Freedom - Jonathan Franzen

I finished reading a novel for the first time in years. I read Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections about a year ago, and Freedom was his next effort. The combination of family dynamics mixed with contemporaneous political and social issues is where Franzen has staked out a brilliant and illuminating home turf.

In Freedom , he puts a Minnesota family under the microscope, bouncing for a time into the 1970s, but spending most of the time in the late 90s and the first decade of the 2000s. Patty Berglund is the main protagonist - and the "author" of a significant section of the book - an athletic woman who is committed to her family but unclear about some major issues in her life.

She is married to Walter Berglund - a native Minnesotan who met Patty at Univ of Minnesota and who is characterized by his "niceness". Walter is a lawyer who worked for 3M - ending up eventually in outreach and philanthropy due to his commitment to causes. He left 3M to become a development officer for the Nature Conservancy, allowing him to focus his commitment to nature on a full-time basis. `

Of all the interesting characters, I resonate most with Walter so would like to focus on his development in a couple of posts.