The Corrections

Rating:
Summary: Everyone in a 12 woman book club hated this book.
Review: Our local women-only book club is entering its third year. For good or bad, most of the books we've read are Oprah books. Only one book brought about much hostility, The Corrections. In fact, I think only two people read the entire book; the others simply couldn't read the entire thing. Sure, there is great character development -- too bad we couldn't stand one single character. We discussed it over one year ago and it still comes up during each bi-monthly meeting. Usually, someone has come up with a new idea on what to do with the book -- fire starter, white elephant gift, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Great at times, weak and poorly edited at others
Review: I *tried* to dislike this book. The "high art literary tradition" comment, other comments on why he didn't want to do Oprah (didn't want to alienate male readers--to understand how offensive and bigoted that excuse, imagine Franzen declining to go on a black talk show for fear of alienating white readers!) plus his claims that he writes blindfolded and considers DeLillo a second father...In any case, I read the book knowing all this and hating him for it, but I must say it has moments of real brilliance, and, unexpectedly, compassion. The central couple--seen through the eyes of their disapproving, unsettled children--are so deeply alive, so finely wrought, that I was unable to put the book down. The central section of the book--following the couple's daughter Denise and her romantic involvement with another couple--is too long, contains sloppy writing (enough with the damn menus and endless descriptions of Denise vigourously chopping, slicing and dicing!) with cliches like (I'm paraphrasing here) "Denise curled up like an onion, an egg, a ball." (she's a chef, get it?) The youngest son's hijinks in Lithuania are at best a bit funny, at worst dull and unnecceasary.... I get the feeling that the hype around the author (a New Yorker contributor) writing his Big Book clouded his editor's judgement.

Rating:
Summary: Over-written, pretentious ...
Review: After the Oprah hoopla, I was more than excited to read this book. I mean, Jonathan Franzen ... off Queen Midas herself! It must be great! Down with the man, and all that. Then I picked it up. I got 75 pages in, and thought it was the most self-absorbed, smarmy drivel ever. It reeked of creative writing students out to prove their cool factor and indie cred. David Foster Wallace you are not, so really, Mr. Franzen, could you just spit it out?

Rating:
Summary: A new favorite author...
Review: Desperate for a good read, I bought this book in an airport bookstore -- somewhat begrudgingly, given the hype and the flap that has followed it. Well, thank God I side-stepped that nonsense, because it took me about 10 pages to decide that I'd found a new favorite author -- a writer whose voice resonated with me immediately. Franzen has an astonishing ability to create characters of depth and believability, and to locate them in detailed slices of life, both authentic and absurd. But more important to me was this author's balanced compassion for his characters, in all their self-absorption, pettiness, and 'warty egregiousness.' (Who among us has never had such moments?) Moreover, he has a keen eye for the dark hilarity to be found in the foibles, misadventures, and massive mistakes of complex human beings. I found myself laughing outloud in the airport, on the airplane, and everywhere else I was able to greedily sneak time with this book (in all of the three days it took me to finish it.) I started leaving pen-marks in the margins next to passages I loved (particularly funny or emotionally vivid) and ended with dozens of such highlights scattered throughout the book.

Sure, this isn't an easy read (and those looking for light-hearted fun should self-select out of this one.) But the difficulty is part of the beauty, and the function, of this book. At times, Franzen's writing seems to hover, intentionally, just above the cognitive capacities of your average committed reader, inviting him/her to stretch it to the next level. If this whiffs of elitism or arrogance, I accept it in Franzen, because he gets it right-on, and I savor the challenge he presents.

Rating:
Summary: It's a lot like watching television
Review: I picked up this book after reading the author's article (in New Yorker) comparing himself to William Gaddis and insterting himself into the Gaddis, Pynchon, Barth, Delillo tradition. Sorry, but no.

The Corrections is not a complete waste of time. The author is competent, but don't look to this novel for a really great literary experience. It's really a lot like watching television.

In the author's article in the New Yorker, he references Barth's "Sot-weed Factor" as though it's some complex tome. It's not. You should read it instead of The Corrections.

Rating:
Summary: Mostly disappointing
Review: I picked up this book after reading several positive reviews for it, and decided to give it a shot. I was fairly disappointed. It's not that the story's bad or the characters aren't believable. The writing is sub-par. Franzen's overuse of excessively, um, unique metaphors detract from the narrative and make it a painful read. Lines like "two empty hours were a sinus in which infections bred," and "her open eye was like nearly black balsamic vinegar beading on white china" are not clever. Nor are they particularly helpful in describing the mood or the appearance of someone or something. This is the kind of writing that high school English teachers surround in red ink with words like "simplify." I know my high school English teachers never would have let me get away with this kind of rubbish. This book would have been significantly more ejoyable if the reader didn't have to navigate around needlessly complex phraseology and flowerly writing that doesn't add anything to the story.

Rating:
Summary: For the first 200 pages I thought he was Balzac reincarnated
Review: for his command of language, incredible detail, sense of high drama, and ability to describe moral dilemna and failure. Alas, halfway through the book I realized Mr. Franzen does not have Balzac's spiritual awareness and ability to ensoul his characters. Alas! For he certainly is a keen writer! But I couldn't finish the book, finding myself agreeing with another customer reviewer here that the book was "damaging my soul." I'm going to anticipate Mr. Franzen's future work, however. He's still a relatively young man; he may find that spiritual dimension yet. Right now he's still a victim of the New Yorker magazine mentality: words and more words! Words pay money! A good editor -- are there any, anymore? -- could greatly have helped this book...)

I don't usually trust modern fiction; am more a nonfiction reader. So much fiction cannot hide its contrivance. But Mr. Franzen fooled me for quite a while, he is an artist, definitely.

Rating:
Summary: A God.
Review: Franzen is a god. The man is a god, people. Just when you thought America had been dumbed down to the point of no return, a book like this fires off the press and the faith of intelligent readers is forever restored.

Rating:
Summary: style over substance
Review: This may well be a classic in the future, judging by the critical response and, well, I am saddened by the realization. Don't get me wrong, characterization and an eloquent writing style elevate this novel over the crowd, but midway through the book, I began to wonder whether the fine writing was more than a clever gimmick and whether anything of substance underlay the delicate descriptive passages. Oftentimes, I had to wonder whether we were discovering anything new as we learned more and more about depression and Alzheimer's disease. 40 pages would go by and the author would sing the same song, so consumed by the art of writing, by the creative process of devising new ways to describe the ordinary, that his message began to suffer. Soon I had to conclude that hiding behind the clever, page-long metaphors were empty revelations and lackluster observations of the human condition (Al's business trip describes his dissatisfaction with his wife; it took some 30 pages where 1 or 2 would suffice)

On the whole, the absence of heroic characters surprised me. Not that I expect an author to present his characters sugar-coated and on a pedestal. What I missed was an insight into their souls. None of his characters seemed admirable people. Instead, Franzen, much like American media and America in general, appeared obsessed by the private life, by the substance behind the barrier that separates the private and the public. And that did not make his characters more real or genuine to me. Ever since I saw Election, I question whether such attention to 'complete reality' is interesting, revealing, ground-breaking, or simply plays on our desire to be shocked. Is Mr. Franzen really convinced that all of us are just like the Lamberts? I don't think that that is the conclusion. More like is that Mr. Franzen simply considered the shocking as the only unexplored. I don't know, I can't really form a final opinion on the subject. While I read I was too preoccupied reading about out-of-control body-excrements, depression and Alzheimer's to form a conclusion. And I am not that interested in reading the whole book again.

What I did like, was one impression the book left behind: our lives are full of white lies and pretences; just think how we would feel if a disgruntled European told us face to face unabashedly what they think of us Americans (something the Europeans, bless their souls, are found of doing). We would dislike him instantly but never say so openly. Our society is simply build on pretences and it will not change. And that is what Mr. Franzen's characters must combat. Franzen seems to conclude in the end that to have what it takes to change ourselves is culture shock, war, death, those types of Earth-shuttering events that destroy our belief-system. Is that something new? No. And that is what saddens me. That we offer Mr. Franzen's book as the high point of our fiction, where comparisons to great fiction would be insulting. I think that the book was well chosen for Oprah's book club. It had a nice point of view to drive home about the American Family in the post world war II era. Nothing shattering though, just creative writing that may go too far for some.

Rating:
Summary: Painfully disturbing
Review: A classic it is not. Oppressive use of the English language. He develops a scene with so much detail you want to scream in agony. Nearly 600 pages with an ending that simply *happens* after ad nauseum descriptors of non-events throughout the book. Franzen also appears to be scatalogically obsessed. ...