EFFICIENT, SOMETIMES HILIARIOUS MEMOIR

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	• The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History Jonathan Franzen Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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A quirky, too short personal history

Jonathen Franzen's personal history is more a short collection of slightly disorganized life happenings than what one would usually expect in a memoir. He begins with the story of the sale of his mother's house after her death, located in "just right" Webster Groves, Missouri, where he grew up. His goal to obtain the highest possible price doesn't work out entirely as planned. Chapter Two, My Ponies, concerns Snoopy, with whom he felt a certain "kinship," and Peanuts comic strip creator Charles Schultz. Joy Breaks Through follows the antics of his teen youth group members, of which he shares some great words of wisdom (p 113): "Adolescence is best enjoyed without self-consciousness, but self-consciousness, unfortunately, is its leading symptom," and "You're miserable and ashamed if you don't believe your adolescent troubles matter, but you're stupid if you do." More on his teens follows in Centrally Located, especially the details of some high school pranks (complete with sketches). Learning German abroad is main subject of The Foreign Language. My Bird Problem contains a bit on romance and marriage, his changing awareness of and concern about the environment, and, likely the favorite part for birders, funny anecdotes about bird sightings at the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge as well as his experiences as a bird watcher on Hat Island. Good as is, but fans will likely be left wanting more. Similarly satisfying: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers and Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.

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EFFICIENT, SOMETIMES HILIARIOUS MEMOIR

As I read this efficient memoir, I was increasingly reminded of myself. Though I didn't grow up with the pressures imposed by parents with strong preconceptions of what I should do with my life, I was, like this fellow Jonathan, a youngest child, unusually shy and unwilling to cause trouble, interested in but slow to find my footing with the other sex. It took me 50 pages to become immersed, then I was swept along by Franzen's easy prose and quirky, sometimes hilarious misadventures. As a birdwatcher, I was delighted by the final chapter, which almost became a birder's diary. Had Franzen himself been the vegetarian his love interest was at the book's end, the parallels would have been complete. I only wish I could write like him.

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Discomfort and Revelation

These autobiographical essays teeter between personal revelation and keeping the reader at arm's length and the discussion at an intellectual level. Franzen describes in unforgiving detail how he chose the wrong realtor to sell his mother's house. We see him fall for the flirtatious sales pitch of the woman in tight jeans but not the reaction of his brothers once the error is discovered. He describes his attraction to his future wife because she is a precise, brilliant reader, but he seems incapable of explaining why that's not enough to make the marriage work. The failure of the marriage and reaction of his brothers remain just off stage. Franzen as an adult isn't far removed from the child who told his mother that he didn't hear the fight between his brother and father the night before -- everyone is safer if we carry on as if nothing happened.

The result is carefully crafted tension between Franzen's reticence to talk about intense messy feelings (except perhaps by allusion to Kafka) and meticulous cataloguing of everything incidental to those feelings. Trapped between the contradictory desires to be known and to remain distant, Franzen is at his thoughtful, ambivalent best.

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Discomfort and Revelation

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For Franzen fans only

The Discomfort Zone is honest, funny, insightful and nearly every sentence is a work of art; just what you would expect from a memoir written by Jonathan Franzen. However, despite his prodigious gifts as a writer, this personal history doesn't feel cohesive, is often aloof and it never feels like vital reading. It is an interesting if uneven glimpse into the mind and past of Franzen, but if you haven't read his work before, read The Corrections before this. For fans only.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5