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readsbyjess 's review for:
Purity
by Jonathan Franzen
Fascinating character study. Reviews that include anything about Franzen hating women are remarkably obtuse, in my opinion, and lack anthropological awareness of what drives human beings who are fully plighted by self-sabotage. Or, more importantly, how they gravitate towards one another.
This story presents a generational domino effect of it, and not a single character, male or female, escapes it. In fact, the primary male character is its purest form, the worst-case scenario of someone hurdling towards their own destruction. Blaming everything but himself. Which the main female character really has more to blame, and doesn't become like him; makes better choices, but not without flaw, and certainly not without being affected by everything she inherited from other flawed humans.
I loved it. I loved how far it goes into the deep, dark, recesses of human frailty and flaw.
To say Franzen just hates the internet and social media is also... obtuse. He was commenting on how humans who suffer from the above, with or without the existence of these things, wield it. Like anything. In the hands of someone addicted to self-sabotage, which is a full detachment from reality and a propensity to craft narrative from nothing, anything is a weapon. Even tools of a virtual reality... especially those, really. As someone who used to be afflicted, I fully get it.
I think anyone saying this book is anti-feminist and internet-hating just proves how little people understand about mental health. That is, truly, a superficial take that misses the point, entirely.
This story presents a generational domino effect of it, and not a single character, male or female, escapes it. In fact, the primary male character is its purest form, the worst-case scenario of someone hurdling towards their own destruction. Blaming everything but himself. Which the main female character really has more to blame, and doesn't become like him; makes better choices, but not without flaw, and certainly not without being affected by everything she inherited from other flawed humans.
I loved it. I loved how far it goes into the deep, dark, recesses of human frailty and flaw.
To say Franzen just hates the internet and social media is also... obtuse. He was commenting on how humans who suffer from the above, with or without the existence of these things, wield it. Like anything. In the hands of someone addicted to self-sabotage, which is a full detachment from reality and a propensity to craft narrative from nothing, anything is a weapon. Even tools of a virtual reality... especially those, really. As someone who used to be afflicted, I fully get it.
I think anyone saying this book is anti-feminist and internet-hating just proves how little people understand about mental health. That is, truly, a superficial take that misses the point, entirely.