Franzen's freshman effort is striking. First, just one long gaze at the picture of Franzen on the back and it makes me think this kid must have been gnawing on ideas for this book in his mother's womb. Seriously, he looks like he might be wearing the same deodorant his dad gave him at puberty.Anyway, I was inspired to read this book because I was heading to St. Louis for a couple days and figured given the recent Ferguson-inspired race tensions, there might never be a more appropriate time to crack Franzen's novel about an Indian woman who takes over as the St. Louis chief of police. There is sex, violence, politics, intrigue, etc.. It is a thriller that aspires to be literary, or a thriller written by someone who is simply writing in the wrong genre.The book is ambitious, messy (plot threads abandoned all over the place), inventive, cracked in places, but destined to stick around. I say that knowing that there are some serious Franzen haters out there. I also say that knowing this isn't his best work (by far). But in 1988, Franzen wrote a novel that seems to have almost perfectly captured the paranoid, xenophobic, social and race conflict that surrounds President Obama (birth certificate, etc). Imagine while reading this novel that Obama is Jammu and the United States is St. Louis and let the details slide from Ferguson to the Gateway Arch and there you are. Franzen's fixation on the American family (both in its function and disfunction) is in pupae form here. Family dinners, tensions between spouses, extra-marital encounters, spoiled children, holiday tensions, they all germ here. His prose is great, if a bit uneven (brilliant in parts and boring in others). His plot is complicated. His setting masterful. Again, this isn't a masterpiece, but it was a clear indication of his future ambition and trajectory.It is hard to not like David Mitchell. He is literary, just not too literary. He is funky, just not too funky. He is hip, just not too hip. He is political, just not too political. He is spiritual, but also seems to leave room for a bit of humanist doubt. I can't think of another writer who captures the energy or direction of the slick, urban, cosmopolitan, educated, 21st century global zeitgeist. David Mitchell is brilliant at ventriloquism and style-jumping. His books are filled with multiple narrative and style incarnations (the stacking-doll Cloud Atlas, or narrative leaping number9dream, or his most recent The Bone Clocks), but sometime I feel like he is starting to eat his own tail here. I want to see Mitchell do a Peter Carey and jump out of his slick, crowd-pleasing novels into something a bit different. Do I know what I want? No. I just see this author who I've liked enough to read everything he's ever published, and fear that we might just get two or three more of these books. I like them. Don't get me wrong. I liked the Bone Clocks enough to give it four stars and review and read it. I just don't want to see Mitchell begin to get so comfortable in his archipelago of interconnected narratives that he doesn't push his talent into dark, rough, and uncomfortable places. Anyway, Mitchell hasn't written a novel YET that I'm very disappointed with and Bone Clocks is no exception. There might be a couple slower chapters and the ending might have been a bit predictable, but I had a hard time putting the novel down while reading and was sad to put it down when I finished. That isn't rare for me, but it is a pretty good indication that the novel is on solid ground. People keep claiming to see the death of the novel around the corner, but Mitchell's talent and slickness is at least one star that keeps consistently reappearing.It is hard to not like David Mitchell. He is literary, just not too literary. He is funky, just not too funky. He is hip, just not too hip. He is political, just not too political. He is spiritual, but also seems to leave room for a bit of humanist doubt. I can't think of another writer who captures the energy or direction of the slick, urban, cosmopolitan, educated, 21st century global zeitgeist. David Mitchell is brilliant at ventriloquism and style-jumping. His books are filled with multiple narrative and style incarnations (the stacking-doll Cloud Atlas, or narrative leaping number9dream, or his most recent The Bone Clocks), but sometime I feel like he is starting to eat his own tail here. I want to see Mitchell do a Peter Carey and jump out of his slick, crowd-pleasing novels into something a bit different. Do I know what I want? No. I just see this author who I've liked enough to read everything he's ever published, and fear that we might just get two or three more of these books. I like them. Don't get me wrong. I liked the Bone Clocks enough to give it four stars and review and read it. I just don't want to see Mitchell begin to get so comfortable in his archipelago of interconnected narratives that he doesn't push his talent into dark, rough, and uncomfortable places. Anyway, Mitchell hasn't written a novel YET that I'm very disappointed with and Bone Clocks is no exception. There might be a couple slower chapters and the ending might have been a bit predictable, but I had a hard time putting the novel down while reading and was sad to put it down when I finished. That isn't rare for me, but it is a pretty good indication that the novel is on solid ground. People keep claiming to see the death of the novel around the corner, but Mitchell's talent and slickness is at least one star that keeps consistently reappearing.___________________- Robert Farwell / Edward Jones library / Mesa, AZ 2014
Oh, Jonathan Franzen, where to begin? Let me preface this by saying that I chose to read this book at random. I had just finished reading the latest lengthy installment of Robert Caro's masterful LBJ biography and I needed a fiction selection. I looked at my Amazon wish list of books to read, did a random number generator, and this book was at the top.One more preface: just two days ago, after reading this book but before writing this review, I saw an excerpt of David Foster Wallace's biography where DFW had told Franzen how much he had liked this book, and Franzed replied to DFW that he had liked half of one of DFW's books (I think it was The Broom of the System, but I can't remember now). Somehow this seems appropriate, because The Twenty-Seventh seems like half of a good book. The problem, however, is identifying which half.If I had never read The Corrections or Freedom I think I might not have been as disappointed; either that or I wouldn't have had any idea of what to make of this book. You can tell that the future brilliance is there, particularly in his descriptions of Martin Probst, who is easily the most drawn out character. His plotline makes sense: he almost literally built St. Louis through his contracting business, yet he has little to no idea about how to maintain the structural integrity of his own family. If only the entire book had been about Probst.Alas, it is not. The book is ostensibly about the installment of an Indian woman by the name of S. Jammu (we later learn what the S stands for, though I was never sure why it was such a secret) as the new chief of the St. Louis Police Department. Her taking over of this position is supposed to set in motion some grand plan of wealthy Indians to take over St. Louis. I say "supposed to" because it never really happens. The motivations of Jammu and her "associates" are never really made clear, and aside from the (admittedly) horrific bombing of a football stadium during a Cardinals football game (this is set in the 1980s), nothing much of consequence really occurs. Franzen makes mention of a crime wave of sorts that spreads through the more upper-class suburbs, but no connection is ever made between that and, well, anything really. The potential merging (or severing, I can't remember) of the city and the county is a major plot device that mostly just fizzles out at the end.If you're reading this book you're probably aware that Franzen grew up in suburban St. Louis, and this book is somewhat of a love letter to the city, or at least what the city used to be. It touches on the changes that cities, and their populaces, go through when they try to cling to the prominence that is probably gone for good. That's not the problem, however. The problem is that the book is confusing as hell. There were many times I wish I had started making a chart of all the characters and how they were supposed to be intertwined, because Franzen didn't make it all that clear. Certain characters would have long sections and then I would never read their name again. And the ending is less than ideal, which might be charitable on my part. Also, I usually am not one to think that a book is too long, but this could've been pared down without losing much of import, if anything at all.To be clear, this isn't a bad book. I don't think Franzen is capable of writing a bad book; he's too talented of a writer for that. But you can tell that it's a first book, and when you've read the fantastic novels that he's written since this one before reading this one, you're going to be frustrated. Read this if you want an idea of where Franzen came from, just don't expect perfection.
What do You think about The Twenty-Seventh City (2001)?
Meh... The whole time I was reading this I couldn't help but compare it to DeLillo's Underworld and White Noise. Yet, the comparison left me confused as I so enjoyed DeLillo but was terribly bored by Franzen. Of course, reading a book about terrorism is quite a different experience in today's world as when I first encountered DeLillo, a year before 9/11 would change our perspective so fundamentally. Would I enjoy DeLillo as much today or are these books written for young people (especially young males) who thrill at discussing that "what if's" of our world? As a native Missourian, I enjoyed his honest depiction of St. Louis, but that thrill at the familiar just doesn't carry a book this long or with this many characters or subplots, and as a Dickens' enthusiast, I love some subplots and boatloads of characters, so long as they're memorable enough to endure being abandoned for 100 pages or interesting enough to carry the three pages they fill up. Overall, this just isn't a book for me and after Franzen's recent treatment of female authors, I doubt I'll bother with his other work. Looking forward to dropping this one off for my local library's cheap book sale!
—Leslie Graff
The Twenty Seventh City marks Jonathan Franzen’s first foray into literature. Not unlike a Thomas Pynchon novel, the book is filled with paranoia, conspiracy, a large cast of characters, and a complex narrative. However, Franzen lacked the expertise of Pynchon and his debut becomes an enormous dud thanks to boring characters, excruciatingly dull politics, and some failed experimentation.tThe Twenty Seventh City takes place in and around St.Louis, Missouri soon after an Indian woman, known as Jammu, has become police chief. Once she takes the position, the city becomes embroiled in a political conspiracy that affects many of the economic elite. Specifically, one Martin Probst that juggles family life while dealing with politics. The novel often jumps between politics and family drama, but they aren’t created equal.tThe political passages in this book are by far some of the most excruciatingly dull passages I have read in recent memory. I always found myself counting the pages to the next interpersonal dilemma. Often it would stretch for thirty or so pages and I would often sigh and decide to do something else. Not only are these passages boring, they are also confusing as all hell. Franzen will often simply leave out crucial details about an event happening to a certain character to create this false sense of suspense. The suspense isn’t natural and it’s always a result of “Do you want to know who that character is? Read on to find out!” Sometimes it feels like this is done simply to pad the novel out. At 516 pages, The Twenty Seventh City is hardly a particularly long novel, but it felt like one of the longest novels I had ever read. There are so many scenes in this book that could have been cut out completely or shortened. There’s a domestic terrorist group early on that just disappears in the second half of the novel. It makes an average length novel feel bloated.tThe fact that I would count the pages to the next family scene perfectly illustrates the only thing I loved about this book. These interpersonal relationships feel real aside from some odd responses from Martin Probst. It is perfectly clear that this is where Franzen’s talent lies and it makes sense that he would explore this in more detail later in his career. The unfortunate truth is that this only takes up about a third of the novel and the rest is tedium. Some of the reasoning that the political drama is so underwhelming falls on the shoulders of these underwhelming characters. Probst hardly seems to care what is happening to him and some events that would freak most people out he hardly even reacts to. For example, his daughter leaves home to live with an older man she has just met. Martin simply just doesn’t like it. He doesn’t do anything about it at all. I feel like most fathers would drag their daughter home by their hair. Many of the characters are dull in this way and just don’t seem to have anything interesting to say about the main conflict. The other problem with characters is there are simply too many. Granted, I made the Pynchon comparison and that is definitely a valid complaint with many of his novels, but Franzen’s characters seem to lack much of a distinctive personality that separates them form the crowd.tSince this is a first novel, it should come expected that the author is still trying to find their voice and will often rely on some experimenting to assist them in finding this voice. The experimenting in this novel is extremely frustrating and comes in the form of jumping from past to present tense or shifting perspectives without line breaks or any cues whatsoever. Even Faulkner employed cues when jumping perspectives or tenses. This does disappear mostly in the last third of the novel, which makes me wonder why it was employed in the first place. It isn’t consistent and it just seems odd. tIt is worth mentioning that this is the first Jonathan Franzen novel I have ever finished. I started Freedom and Strong Motion a couple years back and loved them to death, but never finished them due to distractions. Having read some of Franzen’s other work though it is clear that he is an immensely talented writer with a weak first novel. Think Cormac McCarthy’s The Orchard Keeper. This is Franzen’s version of The Orchard Keeper. There’s a lot holding this book back, but even if it wasn’t for those problems I’m not so sure the novel would even be that great then.
—Nathan Huff
I loved this book. It was Jonathan Franzen's debut novel and he wrote it about his hometown, St. Louis. The St. Louis connection was fun. It took me awhile to get into the book and figure out what was going on. I think that part of this might have been that the novel when originally submitted was over a thousand pages and Mr. Franzen was immediately told that it had to be severely edited before it was publishable. I am not sure if the author or an editor did the majority of the editing, but it may have delayed some of the clarity of the book's theme. Despite this, it did become clear after a while that the book was a huge satire (with hopefully a large dollop of exaggeration) on the worst of politics and the lengths individuals would go to reach their desired ends. Without being a spoiler, I found the conclusion hilarious and very satisfying. I would definitely recommend this book.
—Kathy
