(Owing to time constraints, I have not consolidated our group members’ reflections into a single document. I present them as more or less individual conversational snippets.)
Didn’t like the characters nor care what happened to them. Too involved with social problems, moral ethical issues. Went on much too long.
I really enjoyed the book and liked the chapter structure but disliked the Perry chapters. For me, it was the drama of small lives populated by a cast of well-drawn characters especially Marion. I was attracted by the prose and drawn in by the narrative style as it encouraged moments of reflection. I really appreciated the rhythms and the geography of place provided in some sections. For me, Marion was the most fascinating character. I saw her in all different ways—fat, very dumpy, self-loathing and layered on her past.
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen is a big book. While the author may have had George Elliot’s Middlemarch (1871-1872) in mind, I was drawn to consider the demise of a family portrayed in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901). Contrary to other opinions, the book contains much humour and wonderful metaphors. The book is rich with internal dialogue. For those with very tidy minds, this may be tedious; for those with easily distracted minds, very engaging. Interestingly, the book offers the internal dialogue of whom who is unravelling.
This was a hard slog, and I didn’t finish it. The only redeeming feature I found was that Russ had some understanding of the Navajo culture. I did not enjoy all that teenage angst. I would not recommend this book.
I confess that this book wore me out! It was an unrelenting story about a dysfunctional American family devoid of the slightest hint of humour. I found the main characters difficult to like or feel any empathy for them. I found the way the main story went off track particularly irritating and the diversions into religion singularly non-illuminating. While it may be unreasonable to expect everything to proceed in a linear manner, I found the transitions between event/space too abrupt. But I did learn—there were several words that were unfamiliar to me, and I plan to research them. That is my treasure!
I did not enjoy this book. It is about a small American family who are hopefully atypical. I did not like any of the characters and found it hard to sympathize with them. It was full of ethical dilemmas, spiritual crises, and ongoing dysfunction. The constant introspection of these characters was exhausting, and they seemed unaware of their narcissism. The most despicable was Russ—with his disloyalty, his constant preaching, his weakness and vanity, self-pity, and his pathetic adolescent pursuit of this looking-to-have-an affair woman. However, neither Becky, Clem nor Perry appealed to me. The only person I liked was Marion with her devastating past and her accommodation to her present situation. (The group discussed Marion’s role in the drama. Was she a victim or a perpetrator or both? After all the Russ she connected with was a very naïve escapee from a Mennonite community.)
I do consider the author’s prose, his characterization and plot development masterful.
I place books in three categories: (1) like (2) don’t like (3) resent). Crossroads falls into the last category. I resent the time I had to spend reading this book when there are so many other good books to read.
Being familiar with the author, I was not expecting a character driven story. I was expecting something that focused on societal events and how people reacted to them. And that is what this book is about—their behavior and their thoughts. It was overlong and overly hyperbolic. However, the repetition of Marion being short and overweight may have been intended to invite us to experience “what Marion lives”.
I was aware that this book was well received but I gave it a thumbs down rating. I may have been in a negative mood and overtired. I was struck by the idea that it was two books rolled into one. One was a story about things that happened in the seventies which was well written and well researched. And there was another incomprehensible story about religiosity—I did appreciate Ambrose washing Russ’s feet which I thought was one of the best written scenes in the book. The book was very dense and long. The author is an awfully good writer with a keen sense of psychiatry. The portrayal of Perry’s breakdown was quite profound. I liked Marion’s letter to Clem in which she tried to explain Perry’s situation to his unsympathetic brother. It was one of the most moving situations in the book.
I would not recommend this book to anybody. The book was too contrived with its exaggeration of physical appearances and its repeated religious references. I could not relate to the book; the circumstances were far outside my own experience. There was just too much, and it was too depressing.
I didn’t trust this author. I thought his people weren’t real, they were fictional people. People are nicer than he portrayed them.
I liked it more than a lot of you. I thought the writing was good and I thought he changed the tone by person and situation. I listened to some of his interviews, and he grew up in a similar situation— a church based social group that was his main social life in his younger days. (Our group discussed the relevance of the Crossroads program to the 70s setting and to now. The understanding was that this was an environment in which our youth continued to operate.)
I really enjoyed the book. The author is a master of internal dialogue, especially the unleashing of thought processes—sane or insane. He locates a disintegrating family in their social context and explores how they arrived there and the depth of their individual and collective pain. He invites us to ponder questions of goodness, authenticity, compassion, and redemption. The rather grim narrative is punctuated with humour and sympathetic metaphor.
Our Rating
