Rating: 
Summary: A long verbal purgative
Review: Whether we like it or not, books are introduced to the public after previewers and reviewers pass judgment in the Newspaper Book Reviews, on talk shows, and on the very jacket cover of the book in question. We are a media driven nation and despite our need to feel that we think for ourselves the media influences how we perceive art and literature more than we appreciate. When was the last time you read a book that was a virginal experience between you and the author? I read a glowing review of Franzen's new book and was assured that it was the great American novel of the century. Suddenly it was #1 on the Best Selling List, due in part to the parlay between Oprah Winfrey and the author. Gossip. But by that time I had ordered the book and was stuck with reading it. For some reason (prejudice from reviewers whose opinions I respect) I had decided that this was not going to live up to the hype. In the end I have to admit that despite its weaknesses, The Corections is a good read. Problems: Franzen is giving us yet another dysfunctional American family (one wonders if there are any non-dysfunctional ones out there) and pushes for nearly 600 pages through the morass of just why each member of this five person family is a loser. This does not create a setting in which we can identify with a group of maladjusted people about whom it is hard to care. If you stop with that premise then the book is a tedious waste of your time. BUT..............stay with this book to the final "perfect Christmas" of the mother's dreams (a gathering of a clan tainted by the prodigal life outside the midwestern town of St. Jude) and you wil be rewarded with some fine writing. Franzen may dally too long over describing scenes that are of minimal importance, may probe character defects below the level of tolerance, but step back and read how this fine wordsmith manipulates the English language and I think you'll have to agree that this tome is important. All plodding aside, the story does move along and takes us all over the globe, tainted by the universal misuse of the atmosphere and planet surface that has become commonplace in 2001. And even if we don't really care about this cast of characters, their stories ring with a resonance of our current state of civilization that makes us stop, take notice, and hopefully undergo some self metamorphsis. Isn't the purpose of art just that? Isn't it more important that something creates enough controversy that we find ourselves actually communicating with each other about our strong subjective feelings? Even if you end up not liking this story I don't think anyone can deny that Jonathan Franzen has created a book important enough to make us think and react. And for that reason I think this is a fine book!
Rating: 
Summary: Gibberish, Not Storytelling
Review: Why are people falling all over themselves to praise this book? It's confusing and boring and about as indecipherable as Ancient Greek. I guess that's what makes THE CORRECTIONS a "literary" novel instead of just an entertaining story. Oh, stupid me! I'm don't understand the ramblings of Jonathan Franzen--(...). This book stinks, and excuse me, life is too short to waste even an hour of it trying to analyze this mess of words. If you want to read something literary AND understandable, read Richard Yates!
Rating: 
Summary: Complex, like life
Review: The clear and clever writing and the depth of the characters make this a fast and fulfilling read. Franzen is an ambitious writer, and he succeeds in drawing complex charaters whose lives are comments on our modern life. One subplot, which focuses on a bogus Balkin company, rings hollow, but that's a small flaw.
Rating:
Summary: Great Example of "Culture Dump" Literature
Review: (...) In the last fifty years, psychology has become the corrupted Darth Vader of Western culture who, emboldened by power, caused a great disturbance in the civil continuum. Psychology succeeded in making itself the new moral authority by separating itself from the other disciplines and abandoning principles in favor of feelings as the legitimate moral compass. In a psychologized society, intent (image) is more important than result (substance). In a psychologized society self-actualization is prized over self-sacrifice, and character weakness is excused as mental illness. This is not a hard sell! The cultural dominoes of Western civilization began to fall almost immediately. This book is an example of that devolution. Psychology separated from philosophy, anthropology and sociology is too weak to have any gravitas. And Franzen's family saga is a brilliant example of this lack. You may not enjoy the company for long, nor will you take much with you when you depart from the visit. But this may be the very point the author is making. A. B. Curtiss, author of Depression is a Choice:Winning the Battle Without Drugs.
Rating:
Summary: Overhyped
Review: The writing was visual and interesting, but that's where my praise ends. The characters were boring, melodramatic and depressing. I was hoping (in vain) that some "point" of the story and the characters' lives would surface eventually.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: Funny, insightful, erudite and moving. Don't let the backlash against the book's initial success keep you away, this is a worthwhile read. Franzen's storytelling powers are effortless.
Rating:
Summary: I thought I was the only one
Review: until I read the other one star reviews. How was Oprah hoodwinked into this? The author is so disdainful of the parents, who seemed quite ordinary, that it was a real turn-off for me. He didn't seem to care much for the siblings either. Even if he didn't agree with their choices he didn't have to make them out to be nattering nabobs!
I found it totally unbelievable that the brother invited, or agreed to host, his parents for a couple of hours and then disappeared the way the author wrote.
The author seemed to be trying to write a book with zany characters, but he obviously doesn't care for zany people. What was so wrong with these imperfect (duh!) parents wanting to have one last holiday meal with their imperfect children? Or wanting to take a splurge on a cruise a little too late in life to really enjoy it?
How old is this guy and how many children has he raised and how long has he maintained a marriage?
Rating:
Summary: Don't tell poor fragile Johnny F., but....
Review: (...)And oh, by the way, The Corrections is a waste of your time and money. Hateful characters, a manipulative authorial voice, the usual dose of homosexuality...yecchhh. Any comparison with serious contemporary literature is mistaken.
Rating:
Summary: good
Review: I wish it had been longer. I could have read a novel about each of the 3 children.
Rating:
Summary: A Romp in the Morass
Review: Judging from some of the other reviews I've seen posted here, it seems that some readers became angry at Franzen's new novel, The Corrections, by page 100 and never recovered. What a shame! Thinking of the novel as a gallery of portraits--the five individual members of the Lambert family, the family ensemble itself, and a few spouses and lovers--much of the writing shows remarkable capacity (like great painted portraits) to capture the essence, the tension between exterior and interior, of its characters. In my view, the outstanding portrait is of Alfred Lambert, husband and father, whose life is a strangely quiet battleground on which sanity and self-control fight with physical breakdown, incontinence and mad, unattached thoughts. I believe that Franzen has used all of his gifts of articulation in rendering Alfred's angry, silent life. Not far behind (if at all) is Enid, Alfred's wife, who brings an all-too-real frantic calm to the unsuccessful management of her family and her own hopes for life. While there's no question that the reader may want to smack some of the grown Lambert children for their capricious, self-destructive and outright bad behavior, there's no missing the tremendous writing and invention behind their characters and actions. I particularly enjoyed the book's coda, as Franzen lets all the air and tension out of the story, returning the Lambert family and us, the readers, to normalcy: that is, the normalcy in relationships, that stands in for a truce.
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