{"id":340,"date":"2010-08-20T08:40:16","date_gmt":"2010-08-20T08:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/what-im-going-to-be-reading-freedom-by-jonathan-franzen.html"},"modified":"2010-08-20T08:40:16","modified_gmt":"2010-08-20T08:40:16","slug":"what-im-going-to-be-reading-freedom-by-jonathan-franzen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/what-im-going-to-be-reading-freedom-by-jonathan-franzen.html","title":{"rendered":"What I’m Going to Be Reading: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"freedom.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>I enjoyed The Corrections<\/a><\/i>, Jonathan Franzen’s last epic novel of American life. And after reading the TIME cover article<\/a> about his upcoming novel, Freedom<\/a><\/i>, I can’t wait to dive in. Here’s what gets me interested:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
“For Franzen’s characters, too much freedom is an empty, dangerously entropic thing. After all, energy companies are free to ravage and poison the breeding grounds of the cerulean warbler. If Patty and Walter divorced, they would be free, but its a freedom they would do almost anything to avoid… And no one is freer than a person with no moral beliefs. ‘One of the ways of surrendering freedom is to actually have convictions,’ Franzen says. ‘And a way of further surrendering freedom is to spend quite a bit of time acting on those convictions.’<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“…There is something beyond freedom that people need: work, love, belief in something, commitment to something. Freedom is not enough. It’s necessary but not sufficient. It’s what you do with freedom–what you give it up for–that matters.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Anyone else intrigued? Check back in a few weeks and we can share our thoughts. Meanwhile, happy reading!<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I enjoyed The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen’s last epic novel of American life. And after reading the TIME cover article about his upcoming novel, Freedom, I can’t wait to dive in. Here’s what gets me interested: “For Franzen’s characters, too much freedom is an empty, dangerously entropic thing. After all, energy companies are free to ravage…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-what-im-reading"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat I'm Going to Be Reading: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/08\/what-im-going-to-be-reading-freedom-by-jonathan-franzen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What I'm Going to Be Reading: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I enjoyed The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen’s last epic novel of American life. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}