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Title: Strong Motion: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen ISBN: 031242051X Publisher: Picador Pub. Date: 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17
Rating: 5
Summary: Ground Shaking
Comment: I just finished this book yesterday and I must say that it's going on my top ten favorite books list.
I picked up Strong Motion because I'd heard about Jonathan Franzen through some fans of David Foster Wallace. I was not dissapointed. I'll skip the plot synopsis, since I've noticed that it has been done already, but I'll tell you what I loved about the book.
Scenery. The book is set in Massachusetts -- mostly in Boston and its surrounding areas. I grew up just south of Boston, so the territory was familiar to me. Franzen really made me feel like I was back in that city, walking its streets, taking the train around. Many authors can write about being in the city, but few can really capture the feeling of a specific city like Franzen does for Boston. I really like that.
Characters. Franzen creates some of the most memorable character I've ever read. Not for their quirkiness (a la Dickens) but more in the way that it is easy to see yourself in them. In Strong Motion, I was able to see some of my own qualities in both Louis and Rene and it gives the book a kind of intimacy.
Details. There is a lot of detail in Strong Motion. I learned a lot about earthquakes and chemicals while reading the book. Franzen's skill, however, is integrating the technical details with the storyline, making the two fit together seamlessly. I never thought "ok, here we go with more technical stuff...".
I really loved this book and I'd suggest it to anyone who enjoyed Franzen's The Corrections (which I also loved) or even David Foster Wallace, Don Delillo or Paula Fox. I found myself very involved in the story (which hits on abortions, earthquakes, sex, love, family, religious zeal and more). Do yourself a favor and read this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Better than The Corrections
Comment: I picked up Strong Motion after enjoying Franzen's The Corrections. The story lines in this novel are more complexly layered than those in The Corrections, but also more tightly organized. Most notably, in stark contrast to The Corrections, Franzen does not send us off to the Baltics to experience needless side stories. Every overlapping and interwoven piece of text is important to the rest of the novel.
Brief decriptions of the plot do not do the book justice, because they come off as unbelievable, even gimmicky. While Franzen does take bold risks with this story and his characters, this novel is so well crafted that I did not even pause to consider whether a particular plot twist was plausible. Like all good fiction, the unreal becomes real as the story unfolds.
With rich, conflicted characters and smart, penetrating observations of American society, Franzen's Strong Motion is a master work. It is easy to see why there was such a buzz around the release of The Corrections: Franzen is one of the best contemporary American literary fiction has to offer.
Rating: 5
Summary: An original voice for the 21st century
Comment: Jonathan Franzen's STRONG MOTION is one of the most original books I've read in years.
At its most basic level, STRONG MOTION is the love story of Louis Holland and a brilliant seismologist, Renee Seitchek and of strange happenings in Boston.
Ambitious, imaginative and quirky, Franzen successfully weaves moral, social and environmental issues into a complex, wry, intriguing and often humorous story about family and love.
STRONG MOTION along with the excellent reviews Franzen has received for his latest book THE CORRECTIONS (the current Oprah pick), should make Jonathan Franzen recognizable as an original voice for the decade.
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Title: The Twenty-Seventh City by Jonathan Franzen ISBN: 0312420145 Publisher: Picador Pub. Date: 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: How to Be Alone: Essays by Jonathan Franzen ISBN: 0374173273 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Corrections: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen ISBN: 0312421273 Publisher: Picador Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Desperate Characters: A Novel by Paula Fox, Jonathan Franzen ISBN: 039331894X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Risk Pool (Vintage Contemporaries) by Richard Russo ISBN: 0679753834 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 1994 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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