Not a word of praise was wasted on Jonathan Franzen's new novel, Freedom, which was widely hailed as a masterpiece. Though the plot - especially the ending - can sometimes verge on the soapoperish, the novel rises above it through the incredible vividness of its characters, dialogue and scenes, which unfold majestically, in a way that is funny, dramatic and moving. The tension never relaxes and you are drawn into the novel to the extent that its moods seem contagious. In America it was particularly celebrated for how it captured the "zeitgeist", but it seems to me that depression and family neurosis is the real theme of the novel. Politics are just background scenario. It is love not power which is really center stage and its pangs in this novel seem all too real.
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