Rating: 
Summary: There's more to life than bitterness.
Review: When I was 15, my parents took me to see the original Broadway production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe?" I can still recall wondering why everyone in the audience was laughing at the relentless pounding those poor souls on the stage gave and received. Well, it's almost 50 years later, and now I wonder what other reviewers of this novel find so "sexy...comic,...devilishly funny, in a laugh-out-loud sort of way...fun, witty, wry, touching and insightful..." about this nasty, acidic, cynical, despairing case history of how "all five members of the Lambert family get their due, as everybody's lives swirl out of control." Reading "The Corrections," I had the feelling it was written by someone who was trying to be just too hip, too cool to allow for any redemptive quality in any of the human beings he drags into the pit. While I don't usually take a creative person's appearance into my experience of thier work, I must say that Mr. Franzen's picture on the inside jacket is in perfect harmony with his admittedly brillliant word portraits: very carefully assembled with no detail overlooked, all the way down to his GQ five o'clock shadow. As September 11th illustrates, I need no assistance in viewing the dark side of the human condition. I much prefer to put my efforts into finding reasons for gratitude. God knows what Mr. Franzen's personal history is that would lead him to such a bleak outlook; but, I do wish him enough personal recovery to allow him to experience some of the positive values of being human.
Rating: 
Summary: Up there a bit
Review: I am not fooled by Franzen for one minute. He is an insufferably complainer, and always has been. A great writer? Okay, he is up there with Tolkien, but not with Atwood. Avoid.
Rating: 
Summary: Madness laced with humor!
Review: The Corrections by talented writer Jonathan Franzen offers the reader a humorous and entertaining story about a disfunctional family "The Lamberts) whose lives have been spent spinning out of control and at a Christmas reunion a last ditch effort is in the offering hoping for forgiviness and reconciliation. An entertaining read you will not want to miss!
Rating:
Summary: A Dysfunctional Novel
Review: I can usually tell in the first hundred pages of a novel whether I want to push through to the end. Not with The Corrections. Jonathan Franzen fooled me for about 500 pages before I finally gave up. I'm a fairly dogged reader, so it's saying a lot that once I hit the half-way point I was willing to write the thing off and not find out what happens. The Corrections is a well written, sometimes humorous, novel about a family dealing with the mental decline of its patriarch. It examines the social dynamics that go along with the passing of the generational torch. Franzen writes vivid and clever scenes that allow his characters to demonstrate their complex construction. But what characters! What eventually drove me to put this book down was the loathsomeness of its cast. With very few exceptions, the book is populated with the most selfish, egocentric people you could imagine. I kept reading and reading, hoping to turn the corner where someone wakes up and becomes sensitive to the pain of the people around them. But no! Nothing but self indulgence, self pity, and self destruction. Maybe it happens in the second half of the book, maybe someone wakes up and redeems themselves with genuine altruism -- far too late for me. Bottom Line: Despite the book's solid literary foundations I found it impossible to care what happened to the characters and therefore put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Hard Work to Enjoy this Book
Review: If you enjoy babbling streams of semi-consciousness from the point of view of a despicably self-involved main character, you'll love slogging through this dense mass of text that begs for a real story.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good book
Review: I found it to be very interesting,and could easily find myself reading it again. I also recommend the folling title. I asure you that if you read this book that you will be touched in a way that you will never forget what you learned from this book. Book Title: A True Story Of Misdiagnosed/Unexplainable Pains Found To Be Caused By Tobacco Use ISBN:075961590x
Author: Ferlin Clay Morgan
Rating:
Summary: Why 2 stars?
Review: I don't know....the whole experience of this book was confusing. I rushed to buy it after Oprah recommended it so highly. I started reading it and wondered what happened to that book she was so excited about. I just didn't get it. I didn't care about any of the characters and I never got involved in the story, nor was I able to really follow it so well. I guess I just didn't care..because I gave up after about 125 pages, which is something I rarely do. Maybe I will try it again one day, but for now there are too many other books.
Rating:
Summary: Fast, Funny, Flawed
Review: Here are some of my marginalia for "The Corrections". "Good details." "Dialogue too perfect on this page." "Nice image." "What?" "Great rendering of family in stress." "Superior execution." "Nice observation." "A first-grader says this?" "This is supposed to be funny and surreal but it's disgusting." "The doctor is a cartoon." "Great seamless chapter." What am I saying? This is an amusing and readable book with memorable characters. And, it is excellent for long stretches. But "The Corrections" has little flaws, which mostly strike me as breaks in discipline or the decision to finish already! Regardless, I praise Franzen for risks he takes. Example: When he introduces Gary, the character seems heartless beyond credibility. Yet, the narrative shows persuasively how this could be so. Bravo for great work!
Rating:
Summary: PERVERTED
Review: Does the author think that, in our day and age, by capitalizing words like TW-T or CU-T will have a bigger impact on us? I like a little erotica, tittilation, sexuality/sensuality, and sometimes even a little pornography in the literature that I read, but this guy is bizarrely perverted. I guess Oprah (or her ghost-readers, if she doesn't personally read the books on her "recommended list") find this to be artsy...well I find it to be fartsy. I don't see how those middle-class, nothing-better-to-do housewives that watch her show and "can relate to her" could read this book and not feel that she has lost touch with reality and morality. I can see pushing the envelope a little to prove that you aren't a goody-two-shoes all the time, but Oprah you blew right out of the box this time!
Rating:
Summary: I Read this Book Because of the Oprah Winfrey Dispute
Review: Okay, I admit it, I'm not one of those who thinks Oprah rules the roost when it comes to picking the greatest books and decide for myself what I should or should not read, but because of the little dispute, misunderstanding - whatever you may wish to call it - regarding what the author initially said about having her logo put on his book, I got interested. I was glad I bought this one. He pulled me in right from the start. First book of Mr. Franzen's I have read, and I intend to go in search of the former ones. Very intelligent writer!
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