Freedom

Just finished 'Freedom' by Jonathan Franzen. This book was on my Christmas list and I was very much looking forward to reading it over the Christmas holidays. I had seen it recommended in The Age during December as a 'must read' and thought it would make an ideal present for the family Kris Kringle. It's a big book, 562 pages and for the most part I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got a little bored half way through but persisted with it and was glad I did. I found it an intriguing portrait of modern day America with a questioning of the cost of the pursuit of personal freedom on both a personal and environmental level. The story focussed on Patty and Walter Berglund, their family and Walter's best friend Richard Katz; the choices they made and the consequences of these choices on themselves and those nearest and dearest to them. The novel had an interesting structure in which the story was told from the perspective of different characters and from different points in recent history.