I am currently reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Last year on a total whim I read his other big novel, The Corrections, and was absolutely sucked in due to how well he wrote about the everyday Midwestern family. Though I felt the events in the book weren't something I had ever experience, the feelings the characters had for each other was something I could relate to. In Freedom I feel the same way. His portrayal of a Midwestern family looking at "where they went wrong with each other" makes me think of the relationships I have in my life. I think everyone has a complex relationship with the people they grew up with and who raised them. It is especially interesting to see how those relationships change after reaching adulthood, and Franzen captures it spot on.
I was drawn to a passage on page 281 of Freedom, which follows a heated phone call between a father and his son who is off at college,
"His father seemed glad to let the subject drop, and Joey was also glad. He relished feeling cool and in control of his life, and it was disturbing to discover that there was this other thing in him, this reservoir of rage, this complex of family feelings that could suddenly explode and take control of him. The angry words he'd spoken to his father had felt pre-formed, as if there were an aggrieved second self inside him 24/7, ordinarily invisible but clearly fully sentient and ready to vent itself, at a moment's notice, in the form of sentences independent of his volition. It made him wonder who his real self was; and this was very disturbing."
I once had a girl ask me if I ever got angry. I laughed a bit at first, but she went on to say that she couldn't imagine me fighting with other people. I said she had never been around me when I had been with family. And yet, I can't say why it is that I do fight with my family. For the most part we get along fine, but when we do fight it is BIG. As in screeching, yelling, kicking, hanging-up. There are other people in the world who get under my skin a LOT more and who piss me off royally, and yet I let them get away with it due to my wish to keep the peace and to keep myself cool and collected. And yet the littlest things will absolutely set me off when I am with family, and the same for them. And I always feel bad later and wonder why it is I can't grow up and let things go.
Motoaki is very similar. The man works with special needs adults and yet never gets frustrated, never loses his patience, etc Still, I often hear him having heated arguments on the phone with his father over what seems, to me, to be fairly irrelevant things.
I had a friend go home recently and on her return she complained that all she did was fight with her family. One of her sisters swore at her, much to her surprise, and another said she shouldn't come back any time soon. This is unbelievable as this friend is extremely mature for her age and always kind to people, even if she doesn't like them. Another friend had her mother visit her in Japan and she said they fought a lot as well. So much that she threatened to kick her mom out of her car and tell her to walk home.
Anyway, since a lot of families seem to have this sort of dynamic, I think that Jonathan Franzen is probably relatable for a lot of people. Though I haven't finished the book, I have read 300 pages of it in the past week and that is despite having to work full time, going to Osaka, and having friends visit. I highly suggest it, although I think The Corrections might be better. In a side note, the book is interesting because a lot of it takes place in St. Paul where I went to school and the characters go to the U of Minnesota and Macalester.
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