Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

The story in this novel is monotonous and seems labored, it is another story of suburban angst and emptiness.  The author writes from the perspective of different characters but every voice sounds the same.  So, surprisingly the discussion the night of Book Club was lively and intense.  We focused on the character of Walter who some said was a laughable buffoon while others argued that he was the character through which the author lectured his own political beliefs.  The thing with Walter though was his statistics on world population.  The rest of the night was spent contemplating his numbers and scenarios.

I stated that if his numbers are correct and the world population is going to continue to grow exponentially then we will run out of water and here's why.  If the amount of water on planet earth is set, all of the water that is here is the amount of water that has ever been here or will ever be here.  And, if each person is made up of 80% or more of water, not counting the amount needed to sustain life, then the sheer number of walking water vessels on the planet will use up the supply.  The argument in the book is to create a "no growth" movement.  (Hmmmm, didn't Jacques Cousteau have that idea at one point...) but we argued that it is the most educated and affluent members of society who would choose not to have children.  Then, one of us said that it didn't matter because science would take care of the gap in food and water.  Another stated that the earth can only sustain so many lives and there would be a massive die-off either of starvation or pandemic.  We went on to discuss our role in caring for the world (both the planet and the people on it).  As I said it was a lively and intense conversation.  So, mediocre book, great conversation.