Franzen and a word I (almost never) use : Irony

Back in the '70s there were about a million doctoral dissertations, articles, books with the word "irony" in the title (you could look it up), it was the mode of the era - cool, snarky, we're so hip and with it that we're saying this but really meaning that, or, conversely, the author's saying this but he doesn't even know that he's really saying that, etc. - it was not my favorite mode, I don't believe I ever wrote about it, the politically aware (few) of us believed in dialectics, not on the one hand, on the other hand, but these two forces in opposition will collide and lead to change. That said, irony makes a little comeback in today's coolworld, and Jonathan Franzen has some fun with irony in "Freedom" : as four characters gather in the Bergland Georgetown home to plan for Walter's next big charity-foundation, limiting population growth, the irony being (none too subtle) that the meeting is seething with sexual tensions and jealousies and anxieties, and in the broader scheme the entire novel is about how children overcompensate for the sins of the parents and in the process recreate those sins or create new ones (the antithesis) on their own: distant parent leads to overprotective daughter which leads to rebellious son. Zero population growth could resolve all the problems delineated in Freedom. In fact, if could alleviate every problem in our civilization - but it won't happen. Better to find another planet to colonize. Franzen is extremely smart and observant and this novel is anything but tendentious - its little dash of irony may be bit heavy-handed, but the story clips along, compellingly.