That old chestnut - I read *The Corrections* and then came to this, Franzen's first novel, which went for about fifteen years without a UK release. It's not difficult to see why - the novel is an interesting failure. Remember how everyone loved *The Corrections,* except for the absurd Lithuanian bits? The bad news here is that it's all Lithuania. The writing and scope is impressive given Franzen's age at the time (barring a couple of sentences that should never have left their respective MA C... (show more)

That old chestnut - I read *The Corrections* and then came to this, Franzen's first novel, which went for about fifteen years without a UK release. It's not difficult to see why - the novel is an interesting failure. Remember how everyone loved *The Corrections,* except for the absurd Lithuanian bits? The bad news here is that it's all Lithuania. The writing and scope is impressive given Franzen's age at the time (barring a couple of sentences that should never have left their respective MA Creative Writing seminars), but he doesn't really know what to do with all the stuff slapped on his plate. There's a focus on psychological minutiae that would work so well in *The Corrections*, but at the same the characters here range from caricature to simply unconvincing, so ultimately it's the literary equivalent of a pixelated close up of the Mr Men. The reasons why some characters (primarily Jammu and the Probst family) act as they do are never really made clear,while the climactic relationship is utterly unconvincing and forced. While I'd hesitate to judge on a novel on its ability to portray 'real people', this lot act and react like little more than literary puppets. There are times when it's clearly intended to be surreal, and others when one wonders if it's simply because Franzen's grasp on how things work is somewhat tenuous (one character thinks he might apply to the police academy - a few months later, he's in the precinct typing reports). The boy could write by this stage; he just couldn't plot. (show less)

May I be heretical? It's enjoyable, but not great - Verne is not good at narrative tension, setting up situations and then resolving them before you've had time to get excited (the bridge section and the rescue from the Sioux are just two of the terribly rushed set pieces) and all too often Phileas Fogg solves the problem not through ingenuity, but by getting his wallet out (which may be realistic, but doesn't necessarily make for good popular fiction). There are lots of journalistic facts, b... (show more)

May I be heretical? It's enjoyable, but not great - Verne is not good at narrative tension, setting up situations and then resolving them before you've had time to get excited (the bridge section and the rescue from the Sioux are just two of the terribly rushed set pieces) and all too often Phileas Fogg solves the problem not through ingenuity, but by getting his wallet out (which may be realistic, but doesn't necessarily make for good popular fiction). There are lots of journalistic facts, but not a great sense of place, as if Verne got his settings from an encyclopedia, and even then there are some really careless anomalies (characters whose nationalities change; the references to San Francisco and then (correctly) Sacramento as being the capital of California; and the newspaper report that starts the whole thing off failing to take into account the fact that allows for the 'twist' ending). Fogg is superb in his impeturbability and Passepartout is amusing, but Aouda is an almost complete absence who doesn't even get to speak directly for most of the novel (Verne clearly not great at writing women). Entertaining and at points very funny, but I don't quite see how it's managed to become so famous. (show less)