I reread most of this book today after some prodding and now I'm starting to wonder what I enjoyed so much about this man's work. 
 He has a good capacity for describing personal awkwardness and conflict but ultimately his characters seem like flat depictions of themselves. For all of Franzen's open praise of the 19th century realists he is incapable of living up to them except by crude imitation. 
 It is difficult? When I read it three years ago it seemed like it. Now the plot and characters are not so tough today, but reading the thing was a real problem. I see here a crude pastiche of techniques done better by others. The family drama of Mann's Buddenbrooks except with arugula and Pirates of the Caribbean pasted in except to show that it is modern. . Subpar mathematical metaphors which are copies of DeLillo. Even a crude irony in the style the postmoderns which Franzen scorns, but again it seems not so important, taped on, almost like the outward trappings of a great novel but with little within. His prose is deliberately ugly. 
 I read this book three years ago and gave him five stars. I wonder how in God's name he's become so much worse since then.