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A review by brendamn
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
5.0
This story leaves you with a lot to think about, and because of that I will just narrow my review to keep from going all over the place. Out of everything in this book Franzen's approach to interpersonal relationships is what left the greatest impression with me. Religion has a massive presence itself, but for now I'm just going to stick to the depth of the characters and their interactions.
What felt like the most major driving force in this book was just the simple concept of empathy. You can see that the main family's religion has given them a deep and intimate understanding of it and you see how they strive to embrace it when interacting with their family members. Though of course it could be said that Franzen's specialty is dysfunctional families, the thing with empathy in this story is just how fucking impossible it can sometimes be. It is hard to be empathetic towards people who do little to deserve it, especially when they are ruining your life in the process.
There is a lot of strife among them and you hear it from five different perspectives. You see where they are able to forgive and where they cannot. You also are shown the paradox of doing all in your power to shed yourself of the negative influence of someone close to you, but in the end that struggle just increases the influence those forces hold on you in the end anyways.
My personal takeaway whether intended or not is that the real challenge is for the reader themselves to be able to relate and understand all the characters and be able to understand their faults. There has always been a sideshow sort of feeling to me when it comes to dysfunctional families in fiction, that they are something to gawk at and allow the reader to feel better about themself. Though Crossroads really made me stop and think, if a book were written about me where the majority is just focused on my faults and shortcomings, would I leave an impression of a person who deserves empathy myself?
I guess this doesn't really sound like I am speaking much about the interpersonal relationships in the book, but my counterargument would be that it was the driving force from where these observations spring from. Jonathan Franzen really does masterfully write complex characters and creates them as forces of power amongst each other.
What felt like the most major driving force in this book was just the simple concept of empathy. You can see that the main family's religion has given them a deep and intimate understanding of it and you see how they strive to embrace it when interacting with their family members. Though of course it could be said that Franzen's specialty is dysfunctional families, the thing with empathy in this story is just how fucking impossible it can sometimes be. It is hard to be empathetic towards people who do little to deserve it, especially when they are ruining your life in the process.
There is a lot of strife among them and you hear it from five different perspectives. You see where they are able to forgive and where they cannot. You also are shown the paradox of doing all in your power to shed yourself of the negative influence of someone close to you, but in the end that struggle just increases the influence those forces hold on you in the end anyways.
My personal takeaway whether intended or not is that the real challenge is for the reader themselves to be able to relate and understand all the characters and be able to understand their faults. There has always been a sideshow sort of feeling to me when it comes to dysfunctional families in fiction, that they are something to gawk at and allow the reader to feel better about themself. Though Crossroads really made me stop and think, if a book were written about me where the majority is just focused on my faults and shortcomings, would I leave an impression of a person who deserves empathy myself?
I guess this doesn't really sound like I am speaking much about the interpersonal relationships in the book, but my counterargument would be that it was the driving force from where these observations spring from. Jonathan Franzen really does masterfully write complex characters and creates them as forces of power amongst each other.