Purity
by Jonathan Franzen
2015 / 576 pages
read by a cast: 25 h
rating 6.5  (that’s out of 10) /  contemp. fiction

I’m just not going to waste a lot of words here because Franzen has wasted too many already.  The main character is young woman named Pip,  but that’s the end of the Dickens connection.    The plot almost gets  lost due to lengthy and irrelevant digressions into what I suppose is intended to be clever social satire and character background re bizarre mothers (and a couple fathers), sex, media (books, film, internet), privacy, bathroom feminism, women’s bodies, money and capitalism,  etc.  ??? =  The writing is okay – the structure is rather good actually, considering what all Franzen felt he needed to drag out, the themes (except the main one) are rather overworked.

I really enjoyed Franzen’s The Corrections,  but he was already slipping with Freedom and Purity is a whole ‘nother  ballgame.  Gone is the low-key social satire based on character and social milieu,  and what we have instead is lengthy and over-the-top sex and silliness amongst the post-internet youth, aging hippies and some general creepos. >>>>MORE>>>>