Rating: 
Summary: Long-distance hike through knee-deep mud
Review: I couldn't wait to get this book after reading the reviews. I'm a lover of serious literature. I was disappointed to find the characters loathsome and tedious. I need at least one person in a story whom I like and am rooting for. I didn't even feel compassion for these people. They are so infuriatingly self-destructive, irresponsible, selfish, and emotionally lazy.
The story itself was long, slow and unengaging. I dragged myself through it in hopes of a pay-off in the end, but the "corrections" were skimpy, simplistic, and left me frustrated and irritable. The writing itself was pretentious and tiresome. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Franzen seems skilled and smart, but defeated by his own self-consciousness. I hope to see better from him.
Rating: 
Summary: Sharp, real characters
Review: I found the characters real; full of flaws. Franzen writes in a way that I had often found myself reflecting on the idea of family. He presents the characters without passing judgement. I actually re-read the book; and loved it more the second time.
Rating:
Summary: Neither All That Nor A Bag of Chips
Review: After the whole deliberately-staged Oprah schtick (as if that wasn't off-putting enough), I picked up this book with a semi-open mind. After all, if both the snobs and the great unwashed masses could see the merit in this book (highly sarcastic), surely I could too.Well, I can't. David Foster Wallace's fiction is groundbreaking, complex and thoughtful; to draw an analogy between his work and this book is absurd (although both writers seem to share an intense dislike of cruise ships). Franzen has written a book that perhaps hits so close to home for so many people because it is hackneyed and cliched -- therefore, it resonates because we've heard it all before. One brother is a former professor run out of town because he had a sexual affair with a student. The other brother is a Wharton grad dissatisfied with all the trappings of his seemingly perfect life. The sister is a sexy chef who has an affair with her patron and his wife. Come on: this is beach reading here, not serious literature. The book is practically tailor-made for the movie version (Julianne Moore as Denise, Kevin Bacon as Chip, Kevin Spacey as Gary, etc. etc.). The writing is good, but a) needs to be seriously edited -- not for length as much as for direction and b) needs to take itself a lot less seriously. This book is not great literature. One mark of great literature, for example, is that you shouldn't have to repeat a word over and over and over and over again for your reader to understand, "Hey, CORRECTIONS! There are CORRECTIONS everyone is trying to make with their life!" Did Dostoyevsky have to keep repeating, "There are crimes...and there are punishments"? I had a good time reading it, overall, but thought the characters were paper cutouts for whom I developed no feeling. David Foster Wallace and Don DeLillo, for that matter (writers to whom Franzen has been compared) get into the hearts of their characters. _Underworld_ made most of the same points as this book, but was much better written. _Infinite Jest_, in my opinion, trumped _Underworld_ on nearly all fronts. However, unlike _The Corrections_, both of those books will be remembered beyond this generation/news cycle.
Rating: 
Summary: The Truth Is in Here
Review: When it comes to literature, I guess you could say I'm the Special Agent Dana Scully of the fiction beat. When a book like The Corrections is saddled with media hype, glowing reviews, and passionate endorsements, it tends to make me more than a mite skeptical. Can any tome be as great as this one is touted to be? Is there a reality to these hyperbolic assessments, or is it all cleverly crafted, artificial propaganda? I am more than happy (and a little bit shell-shocked) to report that YES, almost everything you've heard about this book is accurate. Franzen is a talented, insightful author, and the "truth" is definitely in here. The Lambert family is a motley assortment of lost souls who are tied together by blood and bickering. Knowing one another's weaknesses, frailties, and neuroses, the three siblings and their aging parents are able to cripple and confound with ease. Gathered together for what could be their father's last Christmas, the family congregates to tiptoe around lineage land mines and never-healed long-ago bruises. However, rather than being a maudlin, self-important look at middle-class people and their middling problems, The Corrections is alternately hysterical, satirical, comical, and always logical. No matter how improbable the scenario, it seems real for these people, real for this world. While Franzen does, more often than not, play these characters for laughs, he does have a soft spot for their failings, an empathy for how helpless they are to correct their pasts, their presents, and maybe even their futures. He is bitingly critical, but also refreshingly empathetic. At times these people are monsters, but they're HIS monsters. This is a fabulous book to read when you want to confirm your own vulnerabilities and insecurities. It's an even better book to explore when you want to uncover the flaws and foibles that link all of us together. True, The Corrections is about one family, the Lamberts. But in a much larger sense, it is about "family." That rare grouping of people who can torture and torment, enrage and unnerve ... and yet we willingly keep going home for more.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully Written
Review: I loved this book! The author creates a dysfunctional family who struggles with many common human predicaments. The siblings' attempt to "correct" the mistakes of their parents leads to many traumatic and fascinating personal and professional life experiences. Jonathan Franzen's use of language is beautiful if at times verbose. Pepperred throughout the novel are insights into the human condition which consistently have a strong ring of truth to them. If the purpose of fiction is to allow the reader to examine life in a new way or see a new truth, then the author has fulfilled his mission impeccably.
Rating:
Summary: Despite myself
Review: I tend to avoid books written by anyone male, Christian or younger than me (Franzen is all three). I also avoid long books. The only long book I've ever read by a male Christian was written by Leo Tolstoy (but what did I know back then; in the Bronx we thought anyone named Leo was Jewish). I read The Corrections because a very brilliant friend, whose opinion I treasure, pressed it upon me. I was dubious. Could the Lambert clan really resonate with my parochial Jewish psyche? Yes. I didn't just nod with recognition as I sacrificed a Christmas vacation to the book, hiding from my family and letting the answering machine pick up. I grunted with recognition, I doubled over with recognition. Jonathan Franzen is a very talented boy, put on earth to write. The fact that his first few years on this project was such a shambles should inspire us all to perservere, whatever it is we were put on earth to do.
Rating:
Summary: Too Slow and Over Written!
Review: I found the first 300 pages of this book to be so slow and over written, which wouldn't be so bad if one of these characters we likeable but they are so prentious and self involved. That being said Franzen does make some poigant observations about family dynamics.
Rating:
Summary: Stick with this book
Review: This book was interesting. There were times when I was bored and had to actually work to get through pages and then there were times when I couldn't put the book down. I felt so connected to all the characters (even if I didn't particularly like them) - I wasn't sure how this book was going to come together - I mean you spend so much time on each family member's life and then - the ending - It all came together and it was powerful - Throughout the entire book I found Alfred to be a pretty gross character and then at the end - I felt such compassion and understanding towards him - Read this book until the end - stick with it - It is worth the time and effort!!!
Rating:
Summary: Well written and very depressing
Review: The good news about this book is that it is well written. It's enjoyable to read from that perspective. However, the characters and their lives are so sad that whatever pleasure one gleans from reading good writing is offset by the very real muck of life that the author describes so well. There are times when I sensed that the author was showing off by providing esoteric information not essential to the story. This information showed Franzen to be extraordinarily knowledgeable, but did not do much more than reflect how aware the author is of this and that. Otherwise the book was so well constructed that there were times when I actually closed the book with my finger saving my place, and shook my head marvelling at how well the guy described an event or a reaction or an emotion. Don't read the next paragraph if you've not read the book. The saddest thing about the book is that the message seems to be that people do not or can not change. That no matter how many revisions to one's screenplay we claim to make, or how often we claim that we'll make changes--we don't. Chip will be Chip. Gary will be Gary, and Enid will be Enid. In the final analysis, there are no corrections.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely disappointing - not even entertaining
Review: I couldn't believe how just plain bad this book was. Reads like the drafts that Tom Wolfe threw in the trash -- or maybe a very very bad imitation of William Gaddis. Characters have no depth or reality. I can't believe that any one who reads this could ever get emotionally involved with any of them. The fact that this mess is getting generally positive reviews is a very sad commentary on the state of the novel in America today.
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