All the reviews are mash notes.
As if to reassure himself that Carol had been wrong about him, he wept a little in the darkness, on his bench. Wept for Connie in her misery, wept for having abandoned her to Carol - for not being the person who could save her.
Unlikeable characters was one of the criticisms I heard a lot about The Corrections, too. With Freedom, I actually thought Richard was probably the least well-rounded character, and the least likeable. Richard never seemed to be justified in being an asshole, whereas I thought Franzen was careful to justify Walter quite a bit more, and to some extent with Joey, too.
I saw Ray's character as being pretty different from Patty, actually. The scene with Jessica was more of an exception. She wasn't typically obnoxious - drinking usually just made her depressed. And Ray had an interesting redemption at the end - we see all of the people Ray defended as a lawyer show up at his funeral; his death really meant something to people.
As for Richard... that's interesting that you liked him because of his bad behavior. I agree with you - he didn't try to justify it or rationalize it. But... there was little in terms of any redeeming qualities, anything to balance it out. Walter, for example, had an interesting goal - to save the world. Richard, on the other hand, seemed to lack positive goals. Plus he betrayed his best friend, by sleeping with Patty. That's pretty low, don't you think?
The one semi-redemptive thing with Richard was the CD he made for Walter at the end, but that was it, and it seemed like more of a hint that Richard's relationship with Walter might change in the future, not that Richard himself would really change.
Also, I agree with you about Patty and Walter being in denial about themselves. But to me that sounds entirely logical and understandable. After all, how many people would be introspective enough to label themselves as assholes?
I think there was an important theme about how children don't really understand their parents, at least not until they get much older. It's not that Ray became a better person at the end of his life. It's just that Patty saw the better parts of him as she got older, and her own life gave her more perspective. I think the scene with Jessica brought that together, because we were shown how her daughter is viewing her the same way Patty viewed her father.
It's not that I think Richard is a good person, but I do like the way that character was developed. He was unapologetic, because he knew that no apologies would suffice. Patty betrayed her husband by sleeping with someone else, but Franzen gave her many excuses for that. Whereas Richard was never given a free pass for his bad behavior.
You know, I don't like that end. They way he tied it up was all a bit corny. I don't know what he could have done differently, but it was just a bit too phony for me.
I hear what you are saying, but I don't think Patty and Walter really reflect how most real people are. Maybe it's a generational/life experience thing, but I really just couldn't connect to them.
Yeah, I know what you're saying. And it's weird, too, because Patty's view of Richard as a potential sex partner was pretty much the same as Richard's - he was an itch she needed to scratch.
And to add on to that - even though Franzen gave Patty excuses, he did punish her more thoroughly than he punished Richard, don't you think?
I'm not sure what to make of it. I agree with you, but it was a corny sort of way to end it. I guess what I liked about it is that it served to emphasize how self-absorbed Richard was, even in his love for Walter, and even in his apology. It sort of summarized Richard's relationship with Walter.The CD was interesting to me. One of the subtle things about that CD was the first track was a title that Walter had come up with, back in college.
And yet, in Richard's final scene (when he runs into Patty in New York) he basically said he had no intention of ever calling Walter or apologizing. The CD was a kind of phony apology, in a sense, and given Richard's nature, him doing that hardly seemed phony at all.
Not even a little bit. Nor did I connect with Joey and Jessica. (Jessica, by the way, seemed like a particularly flat character). This reminds me of something Henry Rollins once said about Kerouac's On The Road - "this is like no life I've ever known." That's how I feel about Freedom.Did you at least connect with them moreso when they were in college? I think I did, myself.
I guess it depends on your perspective. Patty had an opportunity to grow and evolve, and eventually, return to the family that she cherished. So basically Patty came out ahead - she got to have her fling with Richard, she got to reconnect with her parents, she got to experience independence, she discovered herself and her potential, and then she was able to return to her husband and her family and live happily ever after. Whereas Richard remained miserable and alone. He had his career, but I think Franzen made a point of showing how Richard remained the same empty, miserable person that he was at the beginning.
In the bar where they alighted, Richard listened to Patty's news of herself with the halved attention of a man who's busy and successful. He seemed finally to have made peace with his success - he mentioned, without embarrassment or apology, that he'd done one of those avant-garde orchestral thingies with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and that his current girlfriend, who is apparently a big-deal documentary-maker, had introduced him to various young directors of the kind of art-house movies that Walter always loved, and that some scoring projects were in the works. Patty allowed herself one small pang at the thought of how relatively contented he seemed, and another small pang at the thought of his high-powered girlfriend, before turning the subject, as always, to Walter.