Rating: 
Summary: Give me my money back
Review: Sorry, Senor Franzen, this will not do. Go back to your MFA program and demand your money back. Because it's obvious that you are not a Master of any Fine Arts, let alone writing.
Rating: 
Summary: Memorable, but for the wrong reasons
Review: I fail to see the reason for the excitement surrounding The Corrections. While the story is interesting and had promise of going somewhere much more interesting, it gets lost in the author's attempts to be irreverent and edgy. It comes off as flippant and arrogant. I was certain that Franzen was writing with his super-ego kicked into high geer.The characters are indeed entertaining, especially Gary, the depressed and oftentimes neurotic son. What Franzen did best was to make Gary a full-scale dysfunctional cog in the messed-up world that is all families. What Franzen did worst was to leave the characters hanging in limbo, hidden behind the author's supposed attempt to make us look up to him and wonder in awe at his magnificence. Franzen almost redeems himself in the end with what almost resembles a heartfelt conclusion. However, those who refused to struggle through the massive, rambling tome to that point won't ever be rewarded. I was disappointed. I wish Franzen hadn't tried so hard to impress us with his coolness and finesse. It would have made for a much more enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Five years and I'm Still bitter...
Review: About the three nights and 25 dollars I wasted on this overhyped, misanthropic, nasty, credulity-straining and worse, unfunny piece of literary detritus. The few mean-spirited chuckles you'll get are unworthy of you, whoever you are. Unless Donald Rumsfeld is reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Underwhelming
Review: Although I finished the whole book, and found the little jacket blurb intriguing, I agree with many of the reviewers who felt it was underwhelming. Franzen doesn't seem to like many of his own characters, and it seemed like he decided to change his mind about Alfred's character (bluff hearty father in tragic disintegration or suburban monster getting his just due?) halfway through writing, for reasons that aren't entirely clear. I wasn't bored by the book, but I did get impatient; the characters behaved like sitcom characters, getting themselves into terrible messes that they should have seen coming. Some sections of the book were excellent, however; I enjoyed Chip's trip to the horrifically hip and overpriced Manhattan grocery store. Overall, there are a few good short stories sort of bunged into a big, slow book about American Life and its Empty Addictions. A lot of people hated it, too, but I feel that David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest was a better book on the same theme.
Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: There are alot of words in this book, but nothing being said. I read about 20 pages of this book. I was hoping the plot would pick up. Nope, same nothingness. I skipped ahead to see if the book would pick up later on. Nope. I put the book in a "give away" bag and picked out something else to read.
Rating:
Summary: Clueless people behaving accordingly
Review: If you read for pleasure, don't buy this book. In the opening scene we encounter swiss-cheese-brained losers and it's all downhill from there.
Rating: 
Summary: "A Tragedy Rewritten as a Farce"
Review: Jonathan Franzen has written an ambitious, hugely human novel about a middle class family suffering from too many expectations. In chapters that are closer to novellas in length, THE CORRECTIONS manages to evoke the deeply seated emotions of its characters without taking itself too seriously. Alfred suffers from Parkinson's disease and possibly Alzheimer's, while his wife Enid believes that his failing is not what he has, but who he is. Oldest son Gary is a control freak who is losing control of his marriage, while middle child Chip is an unemployed Ph.D. whose hopes hinge on selling a hopelessly bad script. The youngest, Denise, is the hard-working chef of an acclaimed Philadelphia restaurant whose choices in love are almost always disastrous. While their problems weigh each down, the details of their lives are often wryly humorous. That Chip really believes a screenplay that begins with a six page lecture on sexual imagery in Tudor drama can be a blockbuster, and that Enid falls in love with the lion-y (and illegal) yellow capsules of a mood enhancer called Aslan despite her rigid ethics, balance the downward spiral of their lives. As a former Lithuanian U.N. ambassador says as he and Chip are chased through a country in political crisis, "[. . . ] it's mostly posturing. A tragedy rewritten as a farce." No other sentence more aptly describes this novel's distinctive flair. Franzen's writing can be pretentious and off-putting at times, with obscure words mixed liberally with vulgarities. Occasionally, a dialogue passage goes on for too long, or a descriptive paragraph fails. However, these lapses are rare. On the whole, this novel is tightly written with a keen eye to the larger significance of petty moments. With THE CORRECTIONS, Franzen has proven himself an astute and witty observer of human nature. Readers who prefer commercial novels may find the novel's multiple plots too slow-moving. Its strength definitely lies in its characterization and social observations, not in its story. Readers of literary fiction should find it immensely satisfying. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: See ya, 20th Century
Review: I suppose this is an un-PC way to begin, but here goes. If you grew up in white-burbia with enough money to find yourself somewhere beyond the basics you'll howl with laughter while cringing from truth while reading "The Corrections." Especially so if you have or had Depression era, WW II parents. Just as a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, so can a little money. It can deliver pretense that results in a lot of movement without much accomplishment, and Franzen nails these busy, consuming, rather unfruitful lives right on the money. Franzen follows the Lambert family as the certainty of post WW II America further frays and as the long-known visceral knowledge of this tattering moves into full consciousness for all the Lamberts, but especially for Mr. and Mrs. We find Enid and Alfred truly in the autumn of their life as a couple, their slide down a slope as inevitable and irreversible as maple leaves turning red and yellow and falling earthward. Alfred is significantly further gone than Enid, which leaves her as de facto business manager for their affairs, and with a barely subconscious hope of moving on unchained from such a literal version of marriage. Their three children have moved out into life like cheap skyrockets, living lives not just unimagined by their parents, but lives that were unavailable to them. The cornerstones and keystones of country club summers and proper education and acquiescence to acceptable behavior become like sandcastles before the tsunami of global modernity. Yet Franzen allows life to work for the Lamberts, in that way only seen with hindsight. Alfred's integrity and glum prudence pay off. The children inherit more permanent lives from their response to their parents' decomposition. And, like a bird trapped in a garage darting for the growing rectangle of outside as the door lifts, Enid is freed.
Rating:
Summary: Just Right
Review: This one will be tough to beat. I burned through this one about a month ago and still find myself thinking about it.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible, enthralling
Review: What a fantastic book! Franzen's use of the English language is incredible. This book could have been an amazing bore by any other author, but Franzen is just brilliant. I can't wait to read it again.
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