Strong Motion

by Jonathan Franzen

'Strong Motion' is the brilliant, bold second novel from the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of 'The Corrections' and 'Freedom'. Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of strange happenings - earthquakes strike the city, and the first one kills his grandmother. During a bitter feud over the inheritance Louis falls in love with Renee Seitchek, a passionate and brilliant seismologist, whose discoveries about the origin of the earthquakes start to complicate everything. Potent and vivid, 'Strong Motion' is a complex story of change from the forceful imagination of Jonathan Franzen.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Contemporary, Literature, American, The United States Of America

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen's latest novel Crossroads was published in 2021, and is the first in a projected trilogy.
Franzen has contributed to The New Yorker magazine since 1994. His 1996 Harper's essay "Perchance to Dream" bemoaned the state of contemporary literature. Oprah Winfrey's book club selection in 2001 of The Corrections led to a much publicized feud with the talk show host.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a deep, thoughtful, intelligent and funny novel, that I found had some similarities with
the great Don DeLillo. Starts with Louis Holland (a pretty sad and pathetic young man) who falls for seismologist Renee Seitcheck (probably the first literary character I ever had a crush on) when she is investigating a recent earthquake. Where we go from here is an odd sort of a industry/scientific thriller with a religious/pro life element thrown into the mix as well. Set in and around the Boston area every location is finely detailed, and each page brimming with so much energy and life. There is some great dialogue between each of the main characters, with Melanie the mother of Louis being a memorable one. At times things get so technical it feels like being educated about seismology too. Franzen has done what a lot of other writers fail to do: that is write a 500+ page novel where I wasn't at any point bored, and even wanted more as it was just so enjoyable.

[Zaphirenia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Μπλα μπλα μπλα, ο κακός καπιταλισμός, μπλα μπλα, οι εκτρώσεις, μπλα μπλα μπλα, πού μας πάει το τρένο της τεχνολογίας, μπλα μπλα, η κατάπτωση του θεσμού της οικογένειας, μπλα.

Δε μου αρέσει να μιλάω άσχημα για τον Τζόναθαν, γιατί δύο βιβλία του έχω διαβάσει ("διορθώσεις" και "ελευθερία") και με ενθουσίασαν αμφότερα, με το συγκεκριμένο όμως τα βρήκα σκούρα. Τετριμμένες ιστορίες, ψιλοβαρετά θέματα, ανεμπνευστοι διάλογοι, ρηχή ψυχογραφία (δεν το περίμενα αυτό από εσένα, Τζόναθαν) και όλο αυτό για πάνω από 600 σελίδες. Όχι και λίγο για ένα βιβλίο που άρχισε να με κουράζει ήδη από τις 200.

Δεν είναι ότι είναι κακό, αλλά να, ελαφρώς ανούσιο και κουραστικό. Το μόνο που το σώζει είναι κάποια συγκεκριμένα σημεία που βλέπεις τον γνωστό Φρανζεν να ξυπνάει και να λέει κάτι ωραίο, κάτι που σου θυμίζει "διορθώσεις". Αλλά οκ, δεν είναι και λόγος αυτός να διαβάσεις το βιβλίο.

Επίσης, κάκιστη μετάφραση. Δε λέω εύκολα κακή κουβέντα για τις μεταφράσεις γιατί καταλαβαίνω ότι είναι μια εξαιρετικά δύσκολη δουλειά, αλλά αυτή ήταν απλώς κακή.

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong Motion was Jonathan Franzen’s follow-up book to his debut novel The Twenty-Seventh City. Strong Motion was published in 1992, but it was very prescient in that it echoed many of the same problems we have today, such as global warming, contamination of the environment by big industry, and violent right-to-life movements. This was an engaging book throughout and you can see the unique stamp of the beautiful writing of Jonathan Franzen as it was developing for he is the master in the portrayal of conflicted people and dysfunctional families. Strong Motion was a tale of tentative love and environmental catastrophe with earthquakes which ultimately self-destruct with all of its intriguing and magnificent pieces in the process. In scientific terms, “strong motion” is a term for the ground shaking felt near an epicenter of an earthquake.

This was a powerful book with a lot of characters and situations that holds one’s interest throughout. Louis Holland, an avid musical fan working in radio until he loses his job when the radio station is taken over by a right-to-life movement. Louis develops a friendship with a principled seismologist working at Harvard, Renee Seitchek. She is able to connect the seismic activity with secret long-term dumping of a major company’s toxic waste into a deep well on its property. Renee Seitchek is sent to the Ipswich area of Boston for a recent strong motion from a nearby epicenter but killing Louis’s grandmother in a freak accident. However, as a result of her death, the Holland family inherits millions of dollars but with a few strings needing to be dealt with, particularly by Louis’s mother, Melanie Holland and his sister Eileen and her fiance, Peter Stoorhuys. Louis’s father is a professor at nearby Harvard, Bob Holland. He tries to intervene with the rocky relationship that exists between Louis and his mother. This becomes a brooding tale of personal responsibility in the face of overarching legacies.

“So it happened that the country whose abundance sustained the Indians and astonished the Europeans had in less than 150 years become a land of evil-smelling swamps, of howling winds, of failing farms and treeless vistas, of hot summers and bitterly cold winters, of eroded plains and choked harbors. A time-lapse movie of New England would have shown the wealth of the land melting away, the forests shriveling up, the bare soil spreading, the whole fabric of life rotting and unraveling, and you might have concluded that all of the wealth had simply vanished—had gone up in smoke or in sewage or across the sea in ships.”

[Makis Dionis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Στιβαρό με δεμένες ιστορίες κ μια δυο κορυφώσεις, που αναδυκνειουν τις αντιφάσεις μιας σύγχρονης αμερικανικής μητρόπολης , όπου η ιδιοτέλεια , το υλικό άμεσο κέρδος κ οι φθηνές απολαύσεις βρίσκουν άνετα χώρο να ανθίσουν πάνω σε ανθρώπους που ζουν έτσι, επειδή απλά είθισται αλλά και στους υπόλοιπους που αντιμετωπίζουν τη ζωή τους ως business plan.
Δεν το χρειαζόταν το happy end.

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally made my way through this vast, amazing epic of a book. I know that I often say that I loved books here. But this one is different, for one thing, it convinced me that Jonathan Franzen is a prescient genius (something I was decidedly not in agreement with before I picked this up). The writing is so precise and dense, yet compelling and readable at the same time. The issues he tackles are huge (coming of age after college, love, commitment, the relationships between parents and their adult children, abortion, corporate greed, environmental hazards), but the characters that he uses to portray them are uncommonly deep.

There are echoes of so many things in here, most clearly (to me in any case, I am so sure that Franzen is eighty million times smarter than I could even ever THINK myself to be that I won't even begin to dissect what he has actually DONE here because it's really undissectable) White Noise and Henry James, but all of those echoes are so well-placed that they make the book feel more alive than derivative (like my least favorite "reference" book The Hours which is just a stupid gimmick pulled off by a smart writer in my opinion).

Caveat: there is a good bit of whining about "what will I do with my life" kind of things and one can kind of feel the author going through this dilemma as his characters do. If this BOTHERS you, then perhaps wait on this book.

I think this book should be required reading for everyone graduating from college, and everyone who has ever felt lost, small, identity-less and powerless. So, anyone smart should read this book. And spend lots of time with it. I am notoriously impatient and I have spent the last month with this novel to great effect.

Well worth the time it requires of you.

[Stratos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Σε κάποιες σελίδες ήθελα να το βαθμολογήσω 2, κάποιες άλλες 3, σε κάποιες άλλες εκεί εκπληκτικές αναλύσεις περί ανάπτυξης των ΗΠΑ ενώ οι τελευταίες σελίδες του "στόρυ" ήταν όμορφες. Οπότε κατέληξα στο 3. Αλλά αυτό μικρή σημασία έχει. Γράφει ωραία με αξιοσημείωτες προτάσεις, το πρόβλημα του είναι ότι ως σύνολο το βιβλίο των 630 σελίδων δεν σου αφήνει κάποιο αποτύπωμα. Κάποιο αποτύπωμα όπως το μικρό σχετικά βιβλίο της νεαρής συγγραφέας του 'ΕΘΙΜΑ ΤΑΦΗΣ"που με λίγα λόγια μετέφερε το κλίμα μιας ολόκληρης εποχής. Και το βιβλίο έχει... κουρνιάσει την εσωτερική μου βιβλιοφιλική γωνιά. Εν κατακλείδι. Οποιος έχει υπομονή κι επιμονή ας το διαβάσει. Ειδάλλως ας διαλέξει κάποιο άλλο....

[Jen Bohle · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, a caveat: Strong Motion is not The Corrections. It does not deliver the scintillating prose, caustic wit, and epic scope of Franzen's National Book Award winning later novel. It's an eccentric and lengthy book that, for better or worse, dons a variety of identities: suspense, romance, family melodrama, didactic political novel, bildungsroman, perhaps more. There are subplots and mere meanderings, but Franzen ties them all into the relationship between Louis Holland and Renee Seitchek, and especially Renee's role as a Harvard seismologist examining earthquakes that have recently disturbed the Boston area. Unwittingly, Renee manages to become involved in abortion protests, thus adding another element to Franzen's agenda, er, plot. The varying subplots of the novel would've been handled deftly, but there are simply too many coincidences that are just too convenient for the plot.


Strong Motion does, however, exhibit traces of brilliance, particularly in the characterization of Renee Seitchek, a 30 year old self-conscious seismologist who falls in love with the novel's 23 year old protagonist, Louis Holland. Franzen's attention to the nuances of Renee's struggle for identity are brilliant, as Renee ruminates on everything from egotistical and insular women who join "the sorority of child bearers" to being a "boring scientist who lives in a computer room but considers herself less boring than others like her because ten years ago she went to Clash concerts". Franzen certainly highlights the finer points of the spectrum of femininity.


It is with Louis, Franzen's austere protagonist, that the problem first begins. I cannot bring myself to like him. At all. He's a spineless, masochistic ham radio buff fluent in French. He's smart, occasionally witty, and has a hipster's palate for music (revealed in postcoital bliss as he questions Renee about her music habits: "Lou Reed? Roxy Music? Waitresses? XTC? The Banshees? Early Bowie? Warren Zevon?")
Franzen has furnished him with the right amount of quirks, but Louis simply doesn't hold the novel together. He seems to float through it, swaying where Franzen's well-thought out plot diagram takes him.

There are other problems, too. This isn't exactly experimental, avant-garde fiction Franzen is writing, and yet the omniscient narrator decides to peer into the life of a raccoon for much of chapter 11. Admittedly, sometimes the veering of the narrator is humorous, but in chapter 13 readers get a brief history of the founding of America, complete with Jonh Winthrop and archane Elizabethan spellings. It appears that this is an attempt to add a more epic dimension to the novel, and a playful and pedantic use of English before the days of standardization.

The novel is not an epic, though it tries. Clearly, Franzen has a story with immediacy and scope that spans the range of American lives, particularly in the late 80s and early 90s at the dawn of abortion clinic bombings, the reawakening and strengthening of Christian fundamentalism, and the emergence of a more outspoken environmentalism coupled with questions of corporate responsibility. Franzen includes a Broadway dossier of characters with whom we can sing along for a few chapters, but ultimately, the characterization of these peripheral figures is stock. (Korean immigrant, vacuous Harvard MBAs, lecherous old man, Marxist professor, southern antiabortion minister) and Franzen quickly ends their stories with a sentence here and there in the whirring landfill that constitutes the last few pages.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seeing as he has a new book coming out this fall, I figured I should polish off the last of Franzen's Fictions I hadn't read.

Franzen's first novel, The 27th city, was a large, unfocused, sprawling thing with the very occasionally beautiful sentence or passage to keep the reader going. It was, basically, a complete mess. Strong Motion is his first novel that actually functions as a novel. The narrative focus is sharper, the plotting a bit more developed, the characters a little bit better drawn, the dialogue cracking a bit sharper.

That being said, this is, for me, still a far cry from strong literature. The depressive social realism Franzen depicts to such gorgeous effect in his later novels comes across as amateurish and overbearing here. Everyone in Strong motion seems to just vacillate between bitterness, bitchiness and unhappiness because...they are just bitter, bitchy, and unhappy. The sense of place and history which he uses so perfectly to develop the flaws and disappointments of the characters in 'The Corrections' and 'Freedom' just isn't in place here.

And this isn't helped at all by his heavy-handed narration, which has moments of real beauty but which gets bogged down too easily with eye-rollingly bad imagery, tiresome look-at-the-monsters-we've-became jeremiads, and sudden digressions into New England history, all of which help create a long, dense novel, while at the same time hiding how boilerplate the actual plot is (when it eventually bothers to develop).

Some writers' style and skills emerge fully formed from their earliest work; we never really see how they change or grow or what their woodshed years are like. I think one reason Franzen is so respected and venerated as a novelist is because he honestly didn't start out strong: his first two books are long, dense, overwrought, and often quite embarrassingly ineffective. Franzen could easily have spent the rest of his career churning out books as under-emotional and over-intellectual as this, instead he somehow managed to re-invent himself as a writer who uses sadness to create empathy, insight and understanding instead of just wallowing in it.

[Chloe Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonathan Franzen is a genius. Having finished this work of brilliance, I will now be buying everything he has written.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although Strong Motion (1992) was not a critical or financial success, it is an early indication that Jonathan Franzen is a gifted writer in the stratum of literary fiction. He’s had the good fortune to have the support that allows him to focus on his work, not every writer has that luxury, but for certain, this doesn’t mean I think he goes through life unscathed — no one does. While reading, I could see the set up for the ambitious tome, The Corrections in between the pages of Strong Motion. I thoroughly enjoyed my journey back to the time before he became well known; he has a distinctive style that carries the reader within its currents and eddies, rapids and waterfalls, and the places of still water where it runs deep. Honestly, I couldn’t put it down — it threaded its trembling anxiety through my day-to-day thoughts until I picked it up again — it went by much too fast.

Seismic shifts of earth, seismic shifts of spirit — of self. I always enjoy JF’s layering of ordinary humans and their extraordinary individuality — human uniqueness, no matter how fucked up is a beautiful thing. I’m always grateful that we humans are not all direct from the cookie cutter, although I’m sure some folks would prefer that we were all “just like them” to fit within their comfort zone — it’s just disconcerting how we appall one another on a daily basis and are so damn judgmental. Strong Motion hits close to home how much we don’t like ourselves — which most people don’t, our perceived imperfections and self-doubts make us an uncomfortable lot — our upbringing, our religions, and our private thoughts tie us up in knots full of conflict — dreams and realities. We itch in our own skin with the restless need to belong, to be, to believe, to live — afraid to die, afraid to be alone, afraid of the dark — outside and inside. Human disasters; love and greed; strong motion/strong emotion — humanity’s aftershocks from which none of us can pass through life unscathed. There is no cookie cutter life, no one is perfect, no one is above it because they have lots of money and no one is beneath it because they have nothing — it’s one big beautiful mess that is difficult to define. Are there such things as happy endings? Life goes on…

[Kacey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked The Corrections, thought Freedom was 'meh,' and could not even struggle through this one. I gave up 250 pages in when I still did not care about a single character beyond hoping that the next earthquake would kill them all.

[Armin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Achtung! Streckenweise ziemlich toxische Lektüre

Opus zwei von Jonathan Franzen und in mancherlei Hinsicht Vorstufe zu den Korrekturen, aber auch zu Freiheit, denn die kaputte Umwelt ist mit JFs Generalthema kaputte Familie ganz eng verwoben. Denn der Holland-Clan macht sich nicht nur gegenseitig fertig, sondern ruiniert mit der Verklappung von Giftmüll in tieferen Erdschichten auch die Umwelt und provoziert damit ein Erdbeben, das am Ende etliche Teile von Boston dem Erdboden gleich macht; auch den Familiensitz. Die Geologin Renée Seitchek ist dem Skandal auf der Spur und gewinnt den Familienrebellen Louis, der lieber für einen unterfinanzierten Lokalsender arbeitet als von schmutzigem Geld zu leben, als zeitweiligen Liebhaber. Louis, dessen akademische Karriere durch unbegründete Vergewaltigungsvorwürfe an seinem Studienort in Houston zu Ende ging, arbeitet lieber als unterbezahlter Techniker als sich im Familienimperium zu engagieren. Das Interesse des verlorenen Sohnes an der Aufkärung des Umweltskandals ist allerdings noch mehr dem Rachegefühl gegenüber seiner Mutter/Schwester verpflichtet als der Liebe zu Renée oder gar einen journalistischen Ethos. JF verweigert seinem angeschlagenen Helden die blütenweise Idealistenweste und der Mehrzahl der Leser die Identifikation, erst recht als die Liebe mit Renée ihren ziemlich gewalttätigen Lauf nimmt.

Sonderpreis für schlechten Sex

Aha, ein Vorläufer von Chip, werden sich die Korrekturenleser angesichts gewisser Parallelen sagen, aber der arme Louis hat in Sachen Beziehung auch seinen Teil Gary abbekommen. Renée lässt zwar sein Kind abtreiben und gerät deshalb ins Visier von militanten Abtreibungsgegnern, die auch vor Schusswaffengebrauch nicht zurück schrecken, aber in Sachen Liebe muss alles genau nach ihrem Kopf gehen. Und von Zärtlichkeit hält die streithafte Geologin und leidenschaftliche Punkerin schon mal gar nichts: Renee nahm die Brille ab, legte sich neben ihn auf den Wirtschaftsteil. Als sie sich küssten, rieb er die wulstige Jeansnaht zwischen ihren Beinen, unterhalb vom Reißverschluss. Diese Einforderung von unbedingter Aufmerksamkeit auf Frühstückstisch ist der einzige sublime Moment in dieser Beziehung. Doch als sich Louis weigert, sie ein bisschen zu schlagen oder wenigstens zu Beißen, folgt prompt der Liebesentzug. Vermutlich war diese Art der Erotik nicht nach jederfrau, jedermanns Geschmack. Nach meinem auch nicht. Ich bin sonst alles andere als ein Verfechter von clean Romance, aber bei dem, was zwischen den beiden so an gegenseitiger Gewalt abläuft, damit Madame auf Touren kommt, wundert es mich schwer, dass beide nicht bei jeder Nummer schwere Schädel-Hirn-Traumata davon getragen haben. Die Szenen zwischen Louis und Renée gewinnen bei mir, trotz Peter Nadas mehrere hundert Seiten andauerndem langem Fick den Sonderpreis für besonders schlechten Sex.

Narzistische Verletzungen und Balsam fürs Ego

Zumal gewisse Motivationsprobleme dazu kommen. Denn statt sich für oder mit ihrem Kerl zu prügeln, streckt die sonst so streitbare Feministin Renée, die Waffen, sobald eine Jüngere auch nur auftaucht und die Augen des Männchens zum Leuchten bringt. Louis ist mitten im Umzug zu Renee, da steht auf einmal die alte, uneinholbare und acht Jahre jüngere Liebe Lauren in der Tür und will ihren Fehler wieder gutmachen. Sprich sich in therapeutischem Auftrag mit Liebe für die Vorwürfe revanchieren, die Louis Karriere sabotiert haben. Ein Missverständnis mit absehbaren Folgen, denn die Wiedergutmachungszone endet strikt oberhalb der Gürtellinie. Doch als Louis zu seiner neuen Adresse zurück kommt, steht sein Krempel samt der Schmutzwäsche vor Renées Haustür. Anscheinend war die narzistische Verletzung zu groß für die auf volle Aufmerksamkeit programmierte Renée, die im zweiten Teil gleichermaßen von Louis Mutter Melanie wie vom geistlichen Oberhaupt einer frommen Truppe umschwärmt wird, deren Gottvertrauen die Grenze zur Idiotie massiv überschreitet. Denn die frommen Frauen und militanten Abtreibungsgegner haben sich in baufälligen Häusern in der übelsten Bebenregion niedergelassen. Da sich Pfarrer Philip Stites zu viel mit der Abtreibungswilligen abgibt, läuft seine Gefolgschaft Amok. Renée, die sich zudem beim Chemieriesen unbeliebt gemacht hat, bekommt zum Ende des zweiten Teils vier Kugeln ab.
Der dritte Teil schildert die Vorgeschichte von den Zeiten der Indianer an. Franzen versucht die Geschichte der Besiedelung und Ausbeutung Neuenglands durch die Weißen mit dem Umweltskandal von Sweeting-Algren in Verbindung zu bringen. Die ineinander verwobenen Öko- und Familienkatastrophe ist der Gipfel von schweres Beben. In diesem Verlauf liefert JF auch eine herrliche Hommage an die amerikanischen Gesellschaftsromane der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Besonders gelungen ist das Segment mit der Geschichte vom erfolgreichen Anwalt, der in eine ruinierte Patrizierfamilie einheiratet, aber von den Frauen nie für voll genommen wird, obwohl er der einzige Verdiener ist. Er nimmt eine ziemlich perfide Rache an den hochnäsigen und absolut lebensuntüchtigen Damen. Die Rachegeschichte im Stil der Epoche ist brillant, in alten Zeiten gönnt JF dem ausgenutzten Mann sogar eine gelungene Rache. Allerdings hat der Anwalt auch den fiesen Chemiekonzern geschmiedet, der u.a. die berüchtigten Entlaubungsmittel des Vietnamkriegs zusammenbrauen sollte. Das Finale ist dagegen ein ganz übles Knall-Bumm-Peng und natürlich finden die Liebenden wieder zueinander, die Schussnarben fungieren in der zärtlichsten Szene als besonderes Aphrosidiakum:
Ihre Möse erschien ihm als ein Ding unglaublicher Schönheit. (…) Von allem Fettgewebe entblößt, zeigten sich die einzelnen Muskeln an Armen und Beinen in ihrer schlanken, filetgleichen Pracht. Ihre Bauchhölennarbe beschrieb einen großen Kreis geheilter Verwundung, der von einem Punkt unterhalb des Brustbeins ausging und unter den Rippen bis zum Rückgrat umlief. Passend oder nicht wurde sein wippender Schwanz ganz hart, als er ihren Körper umdrehte und den schlingernden Pfad der Narbe, ihre purpurnen und roten Runen, durch ihre verschiedenen Zonen verfolgte. (…) Er leckte über die kühle Narbe des Brustwandschnitts. Er küsste den wild gezackten Stern der Austrittswunde unter ihrer rechten Brust. Eine Kugel war hier ausgetreten und hatte Knochensplitter und Teile des Lungengewebes mitgerissen (…) Sie spielte mit seinem Schwanz, öffnete den Ring aus Daumen und Zeigefinger, zog das zähe, klare Sekret zu Fäden...
Die ganze Szene zieht sich über gut zwei Seiten hin und bleibt als finaler Eindruck und Warnung vor einer streckenweise ziemlich toxischen Lektüre stehen. Wenn jemand unbedingt eine vergleichende Bewertung zum Bestseller braucht, dann würde ich sogar die Korrekturen als Fortschritt bezeichnen.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Strong Motion, Franzen's second novel, new college graduate Louis Holland moves to Boston to work a minimum wage job at a radio station. An earthquake kills his step-grandmother, his mother inherits her $22 million estate, and Louis has a conflicted relationship with his older sister Eileen, who is very mean. Eileen's boyfriend's father works for an evil chemicals manufacturing company who has been pumping toxic waste deep into the earth, which a Harvard seismologist named Renee believes is causing earthquakes in the Boston area. Louis falls in love with Renee, but maintains a crush he had during college; Mrs. Holland's new inheritance causes lots of familial problems, partly because she's inherited a big chunk of the stock of the chemicals company, and because Eileen is very greedy. The plot accelerates with a final earthquake, and corporate malfeasors wishing to do Renee grave harm.

Grading on writerly talent alone, this would be a 4-star read. Franzen crafts some of the most deft and comical sentences in contemporary fiction, perfectly capturing moods, people, and relationships.

Louis's father, with his academic's respect for lecterns, had already taken a seat.

She looked up at him beseechingly, leaning forward, seeming to want to pour her breasts out at his feet.

He unhooked her bra and freed her breasts, those female things that it had seemed, tonight, that he had never seen before. They were soft and animate little scones. (These are different breasts from the prior example.)

In another scene revolving around breasts, Eileen and her boyfriend Peter are vacationing on the Côte d'Azur and Eileen is debating whether to take off her bikini top. This scene wonderfully expresses volumes about Eileen's idiocy and self-absorption. Franzen is also capable of writing pages and pages of seemingly effortless and fairly ordinary prose, allowing you to float through them without troubling yourself with the labor that went into them. He writes brilliantly about human relationships and dysfunctional families, here in his second novel as well as in The Corrections and Freedom. A flashback Renee has about her mother's old but chic wardrobe, which is being donated to charity, and which Renee desperately wants but her mother refuses to give her, says absolutely everything about their relationship (in the way that Patty's mother not attending Patty's basketball games in Freedom said everything about theirs). He's a preternaturally astute observer of both the natural and man-made environment:

Her apartment was on the eighth floor of a modern high-rise, a tower of concrete that loomed above the ambient brick and clapboard like a thing that had failed to erode...

But there's also a squalor, sometimes emotional, sometimes physical, in his writing, that makes me squeamish. It makes me want to go read Jane Austen or Edith Wharton, novels without acne, used tampons, or deeply repugnant sex scenes. I'm overemphasizing the physicality here because it's hard to explain the emotional squalor; it's a way he has of writing very nakedly and explicitly about characters' failings. It contributes to my inability to actually have strong positive feelings for any of the characters in Strong Motion, with the possible exception of Bob Holland, Louis's father, who seems like he might be the lone sane and emotionally stable person.

If I had my druthers novelists wouldn't write any dialogue about characters' favorite, or most despised, bands. There's a discussion between Louis and Renee about music that goes on for pages and made me feel unpleasantly trapped in the minds of 20-somethings in the early 90s. The novel, over 500 pages, is about 20% too long.

Franzen always brings sociopolitical issues into his novels. In integrating these storylines, and in making them seem truly important to the novels, he is consistently less successful. Freedom covered disappearing warblers, the protection of avian habitats, and overpopulation. Here it's industrial/corporate malfeasance and the anti-abortion movement (the latter an unnecessary and distracting subplot). His sociopolitical storylines bring the books down a notch, aligning him with a lower-caste writer like Tom Wolfe, whose novels strive to capture some Zeitgeist more than to delve deep into the complexity of humans.

[Παύλος · Rating 2 out of 5]

Η πρώτη μου επαφή δεν ήταν και η καλύτερη. Ας ελπίσουμε σε κάτι καλύτερο στο μέλλον...

[Roula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Κάποιοι σεισμοί στη Βοστώνη , προκαλουν κυριολεκτικους κραδασμούς και ανησυχία και ξεκινουν μια σειρά περίεργων ανακαλύψεων για το τι μπορεί να προκαλεί αυτούς τους σεισμούς και το κατά πόσο είναι τυχαίο ,φυσικό φαινόμενο .αυτό είναι το πολιτικό ,κοινωνικό στοιχείο που υπάρχει στο βιβλίο αυτό του Φρανζεν .από κει και πέρα υπάρχει φυσικά το κοινωνικό δράμα ,με την οικογένεια Χόλαντ και τα τέσσερα μέλη της που επίσης με αφορμή το παραπάνω τυχαίο γεγονός ,δέχονται κ εκείνοι κραδασμούς στα θεμέλια τους .σχέσεις απειλούνται ,μυστικά αποκαλύπτονται ,κανείς δεν είναι ασφαλής .σε όλα αυτά ,φυσικά προστίθεται το στοιχείο της θρησκείας και των πιστεύω γενικότερα της αμερικανικής κοινωνίας και όλα αυτά συνθέτουν το παζλ που μας έχει συνηθίσει ο Φρανζεν .προσωπικά ,παρόλο που η συνταγή του είναι συγκεκριμένη και ίσως επαναλαμβανόμενη ,τον λατρεύω και κατά πάσα πιθανότητα θα διαβάζω πάντα ,ο,τι γράφει ,καθώς έχει αυτόν τον μαγικό τρόπο να μιλάει για τόσα πολλά και διαφορετικά θέματα και να τα δένει όλα μεταξύ τους .σε αυτό το βιβλίο θεωρώ ότι το "δέσιμο" είναι από τα πιο πετυχημένα του και το ψυχογραφημα των ηρώων ,όπως πάντα to the point ...απλά απολαυστικός ...
🌟🌟🌟🌟/5 αστερια

[Seth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Earthquakes rock Boston as our protagonist, Louis Holland, navigates a cityscape seemingly brimming with all of the post-utopian angst that Franzen is purportedly famous for exposing: evil corporations destroying our environment in their relentless quest for wealth, pro-lifers picketing and protesting the abortion clinics that proliferate in the liberal northeast, egocentric ivy league elites sipping coffee in Cambridge and intellectualizing much of the above. Not to mention the secondary characters that populate Louis' personal orbit: his pothead father, his solipsistic mother, the reformed-punk-rocker Harvard seismologist that he falls for, his vacuous sister who is doing her best to morph into their nihilistic mother. Throw in a sudden family inheritance of twenty million dollars and we're promised an eloquent, insightful, post-modern novel of the first order.

Except, not quite. In addition to those that snake their way deep beneath the surface of this fictionalized Boston, this novel suffers from a multitude of additional faults: the characters are, nearly without exception, made of cardboard. Their one-dimensionality is nails-on-chalkboard painful; it literally boils over as their stilted dialogue collides with their seemingly aimless meandering. Meanwhile, the plot employs a bizarre and synergistic conflagration of a) predictability and b) viscosity, eg: nothing happens. Nothing at all. We are treated to the occasional earthquake, occasional sex, and an occasional tangent meant to insightfully enlighten all of us readers as to the true nature of society's greed or 20th century America's dysfunctional family. Except, we knew all that already and, even if we didn't, we might have been able to glean it from the complexity of the characters and their interactions with one another and their environment (should such three-dimensionality have existed).

The worst part: rarely, briefly, mercilessly, this book manages to deploy an artfully constructed, complex, and insightful passage of the first order. Like an oasis in the midst of a vast and unforgiving desert you stop there, re-read it three or four times, soak it in. And, ultimately, trudge along, at least until you die from dehydration or boredom. I want to like Franzen and, sadly, this was my first foray into his body of work. Many write that The Corrections is far superior (and perhaps is mostly made up of that rare stuff mentioned above). Someday, once I've rehydrated from my two months in the Sahara, I'll give it a try.

[Vonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Alright, so Franzen is clearly incredibly intelligent. He also did a lot of research for this one. On the other hand, maybe this was all knowledge he already had since he was a student of environmental sciences. An extra long novel, there are multiple complex storylines running throughout. Thorough character studies, important themes, & engaging plot changes. But still very, very long.

I love a good, thorough, lengthy novel. But there was so much information here, most of which I have to admit I am not quite interested in. The environmental effects of earthquakes, caused by oil companies, political scandals, religious martyrs, abortion rights, family dynamics, inheritances, references to the supernatural. So much is at play here. To me, too much. Franzen's later works demonstrate his ability to develop as a writer, refining his writing. Sometimes the most difficult thing to do as a writer is to choose the pages, no matter how well written, that simply cannot be included in the final draft.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

The destruction that is wrought by Mother Nature is one thing, but a person's own self destructive nature is something else entirely.

A rare Boston earthquake is the true starting off point for this novel, from there we are exposed to all the flawed aspects of each of the characters and the complicated relationships with one another, as well as themselves. Much of this book is painfully masochistic, but people often self-sabotage when they are presented with the terrifyingly real possibility of true happiness and are likely to not have the slightest idea of what might actually make them happy to begin with. It's not neat, it's not always pretty, but you need the darkness to appreciate the light.

I am not going to go into a long description of the plot nor attempt to express everything that is so wonderful about the tempo, flow, and style, because I know anything I write would not do the book justice. All I can say is that I love Franzen's ability to make me hate, understand, and eventually love his characters.

[boat_tiger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I made it through this one...though I'm not quite sure how. Not the worst thing I've read but definitely not the greatest either. For starters, I really had a problem with the characterizations of the women in this book. Every woman in the book is either a nut-case, a drunk, a gold-digger, a flake or has some other form of neurosis. Not one strong, intelligent, independent, neurosis-free woman in the whole book which is an automatic disappointment. Also, the book is split into sections and only the first section is really cohesive. After that it kind of jumps around willy nilly and at one point the story is being told through the eyes/mind of a raccoon, which was silly, to say the least. I did find a couple of parts interesting, but otherwise was not very impressed by it. 

[julieta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Franzen, and what I love most about him, is the way he builds his characters, how he brings them alive, getting into what makes them tick. He's definitely always worth reading.

[Shay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earthquakes, man. They’re pretty scary. I should know, I lived through the great Melbourne quake of 2021. At first I thought someone was driving a truck recklessly down the alley at the back of our yard. But then the wine in our shelves started clinking and the power went ‘pop’. I ran outside and stood in the yard and looked at the sky (and not at the ground).

When my computer finally turned back on, someone on Teams had announced “Earthquake in Hawthorn!” And then someone said there also had been an earthquake in Essendon.

[Supreeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as disappointing as people have made this to be. It has everything that any other Franzen has—frayed relationships, environmentalism, deep-dives to characters' twisted minds, political anger, humor, strong prose—except for subtlety which is everything that works in Freedom and Corrections. And there are more boring patches here than his other books. If I didn't know who the hell is Jonathan Franzen, this is a great book with just little imperfections.

[Gerasimos Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading The Corrections, Freedom and Purity and loving all three of them I consider myself a huge Franzen groupie and so it was expected that I would eventually go back to read his debut and sophomore novels, even if I kept hearing from everyone and their mother that his first two writing attempts aren't as good and that they just aren't like Franzen at all. Well these people were both wrong and right, at least when it comes to Strong Motion (I will eventually pick up The Twenty-Seventh City too so I will withhold my judgement on that until then).

The first half is undeniably Franzen through and through (even if it is a hatchling Franzen): we have a family drama, a large(-ish) cast of characters and his trademark jumping back and forth into different story threads. It might not be as tight as his later work, but this first half has all the things I love about him: clever writing, funny moments, excellent social commentary (that has aged extremely well considering this was published in the early 90s) and characters that you love to hate and hate to love.

The second half however unravels into a tedious lecture about environmental ethics, corporate malfeasance and exploitative capitalism, forcing the character drama to take a back seat, until it completely fizzles out and disappears. Despite clocking in at just over 500 pages, for some reason Strong Motion just doesn't feel as rich as his other work and the characters end up coming across as missed opportunities. This second half also reeks of Don DeLillo's influence and no matter how hard I tried to read through these parts breathing only through my mouth, I still couldn't get over their stink.

[Kelly Bronner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonathan Franzen is my favorite author. I had already read Freedom and The Corrections and thought they were both amazing. This earlier book is less amazing, but still very good. It may sound rather boring, but it really picks up pace towards the end and isn't difficult to read. Although Franzen makes his characters very flawed, they are still endearing. I liked Louis and Renee, the main characters in this book. I thought there could have been more development with some characters. For example, Louis Holland was portrayed as a loner and kind of a weirdo in the beginning, but in the rest of the story he seems normal. I don't know if it's just me, or if he should have been weirder. There was a lot of background given on one of the secondary characters which wasn't necessary as the book is only told from his perspective for maybe a chapter. Either there should have been more from his perspective or there shouldn't have been so much background, in my opinion. However, the entire book is beautifully written as is everything Franzen writes. He's a genius. But beware: this book is very political. If you're not pro-choice, an atheist, an environmentalist, a feminist, and anti-capitalist, and you're easily offended, or politics just make you uncomfortable, it's not for you. The characters' political sentiments are everywhere, more so than in Franzen's other books. Just a warning! I still loved it and would recommend it.

[V.M.H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading “Strong Motion” felt like having an exquisite meal with well aged wine. Franzen is a true master. His characters are complex and multidimensional drawing one’s attention towards themselves and this attention is constantly fuelled by building up expectations to discover yet another aspect of an individual. The author tells the story from different people’s perspectives delving into their past to shed some light on why they are what they are in the present, but he tends to do this in a very subtle way revealing only some aspects and leaving it to the reader to make connections. The writing dynamics seemed to match the earthquake chart. At various stages the plot was building up to a point of escalation and then it would drop dramatically when another part of the story was told about the same or different character. In other words, throughout the novel there was a feeling that the plot was developing like an earthquake, coming in waves… I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who appreciates good contemporary literature.

[Ned · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tour de force of storytelling and unbelievably insights into technical matters. The inside and backstory about how corporations become corrupt rings true, and the human elements that shape it. Franzen is truly one of the greatest modern american novelists. Told from flawed but interesting protagonists about the excesses of industry with catastrophic consequences. I have only his latest now to read.

[Kristina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Αν είσαι φαν θα το συμπαθήσεις κ αυτό γιατί οι προτάσεις που μιλάνε κατευθείαν στην ψυχή σου είναι καταχωνιασμένες κ σε αυτό το βιβλίο του. Απλώς μου φάνηκε πιο λιγομίλητο από τα άλλα.Οι χαρακτήρες μου ήταν αφόρητα αντιπαθείς κ οι αντιδράσεις τους τόσο κοντά σε αντιδράσεις της οικογένειας μου που αν αγάπησα τόσο το Freedom επειδή δεν ταυτίστηκα με κανέναν χαρακτήρα τότε μπορώ να καταλάβω γιατί το Strong Motion που μου θύμισε το μισό μου σόι σε ηλιθιότητα παίρνει δύο αστεράκια.

[Jorge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mucho menos cautivante que otros libros de Franzen, demora unas 200 páginas en que la historia se ponga entretenida. A partir de ese momento cambia el ritmo y vuelve a aparecer el tono irónico que caracteriza al autor. Vale la pena leerlo y llegar al final, pero no es un indispensable. Además, la historia alcanza un nivel demasiado alto de moralismo e inverosimilitud, lo que le resta atractivo.

[Sharon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am done with this book. I have not finished reading it, but life is too short to finish reading this book.

[Melodie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hate it. Whiny and unsympathetic characters. Would give it less than 1 star if I could. Can't believe I finished it.