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Summary: The Great American Russian Novel
Review: First of all: if you ever have to be stuck alone during a major national holiday, and you find yourself fantasizing wistfully about the great Norman Rockwell scenes that your friends must be enjoying with their families, buy this book, and throw self-pity to the wind as you thank whatever Gods may be for not having to sit to a festive dinner with the (dreadfully real!) Lamberts. Otherwise: I loved this book, and I rarely love anything this popular or trendy. This book is, in a way, a lot like a 19th century Russian Novel (though it is a "Russian" novel about Americans): it shares the Russian novel premise that people have very little control over their lives, and are basically doomed when they attempt to *correct* themselves. (you avarage American, on the other hand, believes that people have a huge amount of control over their lives. I guess the truth is in the middle but I digress). This accounts for an undertone of sadness beneath the delightful humor and irony. Rediscover the old fashioned pleasure of following a large cast of extremely well-drawn characters through psychological drama and comedy (it is much easier without patronymics). After around page 40, it became pretty hard to put this book down.
Rating: 
Summary: An Emotional Roller Coaster!
Review: I was a late-comer to all the Oprah-hype about this book, and still don't know the full story. Perhaps that was just as well. The book interested me based on one small review I'd read. So... I used a recently-received amazon.com GC and soon it was sitting next to my bed, begging me to open it. Finally... I did. Started it the week before Christmas and finished it today, the day after Christmas. I have certainly read a number of other books that would have made lighter holiday reading but rarely have I read one that my emotions followed so closely. As other reviewers have indicated, writer Franzen does tend to use a lot of "dollar-sized" words and his characters are not easy to identify or find sympathy with. However, it is still a great novel and one well worth the time and emotional roller coaster to read. The one fault I found was with the ending. Maybe I am too fresh from finishing it and will appreciate the ending more in a week or month. But right now, an hour after finishing it, I feel cheated. I guess I wanted a smoother finish... after Franzen detailed everyone's lives throughout the novel, the ending comes on fast and furious, as if he suddnely realized the book was getting a tad long and he needed to wrap it up. That alone stops me from giving it a full five stars.
Rating:
Summary: Franzen holds up a mirror to American life
Review: Jonathan Franzen has a finger right on the pulse of contemporary American society. This book spares little: Regionalism (the supposedly unsophisticated Midwest vs. the self-satisfied East coast), high-flying young investors with more money than taste, self-help books with cover-to-cover cliches and psychobabble, the "promise" of improved minds and personalities via treatments that alter brain chemistry, celebrity worship, materialism, SUV's (Stompers!), and teaching of the humanities as a cover for left-wing activism. As a "social novelist", Franzen is reminiscent of Tom Wolfe. Even though I enjoyed the author's keen sensibilities, this novel taxed my patience until I was about halfway through. Initially, I found most of the characters to be unsympathetic and didn't care what became of them. Chip starts out as immature and phony. He is a leftist humanities professor who espouses feminist causes, yet objectifies women and sleeps with a student. When he gets canned from his tenure-track position, I thought he had it coming. Enid is very critical and has an almost pathological interest in what her better-off neighbors think. Gary is smug and materialistic. He and Chip are a kind of yin and yang. His wife, Caroline, is manipulative, lazy, and snobbish, and is more interested in being her children's friend than their mother. Their three boys are spoiled brats. Later in the novel, however, all of the characters (with the possible exception of Gary) change for the better. Franzen puts his characters under a microscope, and as the book went on I also became more aware of the fact that if anyone's life was scrutinized so closely, he or she probably wouldn't look so hot either. Franzen's characterizations make the reader work a bit, force him or her to be a little less judgmental. The main flaw in this novel is that it is longer than it needs to be. Also, the timing of events is rather confusing.
Rating: 
Summary: The most depressing read of 2001
Review: The hype was better than this book. The worst episode of OPRAH ever videotaped is better than this book. The manual that came with my blender is better than this book. Yes, I finished it -- because I spent hard-earned cash on it. What a waste of time. Depressing, overwritten, with not an ounce of humanity. SKIP IT!
Rating:
Summary: So whose family isn't dysfunctional?
Review: I enjoyed the minutiae of the characterizations, the microcosmic glimpses into this family -it's histories, secret desires, old baggage, dynamics and how these things interplayed with behaviors and the present. Franzen is a talented writer but his dissing Oprah was a bad move. I care more about what Oprah has done to encourage reading and support the literary arts than I care about one writer trying to make an arrogant point, even if he did it ignorantly.
Rating: 
Summary: TEST FOR LIKING THE CONNECTIONS
Review: This is a dog's breakfast of a book. It has gloriously well-written passages and keen characterization, cheek-by-jowl with excessive self-consciousness. It is full of nods and winks hinting at some spiritual breakthrough but its big set-piece Christmas denoument falls flat. You can be reading along with complete absorption and then the author will drop in a neologism like "Oldfolksmobile" whose cuteness and Madison Avenue derivation are so jarring that it's hard to maintain your trust in the author's gifts. The book will appeal to a certain type of sensibility. What prospective readers need is some way of knowing ahead of time whether they share enough of the author's sensibility to find the book worth their time. I offer a possible test, based on next-to-no empirical research beyond the three people I know who have read it. Here's the test: if you liked the movie "American Beauty", you will probably like "The Connections". (You remember the movie, it won an Oscar for Best Picture, stars Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning). If you thought "American Beauty" was an insightful darkly humorous look at dysfunctional middle-class American life, then I say try "The Connections", which covers some of the same territory with a comparable point-of-view. If, on the other hand, you thought--as I did--that "American Beauty" was cliche-ridden and overwrought and overhyped, then I suggest you stay away. I am looking for empirical verification, so if you can confirm (e.g. you liked the movie and liked the book) or contradict (e.g. you liked the movie and hated the book) my hypothesis, let me know.
Rating:
Summary: An impressive novel
Review: Hype and controvery notwithstanding, the impression that remains with me after reading Franzen's Corrections is a believable and moving portrait of modern North American family. Many have criticized the book for being unoriginal--do we really need ANOTHER novel about a dysfunctional family? they ask--but, as Tolstoy once observed, all unhappy families are unlike, and in this sense, the Lamberts and their myriad dysfunctions ARE unique. Yes, at times the characters in Corrections do behave reprehensibly, but for this reader, this only lends to their veracity, and by the end of the novel, many of these faults are explored and explained enough to provoke, if not sympathy, at very least empathy. Perhaps the "Orprah" crowd, attracted to the book by the celebrity's endorsement, expected something more palatable and less provocative. By pointing this out, I don't intend to sound snobbish, only to observe that this IS at times a demanding book, and probably unlike the usually fare they're accustomed to. While the prose is sometimes turgid and clumsy, more often than not, Franzen is a talented writer able to turn an elegant phrase, reminiscent of Cheever, Updike, Moody and Delillo in its copious cataloguing of domestic detail. Moreover, his dialogue is edgy, spirited and often humorous. In short, I feel the time I spent with the Corrections was a rewarding experience, and I look forward to what future efforts Franzen's career brings. P.S. (For those of you interested in the "logo" controversy, read Franzen's account of his "Oprah" experience in the Christmas issue of the New Yorker, a humorous and well-reasoned defense)
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointed
Review: I waited four months to get this one from my library and I was very disappointed in Franzen's style. He gets too wordy for the story to flow as it should. The characters had depth, but I felt like I was drowning in the endless pool of descriptions and analysis. Don't get too excited about this one. It's only worth it if you enjoy digging through 600 pages of words to get a 200 page story.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read in ages!
Review: I absolutely loved this book! Couldn't put it down, but also wanted it to last as long as possible. Beautifully written and the characters were so real. It's really 5 books in one (one for each character.) I was originally drawn to the book with all the Oprah hoopla. I figured anyone who didn't want the orange "O" on their book cover...was someone I wanted to read. I for one, do not need Oprah to tell me what to read! From page one to 500 something, this book keeps you coming back for more. And, for once, there is an ending that does the book justice...how frustrating to read a great book, only for it to fall apart at the end. Give this book for Xmas, but better yet, get it for Xmas for yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: This was a first .....didn't even finish .....lost interest
Review: I kept on reading, hoping the story would go somewhere, sadly it didn't. This is the first Oprah Pick that I put down.
Anyone want to read it ??? You can have my copy.
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