Kakutani Praises Franzen's Freedom

Will this cause Jonathan Franzen to reconsider his statement that Michiko Kakutani is “the stupidest person in New York City”? Kakutani praises Franzen’s newest novel, Freedom, in Monday’s New York Times. She says he displays “every essential storytelling skill, plus plenty of bells and whistles” in order to create “an unforgettable family.” The deconstructive portrait of the Bergland family is his “most deeply felt novel yet” and that it marks “his own transformation from a sharp-elbowed, apocalyptic satirist focused on sending up the socio-economic-political plight of this country into a kind of 19th-century realist concerned with the public and private lives of his characters.”