A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning author of Freedom and The Corrections The essayist, Jonathan Franzen writes, is like “a fire-fighter, whose job, while everyone else is fleeing the flames of shame, is to run straight into them.” For the past twenty-five years, even as his novels have earned him worldwide acclaim, Franzen has led a second life as a risk-taking … second life as a risk-taking essayist. Now, at a moment when technology has inflamed tribal hatreds and the planet is beset by unnatural calamities, he is back with a new collection of essays that recall us to more humane ways of being in the world.
Franzen’s great loves are literature and birds, and The End of the End of the Earth is a passionate argument for both. Where the new media tend to confirm one’s prejudices, he writes, literature “invites you to ask whether you might be somewhat wrong, maybe even entirely wrong, and to imagine why someone else might hate you.” Whatever his subject, Franzen’s essays are always skeptical of received opinion, steeped in irony, and frank about his own failings. He’s frank about birds, too (they kill “everything imaginable”), but his reporting and reflections on them–on seabirds in New Zealand, warblers in East Africa, penguins in Antarctica–are both a moving celebration of their beauty and resilience and a call to action to save what we love.
Calm, poignant, carefully argued, full of wit, The End of the End of the Earth provides a welcome breath of hope and reason.
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This is a thought-provoking book of essays, often depressing but also inspirational. Sort of like bad news that really gets you thinking about the future- and present- of the planet and humanity. Not to mention birds. Franzen is passionate about birds, and about half the book is about birds. I’m a birder myself, so I really enjoyed this but you might not. On the other hand he uses birds as a massive canary-in-the-mine device.
Franzen travels the world looking for birds and that gives him the opportunity to comment on many things other than the birds – fauna, flora, people, places, culture, etc.
I enjoyed these essays even if they could be frightening.
The Best of Jonathan Franzen – highly readable, insightful – and a lot of birds
As I have mentioned in many previous reviews – I am quite ambivalent towards the much-venerated genre of Literary Fiction.
And yes – that includes ambivalence towards the much-venerated Jonathan Franzen.
In short, I see books through the lens of Aristotle’s Telos – which reduces everything to what it is meant to do.
A knife that cuts and a towel that dries are good – their Telos is strong, because that is what they are meant to do.
But a knife that dries and a towel that cuts are not good – no matter how well the knife dries, and how well the towel cuts – they are not a good knife and towel respectively.
With books, there should be at least one of two directions to the Telos –
* Does it entertain, like a Ruth Ware book?
* Does it inform, like a Yuval Noah Harari book?
If it neither entertains nor informs, I don’t believe it holds the Telos of a book.
And in Literary Fiction – this often seems to not be important. You may read a Literary Fiction book for your book club, or because you are supposed to, because everyone else says it is good.
You get through it, and gain little, if anything. You are not entertained, and it does not leave you informed.
The current greats – Jonathan Franzen, Gary Shteyngart and Zadie Smith – are they brilliant? Probably. Do they impress other greats? Probably.
Do I enjoy their books? Do I rush home to read their prose? Not really.
Am I elevated with their books? Somewhat – there may be a sentence or two that is elegant, but it takes me a few pages to find it. In the meantime – I can open any Yuval Noah Harari book, point to a paragraph at random, and find something that might change my world view.
I’m not saying their prose is bad – but it’s quite an investment to open up one of their tomes, and the rewards – other than saying that you have read it – are not immediate.
But make no mistake – I still love Jonathan Franzen, Gary Shteyngart and Zadie Smith.
Enter Short Fiction and Essays – which shows these author’s insight and ability to entertain – and does it immediately
Put the smallest limit on these authors and they shine. Have you read anything by Gary Shteyngart in The New Yorker?
And I mean anything.
Short stories, short journalistic non-fiction, or even slightly longer articles – and it is incredible.
Shteyngart informs, he entertains – and that’s it. Minimal investment as a reader, maximum – and immediate return.
You can say the same with this incredible collection by Jonathan Franzen – every essay is great, accessible – and of course, there are lots and lots of birds.
Every essay is great – but here are a few of my favorites
* Why Birds Matter – Might be his most important article. I first read this in National Geographic – and it is important. Birds matter – and Jonathan Franzen tells us why. He has a lot of other articles about this – but this is probably his best.
* Capitalism in Hyperdrive – a polemic on our tablet-infused society. Every word hits home – because most of us are a part of it.
* Missing – He actually has a few articles like this – he goes on a bird-watching expedition, and then writes about it. They are all good – in this one he goes to Jamaica. You can read any one – but this one is perhaps the second best, after The End of the End of the Earth.
* The End of the End of the Earth – this is a bird watching expedition to Antarctica. Probably his best one – though being Antarctica, it is different. He finds penguins and not small birds. His great insight is what he learns from his fellow passengers – and that is that he has an appreciation for young people. He realizes a world without young kids around is like a constant tour group – everyone has formed opinions, and it’s functional but – you need kids around.
* The Regulars – this one might be my favorite. He explores the photography of Sarah Stolfa – and brings the insight into her work. Just incredible.
In short – I highly recommend this collection
Read one piece – any one – or read them all. Every one is accessible, every one is entertaining.
Read it for the birds.
Read it for the entertainment.
Read it for the insight.
And yes – read it to say that you have read Jonathan Franzen – it’s ok to do this.
Regardless, I recommend this great collection.