Customer Reviews

The Corrections

5 star:		(340)
4 star:		(192)
3 star:		(139)
2 star:		(173)
1 star:		(280)

 

 

"The Corrections" has been delivered with a blizzard of media hype than can be off-putting to the very readers the publishers want to reach (people starved for serious, readable, intelligent fiction.) But you really should get ahold of this excellent novel. I devoured it in one night's frenzied reading. Yes indeed, Franzen has taken the somewhat inaccessible avant-garde concerns of writers like Don DeLillo or the David Foster Wallace of "Infinite Jest" and placed them in the context of a mainstream novel about *family* and how it prepares you to function (or not) in the larger world. Franzen manages to create a little universe that mirrors our own crazy world, yet makes the madness more comprehensible. He is devilishly funny, in a laugh-out-loud sort of way, yet his message is ultimately one of forgiveness and reconciliation. The Lamberts, the screwed-up family at the heart of the story, have the feeling of real people you know. That are unique, unforgettable individuals, but you may squirm when the self-destructive ways of Gary, Chip or Denise remind you of the stupid mistakes you have made in your own life. Alfred and Enid, the mom and dad, will make you shake your head; when did Franzen meet *my* parents? The book becomes genuinely suspenseful as Enid struggles to get her wayward children home for "one last Christmas" before Alfred's decline becomes irrevocable. And don't let Franzen's bad-mouthing of Oprah deter you from reading this. Ironically, his comments are just the sort of thing one of the Lambert kids would say in order to sabotage themselves. It just proves Franzen really does know what he's talking about.

Caution: This book is filled with vulgar and coarse words. If such offend you, avoid this book.

The Corrections is either a five star, or a one star book for most people. . . depending on your perspective. I graded the book a three, because I had quite a lot of both reactions that I share below. In deciding whether or not you should read this book, ignore the book's award and the book's controversy, but do pay attention to the next two paragraphs.

Here's who will hate it: Anyone who dislikes reading about unending emotional turmoil, depression, dementia, people messing up their lives, ugly family scenes, emotionally cold families, and the views of the well-educated, self-satisfied towards everyone else. Further groups who will be offended will include those who dislike extreme writing styles, slowly developing stories, and a strong sense of irony. Also, anyone from Lithuania or of Lithuanian ancestry will probably feel offended.

Here's who will love it: Anyone who liked John Cheever's Wapshot Chronicle and Wapshot Scandal, but would also like to see more of the interaction among the family members; those who enjoy writing that takes characters to the edge and tests them thoroughly with temptation and challenge in order to let their actions describe their personalities; those who enjoy satirical treatment of foibles of the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom; and those who would like to read about a family with more problems than their own has. The writing itself will interest people who like to see new forms of narration, and appreciate an ability to switch smoothly between stream of consciousness and straight narration.

If you are in the latter category, read on.

I found the book noteworthy for capturing the politics and manipulation within families in an extremely convincing and revealing way. This subject is normally a taboo in our society.

The theme of corrections (whether in financial markets, in dealing with misbehavior, adjusting to new circumstances, or choosing the right path) is a good one for a novel about families, and I thought the theme was most imaginative and extremely well developed. If you are like me, be aware that the theme's full relevance will not start to hit you until the last 100 pages or so.

The book's focus, to me, was on the limits of our self-perceptions. We have a self-image and a way of internalizing the world. Often, the self-image and way of internalizing the world poorly capture what is really going on. As a result, we can misunderstand our circumstances, what others think of us, what is being communicated to us, and even ourselves. Getting past any self-delusion is important to freely finding and taking the right choices for ourselves. As you laugh while you read this book, I suggest that you laugh a little at yourself . . . and learn in the process.

The book's two best scenes are when Alfred comes home from an 11 hour day and runs into a little turbulence over dinner, and the scene in the ship's cabin when Alfred cannot wake Enid up. I wished that more of the writing had been this good. I look forward to reading more novels by Mr. Franzen in the future.

Where should you be more open to alternatives? What are others trying to tell you?

As a "matoor" woman of 58 raised in the Midwest, a member of the "working poor", and as one-half of a couple who doesn't understand why even though "we are smart, we aren't rich", it was gratifying to learn that at least SOMEONE recognizes we're here.

The myopic Enid and I are sisters. The highly principled, stoic Albert and my husband (albeit, sans illness) are made from the same cloth. We have a "Gary" and a "Denise" and five more independent, self-reliant, contributing members of society who refuse to be "Dollys" in a culture of consensus mentality.

Not EVERYONE has a hunky-dory existence. Some of us intelligent, well-educated people are struggling. Our children are far from perfect and struggling too. But we get up every morning, put one foot in front of the other, do the best we can, and hide our secrets behind forced smiles.

I was awestruck by JF's ability to get inside our minds and speak our thoughts, fears, so well. The dichotomy between the parents and their baby-boomer children, the difference in priorities, each defining "family values" as it suits them from a smorgasbord of choices, no two alike. It's amazing that, in the end, each Lambert does the right thing. They are a family after all.

God bless you, Jonathan Franzen, for writing a novel that needed to be written. Somehow I feel less alone knowing Enid is with me. For the rest of you naysayers, finish the book. Read and savor the first few pages. The writing is smooth as silk...

After all the hype, how could I not read the book? Easily, as it turns out.

Franzen is an extremely observant man. He can capture and dissect people with a perception and thoroughness that any writer could envy. He notices and describes the actions and manipulations of relationships, the effects of needing love and recognition, the sometimes funny but often just unkind interactions between people who do not understand themselves or others. He is dead on particularly, in the clever manipulation of the Yuppie character, Gary, by his wife. He is persuasive in the sexual character of Denise. Chip is the comic character and his scenes veer between merely pathetic and truly funny. The characters are recognizable, and generally carry the burden of their assignments well.

The book is a series of stories of the main characters, each of whom are 'correcting' what came before. They want to correct each other, their parents, their partners, their siblings and themselves. Each of them seems to think that if they change a behavior, the outward appearance of their lives, they will be successful is becoming the person they want to be. Or more accurately, avoid becoming the person they do not want to be. The inward journeys of the characters do not go deep. These are not thoughtful people. There is no moral basis for action, no questioning, no intellectual component to their lives, no weighing of choices, no wrestling with larger themes. Their lives and decisions are nearly always a reaction to something else and Franzen cooly, coldly and unkindly just watches.

The result is like being at a cocktail party,listening to an intelligent, perceptive and well spoken drunk skewer everyone else in the room. It's entertaining, but after a while, you begin to hope he will either reach a conclusion or just go home.

Franzen see everything, and understands a good deal less. Or he is cleverly telling us that modern society understands nothing--which he could have done a good deal more briefly. For me, the book becomes distasteful in its lack of sympathy for the characters who are largely all flaws. Perhaps the requirement of contemporary writing is terminal cynicism. Perhaps the author thinks there is little redeeming about any person. Perhaps it is a clarion call to deepen the public psychological discussions of ourselves. If so, the snide, scarcastic and superior tone and lack of empathy ovewhelmed a larger message.

There is no doubt he writes well, can sustain a narrative or, rather, a series of narratives barely tied together by a single Christmas. The day finally arrives, and for no reason, Chip's behavior changes, Enid is reconciled to her martyrdom, Gary fades away entirely, and Denise continues on. The father's physical and mental unravelling is detailed but unresolved. The day carries very little weight, no heavy lifting.

I ended up saying to myself, "Yeah? SO...? And...?" Is it the writer's obligation to tie up, find conclusions, illustrate important things, simulate thoughts of what might have been, or what really was, or anything beyond the surface of the story? Perhaps not. Corrections has been hailed as a masterpiece. It is a very good act of observation. Because he does little else, I found it hard to care about the book, the characters or the author's point of view.

Jonathan Franzen has written an ambitious, hugely human novel about a middle class family suffering from too many expectations. In chapters that are closer to novellas in length, THE CORRECTIONS manages to evoke the deeply seated emotions of its characters without taking itself too seriously. Alfred suffers from Parkinson's disease and possibly Alzheimer's, while his wife Enid believes that his failing is not what he has, but who he is. Oldest son Gary is a control freak who is losing control of his marriage, while middle child Chip is an unemployed Ph.D. whose hopes hinge on selling a hopelessly bad script. The youngest, Denise, is the hard-working chef of an acclaimed Philadelphia restaurant whose choices in love are almost always disastrous. While their problems weigh each down, the details of their lives are often wryly humorous. That Chip really believes a screenplay that begins with a six page lecture on sexual imagery in Tudor drama can be a blockbuster, and that Enid falls in love with the lion-y (and illegal) yellow capsules of a mood enhancer called Aslan despite her rigid ethics, balance the downward spiral of their lives. As a former Lithuanian U.N. ambassador says as he and Chip are chased through a country in political crisis, "[. . . ] it's mostly posturing. A tragedy rewritten as a farce." No other sentence more aptly describes this novel's distinctive flair.

Franzen's writing can be pretentious and off-putting at times, with obscure words mixed liberally with vulgarities. Occasionally, a dialogue passage goes on for too long, or a descriptive paragraph fails. However, these lapses are rare. On the whole, this novel is tightly written with a keen eye to the larger significance of petty moments. With THE CORRECTIONS, Franzen has proven himself an astute and witty observer of human nature.

Readers who prefer commercial novels may find the novel's multiple plots too slow-moving. Its strength definitely lies in its characterization and social observations, not in its story. Readers of literary fiction should find it immensely satisfying. Highly recommended.

Coming off a publicity campaign laden with words such as "masterpiece" and "genius", as well as a NYTimes Magazine piece that he may one day come to regret for its inadvertently comic self-indulgence, Jonathan Franzen is poised for some kind of greatness, though, having finished The Corrections I'm not exactly what that might be. This is a well-written--at times quite stunningly so--novel that could have used the iron hand of an editor not quite so in love with his author. For anyone accustomed to reading Don DeLillo and William Gaddis and even retro old John Updike, the opening pages seem derivative. Then the reader begins to enjoy the characters, and Franzen's style, still faintly redolent, especially of DeLillo, catches its own kind of fire. In the end, though, The Corrections comes off more as five dense character studies in search of a more well-defined story. This would have made a wonderful novella, especially with its muted and rather reticent ending. It's been compared to Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, but that was a a study not just of a family but of a whole social order in a time of serious change. But Franzen likes the sound of his voice, and there's no doubt many will like it too. I just wish he'd now and then let his characters out of their net of irony and have their say, as well.

I looked at a few of the (713) reviews of this book and had the feeling that I was looking at a clash of cultures. An Anne Tyler novel, this is not. This is a book about family, which is (I guess) why it caught Oprah's eye. It is a look into the dark heart of family life, but it isn't particularly melodramatic (except for Alfred's Parkinson's disease). Hysterical behavior is described in an hilarious fashion that leavens the sadness, embarrassment and shame that you feel for the character. Or rather, that I felt for the characters.

If you cannot relate to these characters then either you had a nice wholesome family life (lucky you) or you are in complete denial about the dysfunctionality of your family life (which, in my experience, seems more likely). Franzen never really describes what any of the Lamberts look like and yet I found myself creating images of them in my mind based on people I know (or knew). This, I feel sure, is his intention rather than some sort of oversight. Anyone who believes that Jonathan Franzen has no writing style has a pretty limited idea of what "writing style" means. Among those 713 reviews here are readers condemning him for having too much style, not enough and none at all. Hmmm.

I didn't like any of the Lamberts. I felt badly for them and knew that they were not bad people, but they are not the kind of people that I would enjoy hanging around with. If one of your requirements of enjoying a novel is that at least one of the main characters should be likeable, then don't spend $15 on this one. Probably the most sympathetic person in this book might have been Gitanas, the Lithuanian UN ambassador/"crimelord". At one point he jeers Chip because his cigarette burns are self-inflicted, while Gitanas's own were received during secret police inquisitions. Chip and Gitanas are presented as döppelgangers (in the east/west sense that you find in the film The Double Life of Veronique). In the East they get you from the outside and in the West they drive you to do it to yourself. Who are "they"? "They" are bourgeois establishment. In this book "they" are represented by Gary's Old Main Line wife Caroline, the Axon Corporation, the Wrouth brothers and a variety of other characters who make decent people live lives full of shame.

Shame is the overriding theme in this novel. The Lamberts are at heart good people who just want to play by the rules and lead successful lives by doing so. But the world keeps telling them that they are missing out by being such goody-two-shoes. All of the second generation of Lamberts are drawn into lives and acts that are wholesale transgressions of their parents' values. Chip is a post-modern theorist and descends into a living hell when he begins to live out his transgressive ideas. Denise is quite confused about her sexuality. Gary is consumed by WASP-envy and is a complete materialist. Enid lives a life consumed by envy as she grows older surrounded by contemporaries who have not played strictly by the rules and have been rewarded with material wealth. Alfred clings desperately to an antique idea of propriety that is so out of step with the world around him that he is driven deeper and deeper into emotional isolation.

The Corrections referred to in the title are numerous. All of them conspire to reward the moral uprightness that has served as both a beacon and an albatross to the Lamberts. The correction to the financial markets that occurred after the summer of 2000 is the most obvious one and because all the events in the book lead up to it, it has an almost Biblical feeling of being an act of God to reward the righteous.

The temporal structure of this book is also fascinating. The narrative consists of long segments devoted to one member of the Lambert clan. You are allowed into the mind of each of them one at a time. Each segment begins in the past and leads you through that person's life toward an event that you have already seen from another family member's point of view, and then advances the overall narrative another step. In this way you witness meetings between the Lamberts from several points of view and experience those meetings from the perspective of one character at at time. This allows you to understand what a mystery each is to the other. This is a brilliant literary device for showing the reader how much better life would be if family members actually talked to one another, rather than operating on extrapolations from information received from secondary sources and your memory of what motivated that person when you knew them years ago during your shared homelife.

So, readers looking for a heartwarming saga of suffering and redemption are not going to get what they want out of this novel. This is a novel about how things are, not how they ought to be. At the end of this novel everything has not been worked out, but neither is everything in ruins.

I was really looking forward to this book, having read Franzen's earlier manifesto regarding the decline of the American novel and the hilarious segment regarding failed screenwriter Chip in the New Yorker. But now it seems that Franzen's fallen into the same slag pit of postmodern irony that has claimed so many other talented writers of our generation. Franzen's writing style is unsurpassed in style -- witty, poetic, by turns tender and savage, reminiscent of Martin Amis and Dave Eggers. But the artistry of Franzen's writing only underscores the hollowness of the characters, the absurdity of the plot, and the utter lack of theme. Maybe this is all "intentional" (artist-speak for "I couldn't come up with anything else"), but the book is less a novel of scope and ambition than a bulky compendium of bitter wit unredeemed by insight or wisdom. It seems to me a failure of courage to take refuge in satire when Franzen clearly has the talent to write seriously about life. But this could have exposed him to charges of sentimentalism, that foulest of literary weaknesses, and he obviously is wise to that, as everyone seems to be praising this book for the very qualities it lacks.

We already have enough absurdist literature and rancid black comedy whose main function is to showcase the wit of the the author at the expense of his characters (not to mention the reader still foolish enough to be seeking transcendence in American literature.) I finished the book in a mood of grim fascination, but overall I was disappointed and depressed. Like many other "literary" novels -- the very ones Franzen claims to despise -- the characters are glib riffs on contemporary stock characters (lesbian, yuppie, suburban psycho-matriarch) rather than characters that you believe in and might even sympathize with. The one character who comes to life is Chip, Franzen's surrogate, whose embarassing obsessions and pathetic stabs of ambition made me laugh out loud (the salmon-in-pants scene was a brilliant, A+ combo of physical comedy and literary flash -- if only the whole book had kept the promising pace of Chip's saga of urban hipster pathos!) I felt for Chip in a way that I never did for the other characters.

And I was really put off by the unending saga of the father's battle with his failing body. There seems to be a belief among contemporary authors that unflinching, detailed descriptions of humiliating scatological scenes somehow makes a meaningful statement about the human condition. Actually, it comes off as a giant cop-out by someone who didn't dare to challenge the existential cliches of modern fiction. James Joyce countered his bodily obsessions with fierce flights of lyrical imagination that leave the reader drunk with the potential of life and art. Would that Franzen had done the the same.

If you read only one novel all year, let it be this one--so powerfully moving, yet carefully constructed, that it will surely win every literary award of the year. Such a statement would be hyperbolic in any other context, but it is realistic here, and necessary to describe the magnitude of Franzen's ambition and achievement. Spanning the last forty years of the 20th century, this is a magnificent family drama focusing on the elderly parents and three grown children in a midwestern family. Labeling the characters as dysfunctional does not do justice to their uniquenesses or to the reader's ability to identify with them. Their difficulties as a family arise because the family dynamics require them to hurt each other if they are to be true to themselves.

Enid, the mother, while not assertive in a traditional sense, is nevertheless controlling, cleverly wielding the age-old guilt ploy to get her own way. Albert, suffering from Parkinson's-induced dementia, is trying to hang on to the last shreds of his independence and dignity, while causing enormous strains on Enid and the rest of the family. Gary, the eldest son, often manipulated by his wife and children and often depressed, believes in toughing it out, an attitude he imposes on his mother and siblings. Chip, something of a flake, is the insecure author of a never-finished play, a wandering spirit who goes to Lithuania, where he is hired to create a web site to siphon money from gullible American donors. Denise, a very successful and much-sought-after chef, is bisexual, constantly enduring her mother's urging that she find the right man and start a family. When Enid decides that the whole family must come home to St. Jude's for "one last family Christmas," the stage is set for an emotional family reunion which results in many "corrections."

Seven years in the making, this novel elevates intimate, domestic drama to whole new heights, smoothly incorporating themes which question who we are, what we owe our parents, how we become who we are, and where we are going. Franzen's pointed observations about contemporary life--as revealed by upscale restaurants, the green movement, cruise ship behavior, use of the internet for fund-raising, dispensation of "happy pills," nursing homes, and even the crassness of Christmas--enliven the plot as it spirals around and through time and the lives of the five characters. Albert's decline, told in part from his point of view, is particularly heart-breaking. This book is a wonder, offering a stunning and intimate view of a middle-class American family, its values, and its dreams, all presented with wit, sensitivity, and enormous power. Mary Whipple

My sister-in-law urged me to read this book. In her words, and those of her friends, it was brilliant, witty, timeless, and relevant. Given her enthusiasm and the great reviews that this book has received here and elsewhere, I was hoping for an engrossing read. What a disappointment.

I like books with the following characteristics:

1. A strong plot,
2. Three-dimensional characters and a discernable character arc,
3. A non-intrusive authorial voice,
4. A theme or issue that is universal to the `human condition' across all times and places.

Unfortunately, "The Corrections" had none of these.

1. This book really contains more of a situation than a plot: a dysfunctional family gets together for Christmas.

Structurally, it's written a lot like a typical disaster movie (although no doubt Franzen would be horrified at this comparison). First, all the characters and their back stories are introduced. Next, there is the obligatory foreshadowing of Something Bad ™ that will happen later on. In a movie like "Airport", you'd see the bolts on the left wing rattle ominously then come loose. In this book, dad falls off the cruise ship. Moving on, the characters eventually board the airplane (arrive at the ancestral home) and Disaster ensues (dad has a medical crisis.) During and following the crisis, all the characters experience some sort of awakening and come through the experience changed. (Cue uplifting music.) As I said, standard disaster movie fare.

Unfortunately for those of us who enjoy plot: A) the Disaster doesn't arrive until around page 540 (of 568 pages); B) the back story for each character is chock-full of irrelevant, pedantic digressions about rail roads, drug use, supposedly-shocking-but-really-very-very-boring sex, oh and some faux Lithuanian politics; C) there is no build up of tension-the climactic moments are shown to us using the same snarky tone and plodding pace as the treatises on rail road politics; and finally, D) in a cheap, tacked on epilogue, Franzen *tells* us (rather than shows us-don't they frown on this in MFA programs these days?) how each of the characters has changed as a result of dad's collapse.

The character arc actually occurs in the *epilogue*!

2. These characters are so stereotypical that they border upon being demographic categories. You have the clueless wife, the work-aholic, ailing husband, the angst-ridden, ineffectual academic, the ambitious, latent lesbian daughter, the burnt-out corporate exec, etc. No doubt there are marketing departments all over the U.S. collecting statistics to target these very people. Was this Franzen's point?

From the other reviews, it is clear that many people can relate to these characters and their travails. Unfortunately I was not among them, and Franzen is so contemptuous towards his own characters that those of us who don't empathize with them immediately never get the chance to do so later on. These characters are tokens, place holders like chips at a casino, and none of them have any soul-even a dark night of a one-at all.

It's not a question of "likeability." I don't need to like characters to find them interesting or dynamic--Don Corleone anyone? But in a character-driven piece like this one, an author must interest his/her audience in the lives of his characters and help the audience empathize with them no matter how despicable they might be. Franzen tells tells *tells* us all about their horrid lives but given his emotionally superficial style, he cannot make these 2-D characters come alive for someone, like me, who didn't have an immediate/a priori emotional connection (via personal experience) to them.

3. Franzen bludgeons the reader to death with self-conscious, manipulative prose. No two ways about it, the book feels forced. If you collect "favorite sentences" from books you read, you might enjoy "The Corrections". Personally, I enjoy writing in which the writer himself is invisible and the words transport you to a new world and into the lives, hearts, and minds of the characters. A good turn of phrase here and there can be nice in a book, but I don't think that the reader should be catapulted out of the story again and again because the author wants to demonstrate his "wit" or his skill with a thesaurus.

People have claimed that this book is a "difficult read". It's not, at least not in the way they mean it. What I found difficult was not the sentence structure (are compound sentences, semicolons, and run-ons supposed to be exotic these days?) or the so-called advanced vocabulary. But rather slogging through page after page *after page* of clunky metaphors, snide asides, and calculatedly "clever" and "shocking" vignettes that contributed nothing to the understanding of the characters nor to the progression of the plot. Where was this guy's editor?

4. This book is relevant only to its narrow little wedge in history (middle-class families in the late 90s early 00s). In contrast, sure "Moby Dick" is a book about a whale, the whaling industry, and one guy's quest to kill a whale. But what makes it great is that it is also a tale of obsession and revenge, of human against nature, themes that resonate across time for all of us, not just those readers who happen to share the characters' particular demographic slot.

There are no broader conclusions that a reader can draw from "The Corrections" except that families in the 90s are screwed up, boy and how. This is not exactly a newsflash. There is no redemption or transformation for any of these characters and no message or insight about the human condition that readers can take with them after wading through the Lambert's lives.

So, is "The Corrections" a great novel? Not even close. But it *is* a really great disappointment if, like me, you enjoy a good plot, well-rounded characters, writing that flows rather than distracts, and a theme that resonates beyond its particular place and time.