Farther Away
by Jonathan Franzen
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
71%
Critic Reviews: 36
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- User rating from iDreamBooks & iTunes
Reader Rating
71%
Reader Ratings: 35
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Synopsis
A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning author of Freedom and The Discomfort Zone.Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom was the runaway most-discussed novel of 2010, an ambitious and searching engagement with life in America in the twenty-first century. In The New York Times Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus proclaimed it “a masterpiece of American fiction” and lauded its illumination, “through the steady radiance of its author’s profound moral... more
About Jonathan Franzen
- All Critics: 36
- Positive: 26
- Negative: 10
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The Guardian | 9 Jun 2012
One way or another, the essays in Farther Away are attempts to enlarge the place where literature, and the responsiveness to it, can be preserved.
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USA Today | 25 Apr 2012
At his best, Franzen exposes himself... with understated humor, level-headed alienation and rare insight, typically at the nexus of self-analysis and self-indulgence.
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The New York Times | 18 May 2012
While his prose is always cogent, he is not that consistently stylish a sentence writer.
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The Independent | 16 Jun 2012
His attitude might be aggressively highbrow, but his underlying concerns are simple and humane: family, age, grief, love.
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The Telegraph | 7 Jun 2012
But he is no slouch on the extra-curricular writing front... he writes continually about writing and reading, luxuriating in language and sticking up for literature for literature’s sake.
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AV Club | 23 Apr 2012
The texts are both a testament to and an illustration of what attracts people to books—a delicate play between writer, text, character, and reader that prompts excellent questions and provides surprising answers.
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Time Out New York | 30 May 2012
Taken together, however, these writings present a broader, more freewheeling curiosity than the novelist generally indulges in his fiction
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San Francisco Chronicle | 27 Apr 2012
Certainly, you're better off reading Franzen's last two novels - and in hoping that, before he begins the next one, he rediscovers his sense of crabby ambivalence.
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The Daily Beast | 28 Apr 2012
And, ironic as it may be to read the defender of fiction, during a burgeoning golden age of nonfiction, writing essays to defend his craft, it is inspiring.
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The Star | 30 Jun 2012
I’ve never read a collection of essays more pompous and self-serving.
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Star Tribune | 5 May 2012
Franzen evokes Joan Didion's tone of rigorous self-examination, and Wallace's wit and philosophical prowess.
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The Millions | 8 May 2012
Not every piece soars, but none fails to get off the ground...
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The Globe and Mail | 1 Jun 2012
Farther Away is more product than artistic enterprise.
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Scotsman.com | 26 May 2012
The overwhelming tone of Farther Away is defensive and disdainful, perhaps exacerbated by Franzen’s insistence that he is interested in what the novel and the novel alone can say – in which case, why this?
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National Post | 8 Jun 2012
...Farther Away is too myopic and sad a collection to bear witness to.
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Los Angeles Review of Books | 27 May 2012
...he maintains his ground with characteristic intelligence and earnestness.
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Book Reporter | 4 May 2012
FARTHER AWAY showcases that same questing, engaged mind, one unafraid to wrestle with some of the most perplexing mysteries of life and art.
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Macleans | 30 May 2012
His reflections... are all essayistic in the best sense: both deeply thought out and wonderfully argued.
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Slant Magazine | 10 Apr 2012
As they are, they're unfortunately necessary reminders of what the author is capable of when he has more to do than to say.
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Slate | 26 Apr 2012
“Farther Away” feels like a betrayal of the ethics of storytelling ...
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The Rumpus | 4 Jun 2012
With Farther Away, Jonathan Franzen has proved once again why his intelligence, empathy, and humor have earned him widespread acclaim...
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Huffington Post | 24 Apr 2012
Some [essays] offer in-depth literary criticism but use humor and anecdotes to keep the language from getting too dry.
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The Coffin Factory | 4 May 2012
Farther Away is remarkable for many reasons, but perhaps the most is that, in these essays, Franzen has created a testament to the value of fiction and literature.
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Newcity Lit | 24 Apr 2012
When Franzen is brilliant, he’s engaging, not opining.
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New Zealand Listener | 9 Jun 2012
Much of the book is a record of his attempts to connect with the natural world, and you have to applaud his impassioned plea for authenticity...
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Christian Science Monitor | 24 Apr 2012
Like the best fiction, “Farther Away” charts a way out of loneliness.
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New York Observer | 17 Apr 2012
With Farther Away, Mr. Franzen demonstrates his ability to dissect the kinds of quotidian concerns that so often evade scrutiny.
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The Economist | 28 Apr 2012
A multifaceted and revealing collection, “Farther Away” actually brings the reader closer to the author.
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Open Letters Monthly
Dedicated fans of the late David Foster Wallace will want Farther Away for the various tributes, mentions, and even excoriations it offers to Franzen’s lost friend...
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Boston.com | 13 May 2012
“Farther Away” isn’t a complete wash... Moments of insight and beauty erupt throughout.
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The Sydney Morning Herald | 17 Jun 2012
In both these essays and his own fiction, his words betray an immense amount of care.
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Kirkus Reviews | 15 Mar 2012
An unfailingly elegant and thoughtful collection of essays from the formidable mind of Franzen, written with passion and haunted by loss.
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The Age | 9 Jun 2012
Although its diverse subjects are more impersonal than in those collections, Farther Away contains perhaps his most self-revealing work.
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North by Northwestern | 21 May 2012
But I think that his work is essential, and this collection of essays enabled me to see him in a new light – more like a friend than an intimidating New Yorker writer.
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The New York Times | 18 May 2012
...a touching portrait of his parents. We have met these two people before, more or less, as Alfred and Enid, the parents in “The Corrections,” and the author again writes wonderfully about his stoical father and overdemonstrative mother.
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The Star | 30 Jun 2012
Franzen is no intellectual slouch, but he’s no fair-minded judge either. Unfortunately, while his fans might see this as charmingly personal, it`s indiscriminately subjective and reduces these articles from actual essays to simple opinionated rants.
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