Word: franzman
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Employing a symbolism that is perhaps too ambitious, Friesen reads into the life of Peter Franzman the existence not only of all Americans but of all mankind, the intense development of the egocentric idealist struggling mightily to grow his splendid wings only to discover that life is a prison, a prison with walls of glass against which all wings must batter. And there is no consolation even in the discovery of the real beauty of history, namely, that mankind's courage is just this ability to keep battering, battering futilely and eternally hopelessly...
...peasant child who comes to Kansas the son of an ignorant,, tremendously and mysticly religious, and highly ambitious farmer, Peter Franzman appears as a stock character in American fiction. But he is by no means allowed to remain so. Through three hundred horrible pages Peter turns from the world into himself, tortured by the struggle that is even going on against him, even in the heart of his mother. One feels that Friesen is needlessly cruel in portraying the complete absence of pity, in showing a life without sympathy. For Peter Franzman has no understanding from nature, no, nor from...
...college Peter finds one understand- ing soul, offering the author the opportunity in passages of rare and striking beauty to relieve the tension he has developed. The unfolding of Peter Franzman's quarrel with the world is convincingly done, the scenes of passion compelling and beautiful. Here the author's technique becomes suddenly apparent in one paragraph. Peter's life is like a series of vividly coloured bits of film in his own mind. His memory is the filter through which every new emotion is perceived. Friesen's book is a series of magnificently complete little pictures, strung together...
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