If for Vladimir Nabokov (and perhaps also David Foster Wallace ) style was the theme, for Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom and The Corrections, everything revolves around structure. Leaving aside the considerable number of theses that make up this ideological manifesto on human life in the contemporary world that is Purity , structure is the most interesting feature of Jonathan Franzen's latest novel. Undoubtedly, one of Jonathan Franzen's best books.
? Synopsis and review of Purity, by Jonathan Franken
Published in 2015, Purity is a new installment in the series The World According to Franzen , in which the American updates his postulates on the Internet, hacking, social networks, journalism, feminism, world overpopulation, environmentalism, international hypocrisy, and a long etcetera.
In Purity , Jonathan Franzen has held nothing back . A hefty tome. How does Jonathan Franzen manage to captivate his readers for 700 pages without turning that massive tome into something worthy of the pejorative label of bestseller?
Why does peace and tranquility still reign when we speak favorably and aloud about Franzen's latest book, but, on the other hand, a field of raised eyebrows, delegitimizing whispers, and authoritarian finger-pointing erupts with the clamor of a carnival troupe as soon as we praise the Dan Browns , Stephen Kings , and Zafones of the moment?
What makes the man forever remembered as David Foster Wallace's friend so special, with the same love for thick books as David Foster Wallace, but not even half of David Foster Wallace's intricate style?
Jonathan Franzen, author of Purity
? Pure simplicity in style
In Purity, Jonathan Franzen again plays at writing in the simplest way possible, without fear of repeating words, with few syntactic skeletons that go beyond the simple subject+verb+predicate and with very specific daring touches that make us look up the dictionary.
Perhaps that's the beauty of his formula (somewhat Murakami-esque , to be honest): the matter is easy to follow because he prefers to reserve complexity for another kind of skeleton, the largest of all.
?Structure of Purity
It deserves to borrow that stale word with which our parents or moral guardians almost blackmailed us when we were little so that we would open a book: “Why don't you read? What have we failed? Reading is a journey, my son! Books are your friends, son.”
If it weren't for his pit stops, Purity's 'main plot' would last us an afternoon
Let's put it this way: when we open Purity , we are indeed embarking on a journey. In a standard book, with standard ambitions and a standard structure, progressing chronologically through the plot is comparable to covering the miles that separate us from our destination; in Purity , progressing involves a constant parade of stops at gas stations, bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, smoking breaks, snack breaks… the journey would last little more than an hour were it not for the stops , which together occupy ten times the space of the main plot, the one that unfolds in the present and for which we would kill to see it advance a little further.
? Happy closing of circles
When we say "pauses," we mean chapters of context, background, a pause in the present action. In other words, Jonathan Franzen uses a technique in Purity that we already saw in his previous novel, Freedom (and in almost every Quentin Tarantino film, including The Hateful Eight ), which, although it undoubtedly has a name and category within the world of narrative and/or screenwriting, we will simply refer to as the Happy Closure of Circles.
- We are told a series of events of which we lack data for full understanding.
- You look back in time (it's not even a flashback, simply the present tense of the narration becomes that of a time prior to what was said in 1.)
- Near the end of this section (which can run to a hundred pages and constitute a novel by itself), we get the necessary information we needed to understand point 1 in its full sense.
- A new chapter begins and we are once again presented with an amputated narrative that requires another look at the past to correctly achieve the closing of the circle that will grant that instant gratification to the reader that will invite him to continue browsing pages.
Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace, inseparable friends.
Some literary critics have bluntly stated in their reviews that Jonathan Franzen's novels are overflowing with filler, fluff, and unnecessary pages—enough to save a couple of forests. As long as a day without wine.
Some literary critics have been kind enough to say bluntly that Jonathan Franzen's novels are generously filled with rubbish, straw, and dispensable pages—enough to save a couple of forests.
? Many topics… maybe too many
Like Cortázar lounging in his Parisian room before Hopscotch , shuffling chapters, one can imagine Franzen with his seven or eight voluminous stacks of pages, uncertain about the ideal order to unload the ballast of a narrative that wouldn't have been half as addictive had it been published in a strictly orthodox chronological order. Of course, what keeps Purity from being a Twilight, Da Vinci Code, or Grey's Inferno is that, in addition to discussing the internet, hacking, social media, journalism, feminism, global overpopulation, environmentalism, international hypocrisy, and a long etcetera, the real theme that truly drives the plot forward is the same as in all of Franzen's novels, the theme of all good literature and universal culture: humankind, its dreams and its miseries. Character development, in short.
We will say that the young Purity (Pip) Tyler is the protagonist because, in addition to being the cover girl, it is her story that opens and closes the book, being the link with the other five stories ; five narratives that are, we insist, practically separate books ; summaries of lives that only come into contact with that of Pip Tyler at their final poles and that, nevertheless, in Purity are described to us with a sick profusion of details that give these chapters a nature more typical of the biographical genre than of the novelistic one.
As with Foster Wallace, this is where Jonathan Franzen shines brightest, in his meticulous psychological portraits of people we meet in moments of climax and , also, of bland grayness: a young squatter drowning in university debt, a handsome fifty-something playing the Julian Assagne of the moment, a beautiful and ambitious journalist willing to put work before love, an ugly and ambitious journalist willing to put love before work, and the classic unbalanced woman, a Franzen trademark.
? Is Purity un Liberty II?
Were it not for the plot involving Andreas Wolf (a hacker who owns a Wikileaks-type organization) and the somewhat lower average age of the novel as a whole, Purity , instead of a sequel (to the success of the Franzen formula), would clearly be a kind of Freedom 2 (Freedom II: The Return of the Overwhelmed ), since at times the echoes become too obvious (for a reason, only four years passed since the publication in 2011 of what was his confirmation novel, less than half the time it took him to publish again since The Corrections , his revelation novel of 2001).
Were it not for Andreas Wolf, Purity , instead of being a sequel to the successful Franzen formula, would clearly be a kind of Freedom 2.
Dysfunctional families and troubled sexual relationships (if in Freedom there were already plenty of somewhat shameful narratives on the subject, here, seriously, there is too much sex in this book, simply too much, it's enough already, Franzen, you're a pain, seriously, you're very tiresome, why can't anyone have normal sexual relations and for the matter not to occupy a fundamental pillar of their existence? Why, Jonathan Franzen ? What are you trying to tell us with this parade of unsatisfied, unmotivated, and insatiable lunatics?).
The journalistic novel in the times of Wikileaks
There is a certain beauty and paradox in the fact that the central theme of this book—the journalism of massive leaks concerning government and corporate secrecy—has become, in the real world, as ephemeral as Tom Aberant (the ambitious journalist) thought it would be. In a way, Purity was a publishing venture that arrived on the new releases tables somewhat diminished by its attempt to portray, or rather critique, a phenomenon that was then in a comatose state.
The disappearance from the media of the Mannings and Assagnes who not long ago (surely, when Franzen began writing Purity ) were self-appointed saviors of global decency, becomes somewhat jarring in this book that could very well act as a final blow (in an idyllic society in which fiction was still consumed massively and endowed with a certain influence, as in the fifties, when they brought Nabokov and Lolita to trial) , a stab in the back of the neck, of these media-savvy patriotic phenomena so diminished in our days, relegated to the occasional brief in the International section (briefs that are answered by the reader with timid “ah, yes, that guy”).
A young woman adrift in life is drawn to a Wikileaks-style project (here called Sunlight Project) that might offer her a chance to locate her mysterious father. Along the way, we meet Andreas Wolf, the charismatic and womanizing leader of a quasi-cult, portrayed in a Manichean way that leaves the reader with no choice but to feel pity and hatred for him. We also encounter the two journalists and the eccentric woman mentioned earlier, whom, for the sake of avoiding spoilers, we'll simply label as the "Freedom" section of the book, or perhaps the section that critiques/portrays the miserable, sad, yet ultimately only possible, middle-aged life of the average American.
Here Wikileaks is called Sunlight Project
Regarding feminism and/or the battle of the sexes, we find several approaches. On the one hand, we have Pip Tyler, proud yet shamefully subservient to her need to be close to a man , or the Sunlight Project, an obscenely patriarchal society (with almost Gaddafi-esque overtones in the harem of women at Andreas Wolf's disposal), and on the other hand, we find a good number of independent, outspoken, and angry women. And jealous. And envious.
At times this novel seems like a justification for the existence of articles like the one titled "Is Jonathan Franzen a sexist?" We have a single mother, a woman desperate to be a mother, a group of girls willing to do anything, and, ultimately, a still life of what Franzen believes was happening in female society in 2015.
The world of 2015 according to Franzen.
You may not entirely agree with Jonathan Franzen and his perceived hostility towards the internet (it's worth highlighting an essay section comparing the web and its intricacies to the workings of the Stasi and the bureaucracy of the German Democratic Republic itself); you may disagree with his oversimplification of young people (in fact, you should), and you may think that certain plot devices suffer from gratuitousness and an excess of happy coincidences, but that won't detract from the fact that this novel is still worthwhile. Purity is more of the same, meaning simply a continuation of the level of quality already demonstrated in Freedom . Franzen delivers what he promises; as soon as you finish this one, you're already eager to read another. And that, these days, is saying a lot.
Jonathan Franzen, Purity
Translation of Enrique de Hériz
Salamander, Barcelona, 2015
697 pages | 24 euros