Country:
USA
Genre:
Non-Fiction/Essays
Pages:
309
Funny thing, I bought the brand new edition of this book, but the cover is nowhere to be found on the internet. Anyway, I've been anticipating the read of How To Be Alone for a few months now. It's no secret that I have growing feelings for the essay as a literary genre and following the two tremendous collections published by Franzen's buddy David Foster Wallace got me pumped up for this one, especially that it's about books. Another funny (read curious) thing, is that Wallace warms the reader in his foreword, saying he might have went overboard with the intellectual pedantry in some pieces. After finishing the book, I can confirm this is about right.
It starts with a powerhouse of an essay called "My Father's Brain", where he talks about his dad's battle with Alzheimer. It's a touching portrait of his father, from a perspective I can fully relate to. My dad has nothing to do of intellectual pursuits, we couldn't be more different, but seeing him go out so slowly, so gradually would drive me nuts with grief. Franzen starts so strong than for all the following essays, it's hit or miss. He picks some of the weirdest, most pinpoint subjects to talk about. In "Lost In The Mail", he talks about Chicago's mail system and offers perspective halfway in between a Historical recollection and an citizen letter. I'm still not sure why I should care.
There are also the judgmental essays like the famous "Why Bother" and "The Reader In Exile" where he complains about the lack of importance given to literature in modern society. There's this passage that marked me where he sat in a plane and said a kid marked points with him by pulling a book out of his bag rather than a Game Boy. If I recall well, the kid was nine years old. I mean, chill out J-Franz, kids can do whatever they feel like outside of school. In fact, there are very nice, more emotionally competent people than you that never read in their lives. Basically, through those essays, he's interrogating the relevance of his work and shows how vulnerable a writer can be with his audience. It's hard to really dislike those essays because he's trying hard to figure it all out.
After "My Father's Brain" the two essays I liked the best were "Control Units", on social architecture and inner mechanics of supermax prisons, where he interviews Mutulu Shakur and Ray Luc Levasseur, and "Mr. Difficult". The latter is an essay on the virtues of difficult fiction, the work of William Gaddis in particular. Here's a point he sells with passion, by discussing and demystifying the work of Gaddis for his readers. I was reading "Mr. Difficult" and thought: "Damn, he's finally done whining".
No, it doesn't hold up well to DFW's essays. I loved Strong Motion and like three essays in this book, but the judgmental attitude of Franzen towards the people that don't read turned me away from any kind of spiritual kinship I could've felt with him. I will read The Corrections in the Holidays and I'm pretty sure I'll like it, but reading How To Be Alone didn't convince me that he's someone I should look up to. Not at all.
