The Corrections

Rating:
Summary: Whoo boy...Poor me (another glass of irony)
Review: "The Corrections" reminds me of what we'd get if Todd "Happiness" Solondz had a degree from the Iowa Writers' School instead of his camera. The first time I read it, I was compelled to finish it in three days, so overwhelming is the sense of impending doom Franzen sets up for each member of the Lambert family. Yes, it's obvious he has only contempt for his characters, and there's no way out for any of them. If there's redemption here, it is merely implied, but that's fitting. At times Franzen goes over the top (Enid's scene with the cruise-ship doctor, the introductory seminar on Correcktall, Denise Lambert's sexual excesses) but for the most part hits his targets and artfully weaves their story together with our current American obsession with pharmaceutically engineered living and the forces of global capitalism wreaking havoc on Alfred Lambert's upstanding way of life. Alfred is the central cipher with whom boomers and post-boomers are all familiar--or at least Franzen banks upon it to be so (all we know of Alfred, really, is that he is a devotee of Schopenhauer, which still manages to say a lot). Alfred is incapable of the indulgences we witness in his children, and he suffers for his honor and dignity. Yet at the same time we find ourselves railing at him from our post-sixties zeitgeist--the very zeitgeist which in turn bedevils Chip and Denise in their personal and professional lives. We can immediately identify with his children in this regard, but Franzen won't let things go that easily. Gary, on his way to becoming Alfred, finds the deepest irony of the three of them, but you'll have to read this great work to discover how wide the generation gap has deepened, and indeed appeared within generations.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely hard to read
Review: I am not a literary critic by any means, but I am a college graduate who tends to read more than the average person. I picked this book up in response to the Oprah book club, and I have to say that I was extremely disappointed. I have read a lot of her recommendations, and have been at least pleasantly surprised by most of them, but this book is probably the worst I have read in a long time. While I can normally finish a long book in four days or so, I have been reading this one for five weeks! The pages creep by, and every time I start reading, I ask myself why I'm wasting my time. The story isn't bad, but the author goes into such detail about every little messed up thing in the character's lives from their inner thoughts to the way of life in Lithuania. I'm all for detail, but at one point in time there are 20 pages of rambling about the thoughts of an insane man that do not make sense. I will finish this as I started, I am not a literary critic, so please take my opinion for what it's worth, but if you are just a person who enjoys reading, do not buy this book or waste your time trying to read it.

Rating:
Summary: Amazingly complex
Review: I have not read any of Jonathan Franzen's other novels and picked up a copy of "The Corrections" based on recommendations and the accolades it picked up from critics everywhere. First, I do not understand how anyone would have trouble finishing this book. I had trouble putting it down once I got about 50 pages into it. At that point I could not stop reading it. In fact, I probably should have slowed down because Franzen's prose and writing are beautiful and complex and I'm sure that I missed a lot by reading too quickly.

This book is worthy of every bit of praise it has so far garnered. It is beautifully written, and this helps to illuminate the amazingly lifelike characters that populate Franzen's accurate portrayal of America. This is not a novel driven by plot, but rather a novel focused on characters. Franzen uses his complex characters to expound ideas about the modern family and deep issues that affect all families. It serves up a sharp contrast between midwestern and big city life that not only makes the reader feel the differences between the two but also helps him realize how chaotic and different America is within its boundaries. This book will make you feel and move your emotions and leave you slightly sad and stunned at the end. I wish the book had been longer. Every section made me care about each separate character and by the time the section was done I wanted to follow the path of that character for a great while longer. This is one mark of excellent fiction; that it involves you so with the characters and underlying ideas that you don't want to part with them. This is an excellent, deep, moving and complex piece of literature that is compulsively readable and will not leave your mind for quite some time after you have finished it.

Rating:
Summary: I'd rather read my old college chemistry book.
Review: I am really disappointed to have to say this, but I've spoken with several people who have agreed that The Corrections was the most difficult book to get through...mainly because it is just plain boring.
Some of the characters were interesting in their dysfunction, but the effort that was put into reading this novel would have been better spent earning my Ph.D.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful story about family relationships
Review: The first time I heard of The Corrections, I think, was when I read an article by Jonathon Franzen in The New Yorker, in 2002. Under the magazine's "Contributions" section, I read that Franzen had recently published a novel by that particular title, and I wondered what the book was about. As a long-term prisoner, any time I see the word "corrections" I assume it somehow relates to prison. Not so in this case.

Over the course of the past 12 to 18 months, I saw Franzen's famous novel move to the top of several best seller lists. I was happy when I saw that another Fort Dix prisoner had donated his copy to the library, which finally gave me an opportunity to read this book that so may others had enjoyed.

The novel tells the story of a typical midwestern family, and because prison walls have kept me separated from my own family for so many years, I appreciated Franzen's skill in describing the most intimate of family moments. It wasn't until I completed the 568-page hardcover edition by Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishers that I realized what Franzen meant with his chosen title, The Corrections.

Through Franzen's amazing gift of character development, I came to know the Lambert family, of St. Jude, a suburb somewhere in the Midwest, perhaps Kansas. Alfred, the father, is in his mid-70s and sliding down the difficult slope of dementia. Enid, his ever-faithful wife, never lives a day without her rose-colored glasses to filter out any element of life that does not comport with her extremely sanitized version of how life should be lived by respectable white people.

Alfred and Enid Lambert's three grown children, Gary, Chip, and Denise, each live full lives of their own, and through Franzen's complete writing, we come to know the details and idiosyncrasies of each life. Reading this book meant coming to know a family and gave me a sense of what I am missing.

Family is not all "I love you" and "I can't wait to see you," as a prisoner comes to remember it. This book provides much more depth. We come to know Gary's midlife depression and insecurities. He is a successful banker by profession, faithfully married to a beautiful and well-educated woman whom he loves, and together they have three loving children. Despite Gary's apparent success, he drinks too much and is more anal than any other character I've ever read. What made me identify with the book more than anything was how much of Gary's character I see in my own behavior. If a book is great when it helps us learn something about ourselves, I would say that Franzen's exceptional novel is one of the best I've ever read.

Chip, the middle son, lacks Gary's discipline and strict code of values. He is 40 and, despite his Ph.D., still hasn't found his way in life. Chip trips along from one bad decision to the next, and only in the final pages of the book does Chip make the transition from an empty suit to a man of substance.
Denise, perhaps the most complicated character in Franzen's novel, is a free spirit. Loyal to her family, but more loyal to her independence, she shows both a strong will and a determination to pursue happiness on her own terms, even if her alternative lifestyle turns conventional, white bread life on its head. I admire Denise's commitment to live her own life, consequences be damned.

My own father suffers from Alzheimer's, and as a result of my imprisonment, I have had no contact with him for several years. Because of the length of my sentence, I don't expect that I will see or talk with him again. I never saw his struggle with dementia, and despite the vivid descriptions my sisters gave me, I never really know what it meant to lose one's mind. Through Franzen's descriptions of Alfred, I feel as though I've come to know dementia and what my sisters have gone through in caring for my father.

Although Franzen takes us back to early episodes in each character's life, the story takes place over the timeline of a single season. And in the end, readers come to realize that, just like the Lambert family, we all make choices that take our lives in different directions. The corrections represent those decisions we make to bring us back together.

This is a wonderful story of American family life. I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Worth the effort
Review: As much as this is a superbly written novel, I felt it sometimes could have benefited from some further editing. It sometimes struck me as too long and too detailed. The separate and intersecting lives of a dysfunctional midwestern family are brought into sharp focus. The aging mother, Enid, clumsily searches for fulfillment in her own life as she copes with the advancing Parkinsonism of her husband Alfred. The three grown children have their own problems to deal with. Alfred's increasing dementia, his hallucinations, and his family's reactions to these symptoms are brilliantly depicted through interior monologue and fractured dialogue. If for nothing else, this book is worth it for the view that it gives of the demented father's thoughts and feelings. If you have the patience to make your way through this (sometimes) overly detailed novel, you will be richly rewarded.

Rating:
Summary: A good concept badly executed.
Review: The Corrections tells the story of a family. Each section of the book is about one of the family members. At some point each persons story overlaps with the others. This is in interesting concept and there are some very good parts of the book. I mean this will definetly make your family seem normal in comaprison. The probmlem is each section is at least 100 pages. The book drags on for too long and often loses your intrest. If it was shortened to contain just the memorable parts it may have been much better. There was also one disturbing passage about the father who suffers from parkinsons, hallucinating about poop attacking him. Something i just dont care to read about.

Rating:
Summary: Meet the Lamberts
Review: Not much is left to say about Jonathan Franzen's novel "The Corrections" that has not already been said in countless literary reviews. The novel received glowing reviews from nearly every reviewer, and it is not difficult to understand why.

"The Corrections" introduces us to the Lambert family, five individuals struggling to cope with life. What struck most reviewers about "The Corrections" was the realness of the characters, who have both faults and strengths and are never simple. This description in fact underestimates the characters. Instead, what makes them so strong is that, just like with real people, the reader shifts between loving and hating, respecting and despising each of the Lamberts. There are no heroes in this book, yet there are no villains either. Instead, the reader will have no choice but to accept each character with all their faults and strenghts.

Franzen writes with a ringing clarity. He ignores the florid descriptions that occupy so many novels of today, instead using the language sparingly. His descriptions are taut and witty, but not for the sake of being witty. He writes entirely to serve the characters.

"The Corrections" is a character driven book, not a plot one, therefore it should be skipped by those who want action and twists and turns. For those who are intrigued by real characters and the structure of family, "The Corrections" is an amazing read.

Rating:
Summary: Sleepless too
Review: So many characters in The Corrections are sleepless, as well they might be. All manner of distress and quiet disaster awaits them in the morning, or in their dreams if they slip off to sleep by accident. Tonight I closed the last page and joined them -troubled, restless, yet somehow elated.

I kept thinking - how could someone so young write this book? I thought I recalled reading that Mr. Franzen is 26, and the photo on the book did not challenge that assumption. But no, according to his biography he is closer to 45. And so I know - he was raised by that generation of careful people Enid and Alfred so capture. She - a housewife, powerless in the marriage unless engaged in her relentless version of guerilla warfare. But her streak of warm wishful wanting screws up her ability to carry out operations as completely as necessary to counter Alfred, a man of uncommon resolve. She looks silly, he seems cold, and the kids are predictably messed up.

Now Alfred has been laid low with Parkinson's and dementia, and their three grown children are slowly born back home to wrestle with their parents' new needfulness. They all 5 deny and rage and grieve and self-medicate in turn, and I am still so struck by them all, by their gravity, humor and humanness. Finally, by their love. Flawed flawed flawed love, and yet, love enough.

And so, bravo. A work of fiction that informs my life, that lights and warms old interior halls and corners I did not know I had. Gives me hope for the ability of art to save the whole darn world, not to put too fine a point on it.

Rating:
Summary: typical
Review: I can't believe I finished this book. The writing was synthetically verbose, the characters and I'm assuming the writer are arrogant, bitter and shallow. I've never heard more dribble about fashion, and the right vintage car, and the hippest restaurants, and the 'best' writers. There must be a how-to one could buy: "A Midwesterners guide on how to become urbane" It's a cliche.