Another Franzen novel where I marveled at his writing & story telling skills, but was disappointed in the bland characters

Jonathan Franzen is my new favorite American author. His novels have wit, foundation and links to ordinary mundane life. What I love about his writing is the existential crisis in every character. Purity is no different. Already picked up as a tv show to be aired in 2017 with Daniel Craig as one of the stars, this novel is truly contemporary with main theme of whistle blowing and investigative journalism mixed with corporate greed and individual freedom.

Highly recommended. 4.5 stars.

A brilliant book by someone who is very intelligent and doesn't think much of humanity in general. Not a single likeable character there, but the story's gripping.

Haters gonna hate. Especially when the subject is a Big and Important book by Franzen. But I loved it. Loved the characters, the stories, the commentary, all of it.

4.5 out of 10. While I really wanted to like it, I couldn't get over the sense that Franzen was obsessed with the mommy/son, daddy/daughter sexual relationship, and it felt icky that it came up again and again in every POV for every character throughout the novel. Also, Franzen seems to have some disparaging views about the feminist movement and was hell-bent in representing it in the worst light possible in the novel. Shuddering at the thought of his relationship with his mother—something about /Purity/ makes me think he wants to sleep with her or kill her. In all, MOMMY ISSUES ABOUND.

Also, the Bolivia setting was a total lost chance in investigating socialism. Franzen missed the opportunity to dig his fingers into Bolivia the same way he did with East Germany or California. Write what you know, I guess... but the never-ending discourse between socialism/capitalism/East/West could have been dealt with with a bit more complexity if he had, I don't know, spared a few paragraphs more about Bolivian socialism and Bolivian society as a whole. Why set your novel in a foreign country if the only two Bolivian characters (Pedro and Teresa--dubiously Bolivian names, imo) are simply there to serve the foreigners and the larger setting could be anywhere at all.

I hardly ever loathed a book as much as being totally unable to stop reading it.

I admire the imagination and skill of a writer, capable of writing such an epic book. A tremendous work by all means - not only because of the number of pages, the complexity of characters and multitude of stories, but also the topics covered.
"Purity" is hard to grasp at first because of its fragmentation. Only after you laboriously detangle all the threads, the full impact of the book can be felt. An impact so big for me that I think it will take time to "digest" and it will haunt me for days with unresolved moral dilemmas.

2.5 stars? It was more than ok, but I hesitate to say I liked it. It was all just a bit too much, too spread out over time and characters, and too much crazy. I didn't hate it, and there were even some storylines and characters that I enjoyed, but I did kind of struggle to get through it.

This book started to piss me off to the point that I had to stop reading it. It's a great big book that takes advantage of the reader's investment of time. It started to stink of Franzen's contempt for women and the story was berating to the reader with arrogance worthy of Ayn Rand. I love Freedom and still plan to read The Corrections. I gave this book two stars just beccause I was impressed with Franzen's commitment to bullshit.

Die Story an sich war okay, aber alle Hauptprotagonisten waren nervig und unsymphatisch.