The Corrections

published	2001 by HarperPerennial
binding	Paperback
isbn	1841156736 (isbn13: 9781841156736)
pages	672
literary awards	National Book Award for Fiction 2001, James Tait Black Memorial Prize, 2003 IMPAC Dublin Award Nominee
description	Jonathan Franzen's exhilarating novel The Corrections tells a spellbinding story with sexy comic brio, and evokes a quirky family akin to Anne ...more [close] Jonathan Franzen's exhilarating novel The Corrections tells a spellbinding story with sexy comic brio, and evokes a quirky family akin to Anne Tyler's, only bitter. Franzen's great at describing Christmas homecomings gone awry, cruise-ship follies, self-deluded academics, breast-obsessed screenwriters, stodgy old farts and edgy Tribeca bohemians equally at sea in their lives, and the mad, bad, dangerous worlds of the Internet boom and the fissioning post-Soviet East. All five members of the Lambert family get their due, as everybody's lives swirl out of control. Paterfamilias Alfred is slipping into dementia, even as one of his inventions inspires a pharmaceutical giant to revolutionize treatment of his disease. His stubborn wife, Enid, specializes in denial; so do their kids, each in an idiosyncratic way. Their hepcat son, Chip, lost a college sinecure by seducing a student, and his new career as a screenwriter is in peril. Chip's sister, Denise, is a chic chef perpetually in hot water, romantically speaking; banker brother Gary wonders if his stifling marriage is driving him nuts. We inhabit these troubled minds in turn, sinking into sorrow punctuated by laughter, reveling in Franzen's satirical eye: <blockquote> Gary in recent years had observed, with plate tectonically cumulative anxiety, that population was continuing to flow out of the Midwest and toward the cooler coasts.... Gary wished that all further migration [could] be banned and all Midwesterners encouraged to revert to eating pasty foods and wearing dowdy clothes and playing board games, in order that a strategic national reserve of cluelessness might be maintained, a wilderness of taste which would enable people of privilege, like himself, to feel extremely civilized in perpetuity. </blockquote> Franzen is funny and on the money. This book puts him on the literary map. --Tim Appelo [close]
date added	12-05-06 edit book

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Joe rated it:

(review of isbn 0312421273)

11/27/07

bookshelves: american, fiction, postmodern, west-philly-bookclub

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: middle-aged Americans with Existential crisises

Reading for the second time para book club. Here are some of the ideas/questions I pretentiously sent out to everyone (my kind of big takes on The Corrections):

"I distrusted book clubs for treating literature like a cruciferous vegetable that could be choked down only with a spoonful of socializing." – J. Franzen, Why Bother?

1. Last time Heidi talked about Zizek and this is what I have been able to find (exclusively on wikipedia). This is my Chip impression:
...more

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Núria rated it:

09/22/07

bookshelves: 2007, borrowed, favorites

Read in August, 2007

No es nada difícil entender que 'Las correcciones' guste "a todo el mundo", porque engancha. Está impecablemente escrita: con un gran dominio de las elipsis, los flashbacks, los giros argumentales, los clímax, etc.. No creo que sea la gran novela americana. Pero sí que es una de las grandes novelas americanas que existen. El tema no podría ser otro que la decadencia y derrumbamiento de una familia, que acaba simbolizando el fin de los ideales del sueño americano.

Alfred y Eni...more No es nada difícil entender que 'Las correcciones' guste "a todo el mundo", porque engancha. Está impecablemente escrita: con un gran dominio de las elipsis, los flashbacks, los giros argumentales, los clímax, etc.. No creo que sea la gran novela americana. Pero sí que es una de las grandes novelas americanas que existen. El tema no podría ser otro que la decadencia y derrumbamiento de una familia, que acaba simbolizando el fin de los ideales del sueño americano.

Alfred y Enid son un matrimonio jubilado del Medio Oeste. Alfred tiene parkinson y está en plena decadencia física. Él en su día había sido un padre y un marido autoritario y estricto, patológicamente introvertido, solitario y reprimido, y aún quedan rastros de lo que fue. Enid es una mujer a la que le encantan cosas como las bodas, las flores y los buenos modales, una mujer criticona con un optimismo que la conduce a un estado de negación permanente. Alfred y Enid tienen tres hijos: Gary, Chip y Denise.

Gary es el que aparentemente más ha seguido el camino que Alfred y Enid querían que siguieran sus hijos. Es un banquero de éxito, casado y con tres hijos. Pero su matrimonio es un auténtico campo de batalla y lo que más le preocupa es no dar signos externos de que está deprimido, porque él no está deprimido. Denise es una fría chef adicta al trabajo, aparentemente también triunfadora, pero con tendencia a meterse en relaciones con hombres mayores, preferentemente casados, o también en relaciones destructivas, preferentemente con mujeres en este caso. Chip es el hijo alternativo, el profesor universitario izquierdoso que fue despedido por acostarse con una alumna, y que ahora se ha convertido en un desastre andante, que a los 40 años se ha perforado las orejas y tiene fotos ampliadas de órganos genitales colgados en su lavabo.

Todos los personajes son bastante despreciables y patéticos, e inevitablemente hay momentos en que los acabas odiando pero luego hay momentos en que te compadeces de ellos. Es imposible enamorarse de ninguno, porque no están diseñados para esto, están diseñados para enseñar lo peor de nosotros: lo egoístas, crueles, autoritarios, destructivos... que podemos llegar a ser.

Básicamente toda la acción se concentra en unos tres meses, los tres meses antes de Navidad, en los que Enid se muestra obsesionada por conseguir que por última vez toda la familia se reúna por Navidades en su casa, algo que está realmente chungo, porque nadie a parte de ella le hace la más mínima gracia la idea.

El libro se llama 'Las correcciones' porque la mayoría de personajes creen que haciendo unas pequeñas correcciones en su vida conseguirán encauzarla hacia donde quieren y creen que siempre están a tiempo de hacer estas correcciones. Algunas de las correcciones que los tres hijos quieren hacer es respecto a la vida que han llevado sus padres, porque ninguno de los tres quiere acabar siendo como ellos, pero en el fondo todos lo han acabado siendo.

Todos los hijos a lo largo de la novela acaban tocando fondo y es como ver un choque de trenes. Parece que el mundo idílico del conservador Medio Oeste de sus padres ha sido destruido, pero el caso es que el mundo de sus padres nunca fue un mundo feliz, aunque ciertamente lo aparentaba. Es una novela sobre las apariencias, sobre como todos los personajes intentan aparentar que la vida les va de maravilla. Es una novela remarcablemente pesimista y me ha impactado por muchas cosas, porque es una novela terriblemente rica en lo que se refiere a temas que toca, pero especialmente me ha impactado cómo describe el deterioro físico (y mental) de Alfred, algo que no se suele describir nunca, porque es demasiado desagradable. Y a pesar de todo esto, la novela tiene sentido del humor, cierta ironía y a veces incluso cierta escatología que han conseguido que me riera muchas veces. Es una novela realmente inteligente, y pensada y calculada hasta el más mínimo detalle,...less

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Jordan rated it:

04/26/08

Read in March, 2008

Reading this book a second time (the first being in August last year), I am happy to report that this time, I was able to leave the house and be a fully-functioning member of society (well, as much as I ever am) while in the midst of it. Yay for me!

That's not to say this book didn't have as profound an effect on me the second time around; it did. It was just that I knew what to expect. The first time, I was so hooked that there was nothing else I wanted to do, other than read it. Food ...more Reading this book a second time (the first being in August last year), I am happy to report that this time, I was able to leave the house and be a fully-functioning member of society (well, as much as I ever am) while in the midst of it. Yay for me!

That's not to say this book didn't have as profound an effect on me the second time around; it did. It was just that I knew what to expect. The first time, I was so hooked that there was nothing else I wanted to do, other than read it. Food lost all taste; hobbies lost their lustre; colors muted...okay, possibly going too far, but seriously, it was so good it actually diminished my quality of life, in some paradoxical way. There wasn't anything I wanted to do but read it, yet it was like watching 500 pages of a multi-car collision occuring right in front of my eyes. I'd pick it up, read, get upset, put it down, stare at it for awhile, pick it up, read, etc. ad nauseum. (And I mean that literally - I once felt physically nauseous.)

I hate when people ask you what a book's about. I hate it for many reasons, which include (but are not limited to):
1. It seems like a really lazy way of getting a synopsis so that they can pretend that they've read it.
2. If a book can be properly summed up in thirty seconds, nobody should be reading it anyway.
3. Books worth reading are always about the things in life worth reading and writing about, namely: love, hate, truth, personal freedoms, battles, growth, change, continuity, friendship, betrayal, relationships, the moon, faith, hope, optimism, blindness, narcissism, and me. Not necessarily in that order. And there are more, but I got tired of thinking. Anyway, so any good book will be about some combination of these, and generally, the best books will be about all of 'em. So who needs to ask?

That being said, the one achingly poignant truth of this novel was, for me, the fact that it realizes the deeply seated level of loneliness that pervades life in this country today. It's a rotten condition, and Franzen holds up the mirror to expose it in its stark nakedness.

In short, it's the finest piece of contemporary literature I've ever read. And while my arsenal of contemporary fiction may not be as well-stocked as my classical, well, that's still saying something, i.m.h.o. And, on that note, I'll also add that probably the best thing that contemporary fiction has over classical - and that's why this book ranks number one for me - is that in classical fiction, the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys' are generally clearly delineated. Jane Eyre is good; Blanche Ingram (Mr. Rochester's potential wife) is bad, etc. In contemporary fiction, the line between who's good and bad is blurred to reveal a much more realistic and satisfying portrayal of human virtue and vice. This novel is simply the best actualization of this modern rendering that I've come across. You'll hate, on multiple levels, every character in this novel. You'll also realize that you hate them all because you see yourself in every last one of them. In their awful decisions. In their betrayals. In their utter refusal to take the high (read: societally acceptable) road time and again, and yet, each time, foolishly believing that this time, THIS time, things will turn out differently. You'll hate them for it and you'll love them for it, just as you hate and love yourself for all the goddamn stupid things you do day in and day out.

It's a masterpiece. Read it....less

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Kate rated it:

(review of isbn 0312421273)

01/03/08

bookshelves: borrowed, fiction, post-2000, usa_canada

Read in May, 2007

recommended to Kate by: emily

Conrad told me that Jonathan Franzen has been quoted as saying he deliberately rips off influential late-century American authors such as Pynchon, DeLillo and Roth, but tries to make the prose less difficult, more easily consumed.

Leaving aside for a moment the irony of that statement in light of his outrage over the Oprah thing, that is retarded. Those authors are not great because their writing is accessible when the complexity is removed.

It was when one of the main characters in The Corrections ...more

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Elle rated it:

05/13/08

Read in April, 2008

I am not normally a fan of straight-forward contemporary fiction (at least the fiction that I have so far read). However, Jonathan Franzen's novel wins by way of several virtues: rich prose, engaging language, and heartbreak. The novel is one long heartbreak from beginning to end; as familiar as if someone took every pain, anxiety, and neurosis you had ever encountered or struggled with in your life and distilled it into a dysfunction that was not your own.

Enid is my mother's controlling ...more I am not normally a fan of straight-forward contemporary fiction (at least the fiction that I have so far read). However, Jonathan Franzen's novel wins by way of several virtues: rich prose, engaging language, and heartbreak. The novel is one long heartbreak from beginning to end; as familiar as if someone took every pain, anxiety, and neurosis you had ever encountered or struggled with in your life and distilled it into a dysfunction that was not your own.

Enid is my mother's controlling nature, Alfred is my father's pride in the face of failing health, I am Denise's self-destructive sexual tendencies, Chip's rudderless existence, Gary's depression and denial. I'm sure many readers could say the same. You look at them and all the things they do absolutely backwards and you hate them and hate yourself for relating to them.

All the layers of every family's--every familiar average American family's--turmoil is laid bare over and over again, juxtaposed against the social commentary of each character's views on society, politics, and economy through subtle and artful means. Franzen weaves together intricate facts and histories as to make them truly a part of the narrative. As much a part of the overall punch-in-the-gut that is the novel as Chip's failing attempts at hipster intelligentsia, Denise's over-achieving psychosis, or Alfred's scatological hallucinations.

When going through the book, one is introduced to a feeling of gradual decline. As if the construction of this average Midwestern family were dilapidating before our eyes; the roof rotting and the foundation crumbling under secret hopes, selfish desires, and all the things we go through in our lives but never ever speak of with our families. In what seems like evasive efforts to fix their problems, in taking the long, secretive, denial-filled path toward dealing with pain, the Lamberts unravel themselves individually. Franzen has created very perceptive portrayals of nearly every American cliché and has done so in a way that makes the reader feel alternately ashamed and self-important.

The end felt dissatisfying in the sense that nothing is wrapped up neatly. It's finally all turned to rubble and what remains of the structure stands shakily on all the things we refuse to talk about until they affect us too deeply to ignore them, which left me with a feeling of despondence and only a vague sense of satisfaction.

People often touch upon the humor of the book, but to me, the entire thing struck me much like a joke so ribald and sad and true that no one is able to laugh at it. Or the very least, I wasn't, but that is a statement heavily influenced by personal bias and experience.

It's a moving novel, and if at the conclusion of it--as with every heartbreak--you don't feel a little clearer, a little more masochistic, then you might need to lose something or someone and lose badly....less

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Sarah rated it:

07/07/08

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: middle-aged ex-Midwesterner dudes who hate their parents.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

That’s right, Jonathan Franzen - yesterday on my lunch break I powered through and finally finished your 550-page ode to being an unsatisfied ex-Midwesterner.

For the most part, I’m glad I didn’t just quit reading it. It starts with a section on the parents, then does one on each of the kids before coming back to the parents and then jumping around a bit as they’re all home/trying to get home for one last Christmas together. I’m glad I finished it out for one reason - I actually did...more That’s right, Jonathan Franzen - yesterday on my lunch break I powered through and finally finished your 550-page ode to being an unsatisfied ex-Midwesterner.

For the most part, I’m glad I didn’t just quit reading it. It starts with a section on the parents, then does one on each of the kids before coming back to the parents and then jumping around a bit as they’re all home/trying to get home for one last Christmas together. I’m glad I finished it out for one reason - I actually did enjoy the section about the daughter, and, to a lesser degree, the Christmas section. I don’t know if they were actually good or if I was only enjoying myself because compared to the self-satisfied bullshit that makes up the other 85% of the book, having a story told in a somewhat straightforward manner was just a welcome change. That’s not to say that I need my stories to be straightforward - I might have enjoyed Chip’s pretention and the endless timeline jumping of his section, or even Gary’s unrelenting paranoia, Enid’s compulsive need for control, and Alfred’s unlucky combination of advancing dementia and incontinence.

Might have, had it not been for the fact that as Franzen writes these things, you can tell he’s completely chuffed that everyone reading it is going to eat it up. When Alfred is haunted by imaginary turds, it is difficult to tell where his dementia ends and Franzen overcomplicating his story begins, and it’s the same case with the failures of Chip and Gary - to what extent are they meant to be insufferable and self-important, and to what extent is his smugness at how wonderful and unconventional his story is bleeding into the story itself?

Denise’s section and the final section stand out because in these places, the story doesn’t overwhelm itself. We see characters interact and actually go somewhere with a story without spending dozens of pages bogged down in misguided introspection - in Denise’s case, I don’t know why it happens - maybe of all the Lamberts, she’s the most at peace with her failings. Maybe Franzen can’t project as much of himself onto a secret lesbian affair. Maybe here, he just wanted to tell the story.

When it comes to the final section, however, it’s very clear why I was able to stand it - by spending a few paragraphs or a few pages in each character’s point of view, rather than a hundred pages at a time, Franzen can’t get caught up in any one place. The switching, and the fact that the relatively short section must cover a specific series of events over a few days, allows for something resembling momentum to be kept, and keeps the last stretch of The Corrections from drowning in its own bullshit.

Overall grade: C-. Not without merit, but the bad far outweighs the good. [Maybe in a few decades I'll love it? I had the disctinct impression that if I were a middle-aged ex-Midwestern man who hated my parents, instead of NONE OF THOSE THINGS, I'd actually get what all the critics on the back were raving about.]...less

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emily rated it:

05/23/07

Read in December, 2002

I'm writing this review in response to Kate's review, which tore it up with a lot of intelligent points. I feel the need to respond because I loved this book, and even re-read it about a year ago.

One point Kate makes is that this book is full of rotten characters and some of them don't stand up off the page. (My mother's main complaint, too, was that the characters weren't nice.) I'd agree that there are a couple characters who are flimsy (mainly, SPOILER, the couple Denise has her thing ...more I'm writing this review in response to Kate's review, which tore it up with a lot of intelligent points. I feel the need to respond because I loved this book, and even re-read it about a year ago.

One point Kate makes is that this book is full of rotten characters and some of them don't stand up off the page. (My mother's main complaint, too, was that the characters weren't nice.) I'd agree that there are a couple characters who are flimsy (mainly, SPOILER, the couple Denise has her thing with), but the argument about the rotten characters, perhaps it's a personal thing -- I just don't care. The rotten attributes of the people, I thought, didn't exist to make them rotten as much as to show the secret lives these characters were living, the flaws in need of "correction." (Correction is certainly a heavily played theme, but Franzen goes about it addressing so many different parts of personal and public life that I find it hard to hold this interlacing against the novel.) Hm, the way that last sentence is written seems to imply Franzen is formulaic, which I don't mean to say. I mean to say Franzen is a master at craft. And again on the "rotten characters" point -- maybe I'm a pessimist, but I think all people have ugly things inside. And I think this is what makes us human.

The main thing I love about this novel, the redeeming quality I would like to use as a shield, is the author's mastery of psychic distance and perspective. Using third person, Franzen manages to craft the interior drives, passions, and thoughts of Chip, Denise, and Gary with complete distinction. I really had the sense that these were three different people, and for an author to do that in different books, much less ONE book, is brilliance (think of all the oeuvres jammed with main characters who are all stale, redressed versions of one another). At the time I read it, I honestly felt the only time I'd seen different perspectives drawn so well was between Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus.

Another thing I like about this book is the arc. Again, craft, sure, but can't I care about the craft? Compared to books of similar lengths, this book has both the parabolic & the exponential. I remember that even though I had already read the part about (SPOILER AGAIN KINDA) the father's discovery on the work bench in the basement in the New Yorker first, when it showed up in the novel there was enough compression to make me weep.

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Steve rated it:

07/22/08

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Steve by: Bob's Top 5 Lists

First let me say that this Franzen guy, he can write. That by itself justifies a minimum of 3 stars. He turns a phrase as well as anyone in modern literature, with a style that is both artful and incisive. His brainpower is on display just about every page. In a way, though, that’s part of my frustration with the book. When someone as clever as Franzen is sharing insights, you might hope for some traits to borrow or views to adopt from his characters—something to include in your own ec...more First let me say that this Franzen guy, he can write. That by itself justifies a minimum of 3 stars. He turns a phrase as well as anyone in modern literature, with a style that is both artful and incisive. His brainpower is on display just about every page. In a way, though, that’s part of my frustration with the book. When someone as clever as Franzen is sharing insights, you might hope for some traits to borrow or views to adopt from his characters—something to include in your own eclectic portfolio. But the Lamberts (the family he profiles in the book) lack the people skills that could redeem them. They’re relationship nitwits, in fact, especially with each other. It’s like they can’t see one move ahead on the chessboard of human interactions. It’s apparently a mystery how pointing out each other’s warts can lead to hard feelings all around.

Despite the corrections each is meant to have made, they show precious few signs of growth. Alfred and Enid, the elderly parents, are less developed probably because Franzen can’t imagine much depth for their demographic. Alfred has failing health, both mentally and physically, and was never very engaging even before. Enid is defined by her idée fixe—that a Norman Rockwell Christmas should be the family’s loftiest goal. The adult kids fall well short of the happy ideal. Gary is financially savvy, but in a sad trap partly of his own making with his wife and boys. Chip, who I’m guessing is the one Franzen relates to himself (intellectual, idealistic, and in a funk due to bad luck, not bad intent) is given some hope, but we’re never sure how real it is with him. Denise, the baby of the family, had a bumpy ride, too—up and down with relationships (mostly down), her career, and her empathy quotient.

The many flaws are not entirely far-fetched, though. On a bad day you might imagine going part of the way to their dyspeptic extremes before impulse controls contravene. The author is wise in that cool, disaffected, modern American way about the assholishness of the world. I’ll add another star to the rating for his snarky elan in revealing it. I like character studies, in general, sometimes including characters I dislike. Besides, I don’t want to seem so middle-aged, middlebow, and Midwestern that I missed the point: that of the hipster’s “tragedy as farce”.
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Leah rated it:

05/07/08

Read in May, 2008

recommends it for: one and all.

One of the first great current novels that I've read--I honestly LOVED this book. I loved its expanse, the character's quirks, the fact that I felt complete hatred and total sympathy for nearly every character at some point in the book. The fact that the major plot point hinged on one simple, relatable fact--the mother who wants everyone home for Christmas. The book is global, but local. Urban, but brings forth and discusses and analyze midwestern traditions and values. I nearly CHOKED when ...more One of the first great current novels that I've read--I honestly LOVED this book. I loved its expanse, the character's quirks, the fact that I felt complete hatred and total sympathy for nearly every character at some point in the book. The fact that the major plot point hinged on one simple, relatable fact--the mother who wants everyone home for Christmas. The book is global, but local. Urban, but brings forth and discusses and analyze midwestern traditions and values. I nearly CHOKED when I read the mother's inner monologue about "nice weddings" where everything matches, even the couple. I felt like I was hearing a nice elderly lady from my hometown, smalltown church recite it word for word. I forced my husband to listen to me read it to him out loud. Franzen captures the midwestern voice of those parents SO perfectly--they are a hundred different people that I know who "just can't understand" why I'm over here in Africa.

The main aspect that I admire, though, is this word I keep hearing in my mind..."current" or "timely" would work. It actually deals with the issues of this century--of technology, new forms of communication and child-rearing, the issue that many people do not automatically stay on the street where they grew up or live in the same town as their parents. How do those relationships change? What does this mean for the "family"? What do we do when those things start to fall apart or alter beyond recognition? What do we do with our parent's expectations for us?

Franzen also captures the resentment of the three children for their past and for their parents, yet their ungodly sense of obligation towards those roots. The voice of this novel comes from multiple sources, and each are captured so well. It's hard to think of an area of life that he doesn't touch on--there's even a little international tragedy/corruption to finish things off. In fact, that would be one of my few complaints--that it is so (unbelievably) expansive as far as the parts of the world that it manages to touch. It was unbelievable, unrealistic, yet completely perfectly believable and total realism at the same time.

I loved it. I need to read it again. This was just a first taste......less

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Angela rated it:

01/15/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: people dying a slow and painful death and want to make it worse

A seemingly unending stream of word vomit.

I can think of no other way to describe this thing.

I really, really despised almost everything about The Corrections. I finished it solely so that I could write a horrible review and have it be valid.

At no single point before the last 10 pages of this 566-page monster did I feel a shred of sympathy with any of the characters. There were several moments where I thought Franzen would have been better off writing dialogue-for-the-average-Joe ins...more

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Justin rated it:

01/09/08

Read in January, 2008

I find myself of two minds after finally getting around to reading The Corrections. While Franzen is undoubtedly a supremely talented writer, I can’t help but feel that what could have been a legitimate classic novel was ruined by the author’s idiosyncrasies.

Unlike most people, my complaints don’t lie in the novel’s hyper-sexuality or its cast of unlikable characters. Sex in literature has never bothered me as long as it serves to advance the plot in some way (which, I believ...more

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Stormysleep added it (review of isbn 0312421273)

09/29/07

Jonathan Franzen's exhilarating novel The Corrections tells a spellbinding story with sexy comic brio, and evokes a quirky family akin to Anne Tyler's, only bitter. Franzen's great at describing Christmas homecomings gone awry, cruise-ship follies, self-deluded academics, breast-obsessed screenwriters, stodgy old farts and edgy Tribeca bohemians equally at sea in their lives, and the mad, bad, dangerous worlds of the Internet boom and the fissioning post-Soviet East.[return][return]All five memb...more Jonathan Franzen's exhilarating novel The Corrections tells a spellbinding story with sexy comic brio, and evokes a quirky family akin to Anne Tyler's, only bitter. Franzen's great at describing Christmas homecomings gone awry, cruise-ship follies, self-deluded academics, breast-obsessed screenwriters, stodgy old farts and edgy Tribeca bohemians equally at sea in their lives, and the mad, bad, dangerous worlds of the Internet boom and the fissioning post-Soviet East.[return][return]All five members of the Lambert family get their due, as everybody's lives swirl out of control. Paterfamilias Alfred is slipping into dementia, even as one of his inventions inspires a pharmaceutical giant to revolutionize treatment of his disease. His stubborn wife, Enid, specializes in denial; so do their kids, each in an idiosyncratic way. Their hepcat son, Chip, lost a college sinecure by seducing a student, and his new career as a screenwriter is in peril. Chip's sister, Denise, is a chic chef perpetually in hot water, romantically speaking; banker brother Gary wonders if his stifling marriage is driving him nuts. We inhabit these troubled minds in turn, sinking into sorrow punctuated by laughter, reveling in Franzen's satirical eye:[return][return] Gary in recent years had observed, with plate tectonically cumulative anxiety, that population was continuing to flow out of the Midwest and toward the cooler coasts.... Gary wished that all further migration [could] be banned and all Midwesterners encouraged to revert to eating pasty foods and wearing dowdy clothes and playing board games, in order that a strategic national reserve of cluelessness might be maintained, a wilderness of taste which would enable people of privilege, like himself, to feel extremely civilized in perpetuity. [return][return]Franzen is funny and on the money. I didn't want to read this book because of the whole Oprah thing, but my stepdaughter gave it to me for a Christmas/Hannukah gift, so I was happy to read it since she enjoyed it so much. I loved it, and mutilated the book by underlining and starring so many passages....less

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Siobhan rated it:

01/14/08

Read in January, 2008

recommended to Siobhan by: Daniel
recommends it for: anyone who can handle a dose of sad reality

I just finished this book. Literally closed it, then came upstairs to write about it. My god. Heartbreaking is the first word i can think to write. It is depressing and hopeless and poignant and fearfully, painfully truthful. It is the best account I've ever read of the facets of a typical American family and every reason I need to know that I can't and don't want to live without God.
Jonathan Franzen's description of the character Alfred's Parkinson's disease and disintegration into dementia ...more

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Johnsergeant rated it:

11/27/07

bookshelves: audiblecom, audiobook

Read in October, 2001

Downloaded from Audible.com

Narrator: Dylan Baker
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2001
Length: 9 hours (abridged)

Audie Award Winner, Fiction (Abridged), 2002
Book Sense Book of the Year Award Finalist, Adult Fiction, 2002
National Book Award Winner, Best Fiction, 2001
An Oprah Book Club Selection

"When critics refer to 'The Great American Novel' this is it, people!" (Oprah Winfrey)
"The brightest, boldest, and most ambitious novel I've read in many years." (Pat Con...more

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Josh rated it:

12/27/07

Read in January, 2007

recommends it for: Non-Americans (as an insight to the American psyche)

To me, one of the most illustrating scenes in this novel is when (and this is poorly paraphrased from memory) the Lithuanian politician Gitanas is showing one of our protagonists, Chip, scars he received from being tortured in a Soviet prison. "Do you have any scars?" he snipes. Chip doesn't even reply, instead looking away sheepishly. "As I suspected," Gitanas snorts, "Self inflicted. You're pitiful."

Like Chip, the scars of most characters in this boo...more

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Mary-Louise rated it:

(review of isbn 0312421273)

07/06/07

Read in June, 2006

I was recommended this book by a friend last summer, and read the first half while laid up on my parents' couch in North Carolina after having shoulder surgery. It took me a year to finish it because my relationship with the person who recommended it to me was a rollercoaster. Every time we'd be at low point, I'd have to stop reading it to keep from thinking of him.

I finished it just the other day, and it was perfect timing. It made me really ponder the human condition and what it really mea...more

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