PURITY

by Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen is one of a very few authors of whom I would say that I am not a big fan. I think I am still scarred from the bizarre and disgusting scene in The Corrections where the protagonist talks to his own feces for 25 pages. However, people love him and so after a long interval, I decided to give Purity a try.  Overall, I’m glad I did.

Set all over the globe from San Francisco to Berlin, Bolivia to Denver and covering events from the early 1950s through the present, Franzen creates a plot with complex puzzles connecting his characters and surprises that keep the reader engrossed to the very end. Purity, who prefers to be called Pip, is a young adult with huge college debt and a low-paying  job she hates. Her mother is an emotionally needy recluse who refuses to reveal the identity of her father. This need for information and money drives Purity to take an internship with a famous internet secret-leaker in Bolivia. (Think Julian Assange.) 

Now please indulge my brief rant against Franzen. In a book called Purity where the first 75 pages center on this interesting and smart young woman, the majority of the book tells the story of the secret leaker and the man he is worried will reveal his own darkest secret. Both men see themselves as essentially “good guys” who have been messed up by the damaged and manipulative women in their lives.  Women they are drawn back to again and again…they can't help it. This trope gets a huge eye roll from me, as does the occasionally "wink-wink" style of Franzen’s prose. For example, when one of his characters jokes that so many novelists are named Jonathan.

However, Franzen bugaboos aside, Purity really delivers an enjoyable read with a juicy plot and some very prescient fears about how the internet has and will continue to change us as humans. It’s not a must-read, but Purity won't disappoint. (Lily)