Rating: 
Summary: big talent -- very little heart
Review: Normally, if I get more than a few hundred pages into a novel, I finish it, but this (and A Man in Full) are the only 2 exceptions I can recall. I used to like books where the author hated his characters and the whole thing was seeing how much humiliation and physical pain he could subject them to, but nowadays I need to have some molecule of concern about the people I'm reading about. With the characters in this book, they could have lived happily ever after or been blown up by a bomb and it wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference to me. By the time I was reading about the doctor on the ocean liner, I realized I didn't care, it didn't feel worth my time, and it even felt bad for my soul. So I quit reading it. I figured a happy ending would have felt tacked on and fake and a depressing ending would just be more of the same. Franzen's a wicked good writer, and there's lots of funny, beautifully-observed stuff in this novel, but it's a cold fish.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, not great
Review: In an attempt to size up contemporary fiction, I picked up this book. I was pleasantly suprised, but I expected pure junk, so i don't know if that is a ringing endorsement. Franzen is obviously a very bright and hip young man. His prose is crisp and cool, and he strikes all the talked about topics of today's well-heeled intelligentsia: stalking, academe, postmodernist critical theory, alzheimer's, lesbianism and lots of sex. The novel is really about four novels, each about the travails of four members of a rather materially succesful mid-Western family which undergoes their own unique spiritual/emotional problems...
Rating: 
Summary: A Post-Modernist Meltdown of the American Nuclear Family
Review: This book aspires to greatness. Indeed, "The Corrections" aspires to be "The Recognitions".This is a post-modernist book. Oh joy. I thought "po-mo" went out in 90's- or that was my hope. Post modernism is the sampling and juxtapositioning of other previous styles. Franzen's narration wonders through a forest of other author's styles: Thomas Pynchon, Walker Percy, John Updike, Ken Kesey and Don DeLillo (some have said J.D. Salinger -- maybe, but I don't think so). There are pointed references to Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Knut Hamsun and others. After a while the point of reading this book became - "Name That Influence," which needless to say detracted from the main story. The main story: how a "typical" - that is, dysfunctional -- Midwestern family gets together for Christmas long after the children have flown the nest. Tolstoy begins "Anna Karenina" with the observation that all happy families are alike and that unhappy families are different in their unhappiness. This does not apply to Franzen's vision of America where every family is either unhappy or lying to itself. What's more, every unhappy American family is exactly the same! How many people have read this book and thought - gee, this sounds like home! Enid's just like mom, Gary's just like me and Jonah's just like Jonathan Franzen as a child. What an amazingly well observed novel. I don't buy it. But that's neither here nor there. I will agree that Franzen renders a penetrating look into how narcissistic deprivation can whack the hell out of family dynamics in a way that passes down through generations. There are, however, some well-written and very moving moments in the book: Alfred Lambert's reflections on Gary's Popsicle-stick jail; Sylvia Roth - out of nowhere, under radar - transforms from a minor character to become a very real, a very deep and profound soul; Chip as the forgotten child at the dinner table; Alfred's final days in the rest home. The novel has much too much of an obsession on sex - and this comes from a reader who likes Henry Miller. The filler paragraphs of sex made almost every man and woman in the book seem like the same stunted 12-year old boy. It didn't seem organic to the characters. I'm not sure whether this was meant to portray Midwestern prudery or the author's mindset. In any event, the book would be improved if this were snipped. *Snip* Also the author is much too focused on furniture and chairs in particular. It's not the book of the century. It wasn't that funny. It did not restore my faith in the novel. Parts were moving. But it's a sad commentary on our current literary scene if this book won the National Book Award. All in all lukewarm recommendation.
Rating:
Summary: A love hate thing
Review: I found this book a good read in spite of the fact that I found it hard to like or relate to even one of the characters of this well-written book. I have never known people so devoid of compassion. I cautioned my book club about choosing this for a selection because several members had older ailing parents. I found it hard to take on that note, but I do feel that it is elequent in it's prose, and I could not put it down-mostly because I wanted to find some redeeming features in these people. The final chapter did restore my faith in human kind somewhat, but I hope that most families are not so dysfunctional as this one. I must admit I loved his jabs at the "midwestern" choice of mediocrity in lifestyle. I related to this concept the most, people wanting to escape the stifling climate of conformity.
I would like to read it again.
Rating: 
Summary: The triumph of Marketing over substance
Review: This is a very disappointing novel! The writing does not live up to the hype. I read a beautiful short piece by Jonathan about his father having alzheimers disease which was very evocative and poignant but to read the corrections maks me realise that he is not a natural writer. The first 50 pages are excrutiatingly 'forced'and I could barely finish the book. Really this is a run-of-the-mill soap opera. De Lillo he aint!
Rating: 
Summary: one of the best books I've read in recent years...
Review: ...and I read a tremendous numbers of books a year. I found this to be a unique, compelling book, a big, full-bodied reading experience, both massively entertaining and emotionally affecting. The portrayal of Alfred is just masterful. I read this book almost a year ago, left my copy behind in a hotel room, then discovered months later I was still thinking about this novel -- the characters and lives depicted got under my skin, and many of Franzen's observations are scathing and hilarious and dead-on. I picked up another copy so I could reread my favorite parts. After scrolling through a lot of these Amazon reviews -- people who, for whatever reason, didn't enjoy the book or just couldn't get into it -- I wanted to speak up as one of those readers who actually does suspect that Franzen wrote a contemporary classic.
That's how much I like this novel. Long after the whole Oprah mess is forgotten, readers will still have The Corrections. Bravo, Franzen, and thanks.
Rating:
Summary: A Work in Progress
Review: "Something is wrong here" was the premise on which Walker Percy based each of his novels. There is plenty wrong with the Lambert family. Father Alfred, self-righteous, stern and distant, is brought down by Parkinson's disease and dementia. Meddlesome mother Enid has a way of irritating everyone by doggedly pursuing good intentions. Status-conscious son Gary knuckles under to his controlling wife, Caroline. Talented but confused daughter Denise starts out promising, but soon gets caught in a whirlpool of trouble. And feckless son Chip, the intellectual of the family (his e-mail moniker is "Gaddisfly"!) has failed as an academic, a playwright, a lover, and a sleazy p.r.man.
The Norman Rockwell style Christmas dinner Enid envisions is doomed to failure. At the end, there is nothing really hopeful in the offing, except for Enid's deluded determination to finally have a life of her own after her husband's death. We are not reassured when Chip turns up as - oh Lord! - the father of twins. But the news that Chip's manuscript is undergoing its umpteenth revision may be a good sign after all.
There is no doubt that Franzen is a hugely gifted writer. Shorter pieces and excerpts published in the New Yorker seemed more effective to me than this novel, where all too often "tragedy is re-written as farce", as one of the characters puts it. A liberal sprinkling of sex scenes caters to the (juvenile or geriatric) voyeur who appears to be indispensable to commercial success. Obviously, this has paid off in mega-sales, and I would not be surprised if the book ended up as a blockbuster movie. But I'd hate to see a major talent wasted on this kind of commercial exploitation. Perhaps to re-assert himself as a serious writer, Franzen from time to time launches into discussions of arcane subjects, such as neurochemistry or metallurgy, but this seems more like showboating than anything else.
There are some genuinely moving (if harrowing) scenes, as when father Alfred, in his mental decline, eagerly awaits a visit from his beloved son Chip because he wants to ask him an all-important question - then forgets what the question was.
The title of the novel takes its cue from "The Recognitions" by William Gaddis and alludes to "corrections" in life styles and careers, in family and gender relations, in perceptions intellectual and emotional, in stock market movements, and - of course - in Chip's manuscript (which, like everything else, is a work in progress). An interesting concept, but something got lost in the execution. Well, Chip, there is still time for corrections!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Easily the best book I have read in the past couple years. He crafts sentances that are just delightful to read. The characters aren't all easy to like or even sympathize with, but they are very real, and the story is woven with great skill. Upon finishing it I almost read it again to get the parts I might have missed. Definitely a must-read.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I was initially quite eager to read the The Corrections. My bookclub is reading it this month so it seemed an ideal way to enjoy a modern novel. Unfortunately, I have not had the rave respose to the book, or to the story for that matter, that every one else seems to have. Yes, it's a well-written story. But in no way does it soar to great or hilarious literary heights. In fact I found much of the story to be long-winded, plodding and somewhat depressing. For this kind of 30-something angst (I myself am 30-something) I would turn to "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers, or if you really want to have a laugh at dysfunctional families try books by Ann Tyler, John Irving, Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Dostoyevsky. It's not the worst book I ever read but by no means is it the best.
Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Read
Review: This ended up on my reading list because it was chosen by my book group, and it ended up being a book that I read almost obsessively until I finished it. Franzen's send up of the ideal American family is what I call a "push-pull book." There is precious little to like about most of the characters here. Only the youngest of the characters, the youngest grandchile, comes out smelling vaguely like a rose. But that seems to be because he hasn't had enough time to become infected by the unhappiness of the adults around him, though towards the end even he succumbs to some manipulation. While this might push the reader out of the story in the hands of a less skillfull writer, Franzen manages to give a reader the chance to sympathize with almost each character - perhaps with the exception of Caroline, the wife of the oldest son - and pulls the reader into the story by slowly revealing each character's story. In some cases, it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion: you know it's going to be a disaster, but you can't peel your eyes away.
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