She forces Tom to fit into her incredibly acute definitions of what is correct. Anabel is also portrayed as the incorrigible feminist-a key facet of the idealism that led to her rejecting her billionaire father’s dishonourable money. But reading these chapters is akin to observing Franzen frustratedly knit a sweater, the soporific labour of every loop. With Anabel’s character, Franzen at first seems to be satirizing the rich and privileged-specifically their unrealistic brand of idealism that is inaccessible to the middle class. The storyline following the relationship between Pip’s parents, Anabel (Penelope’s former, given name) and Tom, is rather tedious.
His association with Pip’s estranged father, Tom-who is the keeper of Wolf’s sordid secret and the founder of a ProPublica-styled investigative publication-is an important connection through the novel. This aspect of Wolf’s arc burns with Raskolnikov-ian turmoil. Then there is a crime of passion, a murder, which Wolf neatly buries before he finds solemn purpose as the founder of the Sunshine Project (much like WikiLeaks). Wolf’s grave transgressions are only known to the reader and two characters who are embroiled in his mess.įranzen links up Wolf’s journey of secrecy with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Stasi, the secret police, scampering to get rid of secrets that might be incriminating-evocative of the US National Security Agency leak (2013) and the Arab uprising (2011). Severe punishment for his one act of subversion against the communist regime is averted by his stepfather’s favourable position in the administration.
In Cold War Germany, living on the East side of the wall, Wolf ends up as something of a vagrant, living in a rundown church and offering counselling to young wayward girls-many of whom he sleeps with (although, laughably, he has principles when it comes to which ones).
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