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Jonathan Franzen

The End of the End of the Earth Paperback – 18 November 2019

by Jonathan Franzen (Author)

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A sharp and provocative new essay collection from the award-winning author of Freedom and The Corrections
In The End of the End of the Earth, which gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Jonathan Franzen returns with renewed vigour to the themes – both human and literary – that have long preoccupied him. Whether exploring his complex relationship with his uncle, recounting his young adulthood in New York, or offering an illuminating look at the global seabird crisis, these pieces contain all the wit and disabused realism that we’ve come to expect from Franzen.

Taken together, these essays trace the progress of a unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature and with some of the most important issues of our day, made more pressing by the current political milieu. The End of the End of the Earth is remarkable, provocative and necessary.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

4th Estate GB
Publication date

18 November 2019
Dimensions

12.9 x 1.5 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

0008299269
ISBN-13

978-0008299262
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Product description

Review

Praise for The End of the End of the Earth:

‘… by refusing to hope for the impossible, Franzen, improbably, manages to produce a volume that feels, if not hopeful, then at least not hopeless. There’s nothing he can do – there’s probably nothing any of us can do – to avert or even alleviate the coming catastrophe. But for now, he’s here and he’s alive, and over the course of these essays he offers us a series of partial, tentative answers to the question he poses himself at the beginning: “ How do we find meaning in our actions when the world seems to be coming to an end?” Guardian

‘Can be read, in part, as a welcome alternative to the current, dominant American political tone of one-note belligerence’ Observer

‘Franzen shows himself to be the kind of unacademic critic who recognises and does not disapprove of the Common Reader’s natural tendency to feel for the characters the author has brought into being’ Scotsman

Praise for Jonathan Franzen:

‘A literary genius for our time’ Guardian

‘Arguably America’s greatest living novelist’ Daily Telegraph

‘Franzen is that rare bird: a literary novelist of the highest distinction who has also become one of the bestsellers of the age’ Evening Standard

‘Franzen’s words crackle with wit humour and wisdom’ Shortlist

About the Author

Jonathan Franzen's work includes four novels (The Twenty-Seventh City, Strong Motion, The Corrections, Freedom), two collections of essays (Farther Away, How To Be Alone), a memoir (The Discomfort Zone), and, most recently, The Kraus Project. He is recognised as one of the best American writers of our age and has won many awards. He lives in New York City and Santa Cruz, California.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ 4th Estate GB (18 November 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0008299269
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0008299262
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 1.5 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 285,851 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 97 in Extended Families
- 1,541 in Environmental Geology
- 1,544 in Environmentalism

Customer Reviews:
98 ratings

Jonathan Franzen
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Jonathan Franzen

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Jonathan Franzen is the author of five novels--Purity, Freedom, The Corrections, The Twenty-Seventh City, and Strong Motion--and five works of nonfiction and translation, including Farther Away, How to Be Alone, and The Discomfort Zone, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the German Akademie der Kunste, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Customer reviews

5 star		64%
4 star		21%
3 star		11%
2 star		1%
1 star		3%

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Top review from Australia

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Felicity Isaac

One for bird enthusiasts

Reviewed in Australia on 13 October 2019

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Very smart, cogent writing as you'd expect from JF.

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janet gough

Should be on 6th form reading list for every student .

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 December 2018

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This is a gem,remarkable.

One person found this helpful

Kunde A.

Strangely confused essays

Reviewed in Germany on 18 March 2019

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Franzen wrote excellent essays years back. Now they seem strangely confused, a unbalanced raw mix of objective information and very personal emotions, unstructured and hard to follow and to interpret. A lack of imagination, wit. Most topics are not of interest to the general (European) reader. Otherwise, a lot on bird watching. But he has written better about his hobby in earlier publications. Quite disappointing.

9 people found this helpful

Aran Joseph Canes

A Bleak Outlook Tempered by Sound Advice

Reviewed in the United States on 14 November 2018

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Jonathan Franzen is often caricatured as an angry man. Angry at conservatives for ignoring humankind’s devastation of the planet and angry at liberals for their smug feeling of moral superiority despite few tangible accomplishments.

However, there is very little anger in The End of the End of the Earth. Instead there is, if not despair, at least a bleak feeling of unstoppable loss permeating the text. Franzen devotes relatively few pages to criticizing Trump and his ilk and instead chooses to focus on his practical ethic of small concrete actions that can be done to preserve what is still good.

For Franzen himself, this is largely dedicated to efforts to preserve the world’s avian wildlife. But mixed in with it are portraits of other individuals defying the Facebook image conscious world by making meaningful human relationships, creating photographic portraits which convey a real sense of the person and, defying the omnipresence of Tweets, writing essays like those in this book that go to the pith of the matter.

Lest you harbor any illusions, the end of the end of the earth is not a new hopeful beginning but a description of the environmental havoc being wreaked in Antarctica (which Franzen aptly refers to as the end of the earth). Instead, what Franzen offers the reader is a vision of the need to do concrete good in a world and biosphere constantly falling into greater entropy.

I doubt this vision will much capture the attention of the American public when there are so many more vapid messages being shouted from megaphones. But that doesn’t make it less sincere or less important. If all that we have at the beginning of the twenty-first century is to ground ourselves in the concrete good before a coming ecological catastrophe it is more than a message of unmitigated despair.

Franzen should be commended for not deploying his artistic talent in the service of the left’s agenda but choosing to articulate his unique vision, popular or not. Highly recommended for those who are able to at least sympathize with such a bleak account of our civilization and planet.

57 people found this helpful

Gloria Z. Nagler

Tearjerker essays...

Reviewed in the United States on 15 November 2018

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Really, I don't know that I've ever before teared up reading essays. I love most of Franzen's writing, and this book exceeds expectations. I feel as though we've been waiting for these essays to help us cope with the horrors of climate change and the accompanying existential crisis. And now that the frigging midterms are over, I can find a nature conservancy group to join. Thank you, Jonathan.

23 people found this helpful

W. Stiles

Obsessive bird watcher.

Reviewed in the United States on 18 June 2022

Verified Purchase

Some of the stories were very good. His bird watching obsession was annoying and about half the stories were not interesting.

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The End of the End of the Earth Paperback – 18 November 2019

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