to be open about the fact that I am going into reading it with copious amounts of negativity. I am expecting to hate it. But the HYPE! I can't get past it. I really have to read this book that's been called "the novel of the century" and that has caused two of my favorite (female) writers to get all up in arms about gender inequity in the literary world.
Granted the century is but 10 years old, and there's plenty of time for something better to come along. However, I maintain that the best book EVER is Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. And that book came out in 2001. And won a Pulitzer Prize! So it stands to reason that my vote for the Novel of the Century is already cast.
But anyway. I'm gonna read this thing. I am. The whole thing.
No, really.
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