Rating: 
Summary: I guess I am missing something
Review: This book was so critically acclaimed, I felt I had to read it. It was very hard to get into and rambled on and on. The chapters are too long to be reasonable. I felt I needed a good place to stop and there never was one. AND....it wasn't good enough to continue on, I had to stop! When I picked it back up, it was hard to remember what had happened. Franzen seems to want to be William Faulkner, with his long sentences. (he's not!) I didn't like it at all.If you haven't read it, DON'T.
Rating: 
Summary: Pathetic self-intersted tripe
Review: I read to page 240 waiting for something to happen or for me to meet an interesting character that I cared about. Didn't happen. I put it down unfinished.
Rating: 
Summary: Overstuffed, but enjoyable
Review: While I think this story could benefit from a paring, I enjoyed the development of characters. There were interior "dialogues" that went on too long to be believed (and fractured the pacing). There are unnecessary or overdone sideplots (the personality changing device). But the story and characters are ultimately compelling. The style of writing is very Tom Wolfe-ish, though I don't consider Franzen Wolfe's equal in pacing and satire. Perhaps Wolfe's journalistic background makes him a more disciplined editor.
Rating:
Summary: (In need of stylistic and structural) Corrections
Review: Acting on my long held idea that "any bane of Oprah's is a friend of mine," I purchased the book. That was my first mistake. An ardent believer that most modern American (and English) fiction is largely unreadable, I have generally avoided the work of such contemporary luminaries as Cormac McCarthy, E. Annie Proulx, Toni Morrison et al. in favor of the dusty older works of authors long since gone to the great bookstore in the sky. However, every so often I venture to read a select modern work based on the ardent recommendation of friends in whom I put my trust or reviewers held in high regard. Both failed me in this present case.The idea for the story is not a bad one, although it does tend to fixate on the negative aspects of contemporary society (not unlike the dysfunctionalia of so many other writers today), and leaves one with the vague feeling that the author attended one too many screenings of "American Beauty." However, even mediocre plot can be saved with exceptional writing. Alas, no rescue was forthcoming with this work. Whether it is simply a lack of education on rhetoric, an inability to gently lead the reader into the story, or simply too much television is difficult to determine. The fact remains that the characters simply spring up from the void upon the textual stage, fully trusting in the reader to comprehend them, their activities, and their motives. Scenes are choppy and distorted, either lacking crucial details necessary for a fully developed picture to be achieved or awash in too many details irrelevant to the action. Then there is the question of empathy. To become engrossed in any story, you must either hate or love at least one character. In The Corrections neither is possible. There is no connection made from the reader to the characters, thus half way through the reader is left not caring how the story finally resolves. For all the empathy elicited, the result doesn't matter. That, and that more than anything else, is this story's primary failure.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a typical Oprah book
Review: I'd give this a 4.5, if I could. I thought this was an intelligent and intricate book, (not typical of some Oprah recommendations). I liked the way this book exposes our society's dependancy on prescription drugs, and the overzealous recent investors in the stock market. I also loved the cooking references! The self-rightous grown children were irritating and interesting. I found it disturbing that every character in this book is incredibly unhappy, yet I couldn't stop reading it! I would not recommend this book to people who aren't avid readers.
Rating:
Summary: A smart Tom Wolfe
Review: Like Tom Wolfe, Franzen writes smug. Unlike Tom Wolfe, Franzen writes masterly ... full of nuance and intracacy. My biggest hangup is that he devoted nearly 600 pages to his ego and shoe-horning in everything he knows about everything. And throughout, I couldn't help thinking Franzen is enamored with the consumer culture he sets out to criticize ... just like Chip. If powerful fiction is honest, Corrections is weak. I say give Franzen a few years. With a few experiences under his belt, he won't be so full of himself. His ability to write is masterly.
Rating:
Summary: America Unbound
Review: The Corrections is a large-scale examination of American culture focused through the eyes of a "typical" American family named Lambert. Each of the members of the family are dysfunctional and tortured in their own ways, but Franzen gives an equally critical and sympathetic attitude toward each. One of the children of the family, Gary, is a determined businessman, bent on a self-help book form of fulfilment. It seems to me ironic that Opera initially wanted this book as part of her club when her show so commonly preaches his kind of internally motivated and overly analytical desire for bettering the self. The novel revolves between the family's perspectives drawing you to understand with the mysteries of their different personalities. They all exemplify classic stereotypes of their generation captured in the transformative nature of chance. Franzen loads us with their sensations mounting to an enormous accumulation of detail and description of life in America. It addresses international relations, drug addiction, homosexuality, capital underhandedness, Alzheimer's disease, environmentalism and many other loaded issues of relevance. Many novels have given us a broad look at a culture such as this, but where this novel truly excels is the way it cuts through the cynicism which so naturally accompanies a survey of this kind, especially one which the author himself comes out of. This is exemplified in the character of Chip, second son of the family, who is an anxious young man whose authority is undermined in scenes such as a cultural studies class he teaches, by his students' reactions and the cynicism is turned on its head. Chip himself actually becomes a very hopeful character (as do some of the others). This attitude isn't a melodramatic twist as it may have been in some other novels which try to do similar things, but feels entirely earned by each of the characters who struggle for a new form of happiness and peaceful coexistence in culture as turbulent as this.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was very anxious to read this book, after all the glowing reviews, and the Oprah controversy. I have to say I was quite disappointed. Although well written, it was at times extremely boring. The characters were well drawn, but unlikable. I'm glad he tied everything together at the end, but, apart from that I cannot find anything good to say about this book. It did nothing for me.
Rating:
Summary: You can't go home again
Review: I read this book as I traveled home for Christmas for the first time in 8 years and I found it both thought provoking and emotionally evocative. Johnathon Franzen has painted a remakable portrait of an American family at the turn of the century, and textured his work with wide-ranging commentary on political correctness, technological innovation and global economics. Underlying all of these themes is the essential paradox of our times: the more comfortable we become, the harder we strive to make ourselves, our jobs, and our families perfect, the less happy we really are. I liked the book. And I'm glad I took the trip.
Rating:
Summary: Tell me again why he turned Oprah down...
Review: I picked up the book minutes before Oprah did, and happened to read Franzen's comments regarding his rejection of her, and I thought they were good enough for me to give the book a shot. He thought it had enduring potential. Also, at a reading Jane Hamilton gave, she said she loved it. Here's what I thought: Jonathan Franzen is really smart, pretty funny, can put a great sentence together, and it's a great psychological study of people. But I felt the book had no soul, and I'll be quite surprised if it endures.
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