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The Corrections

by Jonathan Franzen

3.66 · rating details · 39,833 ratings · 4,220 reviews

The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century-a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes.
After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family ...more

653 pages

Published September 2nd 2002

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Nov 30, 2010

Bells rated it

My first Franzen.

Really I don't even know how to start this review. I could begin, I suppose, by discussing the pure perfection of his writing. It is REALLY DAMN GOOD. If I could break reviews down into little sections, he'd get 10 stars for his style/technique. Excellent.

On the other hand, I can't give this a full 5 stars. Or can I? Yeah, it was well written. The depth of the characters and the storyline maybe just a hair short of phenomenal. ???

Yet...
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Jan 03, 2008

Kate rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Kate by: Emily

Shelves: borrowed, fiction, usa_canada, post-2000

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 cha...more

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Jan 15, 2008

Angela rated it

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...more

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Jul 22, 2010

Kemper rated it

Shelves: 100, plain-old-fiction, modern-lit

While reading The Corrections I really understood the meaning of ‘schadenfreude’ because I despised almost every character in this book so much that the more miserable their lives got, the more enjoyment I took from it. And when a shotgun was introduced late in the novel, I read the rest of it with my fingers crossed while muttering “Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease.” in the hope that at least one of those pitiful shits would end up taking a load of buckshot to the face.

The ...moreWhile reading The Corrections I really understood the meaning of ‘schadenfreude’ because I despised almost every character in this book so much that the more miserable their lives got, the more enjoyment I took from it. And when a shotgun was introduced late in the novel, I read the rest of it with my fingers crossed while muttering “Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease.” in the hope that at least one of those pitiful shits would end up taking a load of buckshot to the face.

The Lambert’s are a Midwestern family, and while the grown children have all moved to Philadelphia and New York, the parents have remained in St. Jude. The father, Alfred, was a workaholic middle manager for a railroad and he's the kind of joyless repressed bastard that considered all pleasures frivolous and taking a coffee break as a massive character flaw. Now retired, he’s suffering from Parkinson's and dementia. He deserves it.

Enid is the mother. (Seriously, Franzen? Enid? I’ve lived in the Midwest all my life and have never met an Enid. I know you were making a point on how square the old school Midwesterners are, but that‘s pushing it.) She’s a delusional nagging harpy from hell who aims her passive aggressive attacks at whichever family member has recently burst the bubble of whatever fantasy she is currently clinging to. Through most of the book, Enid has her heart set on one last family Christmas at the house in St. Jude, and the evil bitch will stop at nothing to get it.

Gary is the oldest and a successful investment adviser in Philly, but he married a woman who wants all ties severed with his family and has a special way of getting his sons to join her in her efforts. Torn between trying to placate his wife and his mother while letting their denials of reality make him crazy and trying to be 'the responsible one', Gary is running himself ragged to avoid admitting that he’s depressed. Someone should pimp slap him so hard that his fillings fly out of his teeth.

Chip, the middle son, is a waste of skin with a special talent for self-destruction. He torched his academic career as a professor just as he was about to get tenure by having an affair with a student and then becoming obsessed with her. He’s now a mooch in New York working on a screenplay so horrible that it'd make a Michael Bay movie look good by comparison. He’s also the kind of douche bag who thinks that getting rivets put in his ears and wearing leather pants is cool even though he’s over thirty.

Denise is the one character that I actually had some sympathy for. A daddy’s girl who adopted Alfred’s work ethic, she’s a successful chef of an upscale restaurant, but she’s also got a messy personal life, including trying to figure out her sexuality. At least she’s the one member of this dysfunctional hellspawned family that knows she has issues and tries not to deceive herself any more than most people do.

The weird thing is that even though I loathed the Lamberts and almost every supporting character, too, that I actually enjoyed this book. I usually can’t stand stories where all the characters’ problems are self-inflicted emotional wounds due to a basic refusal to admit and face reality. However, I have to admit that I found this compelling reading. Maybe I was into it for all the wrong reasons. Namely, that I hated the Lamberts so much that their continued suffering brought sweet tears of joy to my eyes. That’s probably not what Franzen intended, but he had to create some incredibly vivid characters and do justice to their pathetic lives to make me hate them so very, very much.
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Aug 01, 2011

K.D. rated it

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 and 1001

Shelves: 1001-core

I enjoyed reading this book. It is one of those rare instances when I fully agree to all those blurbs written in the front and back covers of a book. No wonder that The Millions (Reader's Choice) voted this book as #1 novel of this decade (2000-2009) that is now about to end. It is also in the 501 Must Read Books, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Time 100, Oprah Selections and won the National Book Award.

This book was published in 2001 at around the same time as when 9/11 ha...moreI enjoyed reading this book. It is one of those rare instances when I fully agree to all those blurbs written in the front and back covers of a book. No wonder that The Millions (Reader's Choice) voted this book as #1 novel of this decade (2000-2009) that is now about to end. It is also in the 501 Must Read Books, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Time 100, Oprah Selections and won the National Book Award.

This book was published in 2001 at around the same time as when 9/11 happened. Since this book is about a dysfunctional (that needed "corrections") American family, each of the American readers - critics included - was probably able to see him/herself in at least one of the many characters of this book. Franzen wrote every page beautifully with all his characters well-developed that you could almost see them moving, talking and breathing. I had to hold my breath on its last few pages this morning as Franzen put the conclusion "The Corrections" closing the life story of Alfred (who refused to eat so he died) and Enid (who still sees hope despite being a new widow at the age of 75).

There was a handful of other books that I got reminded of while reading this novel. The Prince of Tides by Frank Conroy is also about a dysfunctional family of 5 with 2 sons and a daughter. The way it tackled the history of a contemporary American family also reminded me of American Pastoral by Philip Roth. The subject of dementia reminded me of two novels I recently enjoyed: Herzog by Saul Bellow and Surfacing by Margaret Atwood. Related to the last novel, I am always fascinated on how these (Franzen and Atwood) exceptional authors were able to write the thoughts of a demented person. Do they really have an idea on what is going on inside a crazy person's mind?

When Franzen refused to show up for an Oprah interview (because his book was chosen), he explained that he did not want this book to be seen as "book that mothers read" or something like that. I agree. This is for everyone, including non-Americans (like me).

One misleading small point is the picture of a child on the front cover of the book. He must have been Jonah who does not want to eat his vegetables. However, the picture seems to be in a Christmas table and I was sort of expecting that Jonah would be there in the last Christmas part. This book was collecting dust in my bookshelf but I picked it up as I thought it was about a child attending a Christmas dinner. Tricky picture, huh?

Last point to admire: the many, many small characters during the cruise were made to speak all at the same time without confusing the reader. I saw this in some of Jose Javier Reyes' movies: 2 or more characters talking at the same time but you could still understand them as they are in different tone and decibels. It's a wonder that this could be put in a prose by Franzen. Brilliant...
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Sep 19, 2010

Paul rated it

Shelves: novels

Continuing my attempt to review my 5 star books which I have pusillanimously avoided so far....

JONATHAN FRANZEN'S TOP TEN RULES FOR WRITERS (as given to The Guardian on 20 Feb 2010) with additional comments by me :

1. The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

Hmm, well, maybe - some books you walk around and poke sticks at, they're designed that way; some books you take your machete and hack into the meat and the filth and the hell with an...more

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Apr 13, 2007

Alan rated it

· review of another edition

From start to finish on my third time through this book - my first experiencing it through text and not audio – I was struck anew at not only the bleak, hilarious story it tells but at the beauty of the writing, at the way Franzen knows how to turn a phrase.

One thing I kind of noticed on my own but had my eye made more aware of by a New York Times review of the book was how meta-fictive the book is. The Times – or whatever publication it was I found on the internet as I obsessed ove...moreFrom start to finish on my third time through this book - my first experiencing it through text and not audio – I was struck anew at not only the bleak, hilarious story it tells but at the beauty of the writing, at the way Franzen knows how to turn a phrase.

One thing I kind of noticed on my own but had my eye made more aware of by a New York Times review of the book was how meta-fictive the book is. The Times – or whatever publication it was I found on the internet as I obsessed over this book – pointed out that, like Chip’s screenplay, Franzen’s book has a “hump” that you have to get over before you really get into it. I would argue that this hump is the first 40 – 50 pages of the book, where the reader encounters Chip in the present tense as he flakes out on lunch with his parents, without yet knowing about his past, specifically about his tragicomic affair with Melissa Paquette. An aside; Melissa’s father, Tom, is mentioned, an almost throw-away reference, later in the book, during Denise’s story
I didn't notice until this third read through, but it significantly increased my incredulity at the author’s artistry.

An example of the novel’s commentary on itself that offers more insight into understanding the book comes much later in the story however. As their Lithuanian marketing scam crashes down around them in a hail of stones and broken glass, Gitanas tells chip that his life is a tragedy that has become a farce. Later, after they have crashed the Stomper and Chip has been stripped and robbed by policemen in ski masks, this idea comes back to Chip, and he realizes that it is the approach he should have taken in rewriting his ailing screenplay. Franzen’s novel goes from great to classic if looked at through this lens, tragedy rewritten as farce. Some people I have spoken to in the course of my evangelizing about the greatness of this book have told me that they found it incredibly depressing. While it certainly has depressing elements and characters that are at times loathsome, and indeed the very premise of the novel centers around the different forms of depression the five main characters experience, depressing would not be on a list of the top 100 words I would use to describe this book. I think this is because I viewed the majority of the potentially depressing scenes not as tragic, but as farcical, especially upon repeated readings. While it may indeed be depressing to witness Gary ranting at Enid at the end of the novel, casting a pall on the only positive thing she has had to look forward to over the course of the story, when the reader considers that Gary has previously tried to avoid his own depression / prove his sanity by getting liquored up and hopping around on a ladder with a running hedgeclipper and gouging his hand, which he then places in a Branola bag, we recognize Gary’s rantings as a further byproduct of his own faults and are able to laugh at his overcompensation. Indeed, Franzen’s entire novel is tragedy re-imagined as Farce. There’s nothing inherently funny about Parkinson’s disease or the depression that many people experience, for whatever reason, in their dotage, but it certainly IS funny that both of these things manifest themselves in Alfred through hallucinations of anthropomorphized turds.

Since finishing this book for the third time, I have had a hard time becoming engrossed in another novel. In terms of scope and story, I think it is closer to Dickens than anything else I have ever read, which is pretty good company to be in...

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May 23, 2007

Emily rated it

Shelves: favorites

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 he...moreI'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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Aug 23, 2007

Suzanne Macartney rated it

Recommends it for: lovers of family drama

Shelves: favoriteauthors

Didn't want to like Franzen. He is the guy who jilted Oprah and her bookclub causing major media hoopla a few years back. About the same time he suggested 'although women comprise the bulk of readers, they don't read serious literature'. Aaaaaaghh! Determined to avoid this guy I passed by his book at B&N many times that year, but then decided I could critcize him more properly if acquainted with his work.

Ahem. It's a satisfying read. Grown-up, richly detailed, fascinating character...more

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Apr 26, 2008

Jordan rated it

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...moreReading 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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Aug 18, 2007

Guy rated it

· review of another edition

Would've been five stars if they'd edited out the father's talking-turd hallucinations.

That image of the boy at the dinner table, given the choice of staying until he had forced himself to clean his place or accepting the threatened spanking, sitting there, and sitting there, and sitting there...

A midwestern 60's-70's childhood in a proverbial nutshell.

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Nov 02, 2010

Harold Griffin rated it

This was my first exposure to Jonathan Franzen. On the basis of The Corrections, I think that his anointment to greatness is more than a little premature. Still, I found the core story of Alfred and Enid Lambert and their children insightful and compelling, and a very good read. I'd give it 3-1/2 stars, but forced to choose between 3 and 4, I'll be a trifle overgenerous.

The problem for me is the digressions, which might be a better title for the book. I love a good digression -- Lord...moreThis was my first exposure to Jonathan Franzen. On the basis of The Corrections, I think that his anointment to greatness is more than a little premature. Still, I found the core story of Alfred and Enid Lambert and their children insightful and compelling, and a very good read. I'd give it 3-1/2 stars, but forced to choose between 3 and 4, I'll be a trifle overgenerous.

The problem for me is the digressions, which might be a better title for the book. I love a good digression -- Lord, I dutifully finished Tristram Shandy -- but not silly ones. Some of Franzen's digressions, like the tangled tale of Chip Lambert and his Lithuanian adventure, are for my taste wildly overdeveloped, while ultimately leading nowhere worth traveling. Franzen does a generally nice job of tying together the wildly-cast loose ends of his narrative, but some (like Gary's small comeuppance) are unsatisfyingly resolved in the rather abrupt conclusion.

A recent essay in Atlantic derided Franzen for his trite language and poor word choice. Based on The Corrections, I think the criticism was a trifle excessive. Still, I was frequently struck by what seemed the very wrong word: the coarse, common or comic word at the precise wrong time. The imaginary talking turd and its vocabulary are just one instance of many bad linguistic choices that could have done with, shall we say, some editorial Correction. Perhaps not as severe as the corrections considered by Lloyd the bartender for his wife and children in The Shining, but corrections nonetheless. Was the editor out to lunch?

Franzen has been much compared to the late John Updike. At this stage, he reminds me most of Updike at his worst: the Updike of novels like Roger's Version, who wanted to fling at the reader all the arcane mathematics and science he had learned in his voracious research, whether or not the terminology is comprehensible or necessary to the tale. Franzen's over-detailed expositions of Alfred's metallurgical experiments, Denise's tastes in haute cuisine, Chip's Lithuanian promotion-fraud and Gary's bio-tech investments are dizzying, but interrupt too much while adding too little to human insight. They detract from the core of the story, which despite these criticisms is interesting, thoughtful and mature.

Despite these criticisms, I regarded this as a book well worth reading. Hopefully with a few more tries Franzen will pare down his excesses and become the great writer some think he is.

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Harold Griffin Mark,

Thanks for the very nice comments. My reading is stalled, so I've reverted to posting questions that are popular only in VERY limited c...more
Nov 10, 2010 11:32am

Mark Hi,
Saw somewhere that Franzen had written an essay on the future of the novel or something of that kind so I might search out to see if he has w...more
Nov 11, 2010 05:04am

Sep 17, 2011

Ian Graye rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, read-2011

An Opportunity to Make A Few Corrections

I read “The Corrections” pre-Good Reads and originally rated it four stars.

I wanted to re-read (and review) it, before starting “Freedom”.

I originally dropped it a star because I thought there was something unsatisfying about the whole Lithuanian adventure.

Perhaps, when I re-read it, I wouldn’t object to it as much and I could improve my rating.

Having just finished it, I could probably add a half-...more

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Jul 29, 2008

Sarah rated it

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 e...moreThat’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 pretension 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 distinct 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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May 13, 2008

Elle rated it

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 cont...moreI 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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Jan 09, 2008

Justin Sheppard rated it

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 believe, it d...more

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Aug 19, 2007

Stan rated it

Recommends it for: Your enemies.

Is it possible to spite an author by purposely not finishing his/her book? I have purposely stopped about 70 pages short of finishing The Corrections to spite Jonathan Franzen. This book is a maddening depiction of unlikable members of a wretched family. Redeeming values are in short supply, but words, descriptors, and asides certainly are not.

Maybe the mark of great literature is the raising of one's ire. If this is true, Franzen has found success. At times, I was angry readi...more

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Aug 04, 2008

Aaron rated it

I would like my 11 hours back, however, maddeningly, the fact that I will never get that time again is a theme of the novel. For all aura of rebellion, this is a profoundly square book. The style is flat, descriptive, and free of quirk and pop cultural groundings; the politics is no more radical then the average urban reader of books such as these (even the “rejection” of Oprah fits squarely into the political framework of a very recognizable type of urban professional). Despite matter of fact o...more

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Aug 21, 2008

Garrett rated it

Ah, The Corrections. It was almost amazing. Franzen has managed to write a riveting story wherein nothing much happens and none of the characters are that likable. The book was carried purely by his writing. (In that regard, it was the "Anti-Da Vinci Code"--a horribly written book with a lot of interesting action and little insight.) Franzen's ability to round out characters, even incidental bit players, was amazing. He hinted at elaborate back stories for everything--the people, the p...more

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Aug 01, 2007

Mike rated it

· review of another edition

Here is the (I think) amazing thing about this book. I cannot relate to the characters in any way but I still loved them. For the most part they are detestable but I cheered for them anyway. Maybe it’s because just below the surface they have a layer of humanness trying to get out. It’s almost as if in their busy efforts to forget who/where they came from they also forgot how to have compassion for others. I don’t know, it’s strange. There are very little redeeming qualities in the charact...more

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Jul 19, 2007

Jason rated it

· review of another edition

Substantial portions of this multi-generational, geographically far flung family drama are worthy of a 5-star rating. Multiple characters are so richly drawn and deeply convincing their trials and tribulations feel real and keep the reader glued to the page. Quite simply, the fortunes of Franzen's best-crafted characters make this novel. Fortunately for the reader, this Franzen is at work for about half the novel, and the results are often brilliant.

On the flip side, Franzen fails t...more

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Nov 27, 2007

Joe rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: middle-aged Americans with Existential crisises

Shelves: fiction, american, postmodern, west-philly-bookclub, criticism

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 ...more

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Jul 24, 2007

Leigh rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Leigh by: Dad

Shelves: novels, won-national-book-award, queer-issues, psychology

Sort of reminiscent to me of late Philip Roth, often too self-consciously artistic, probably too long, and at times too coldly, mockingly glib. The treatments of Gary and Enid were particularly off-putting, and I could've done without the repeated moralizing on "self-improvement" (self-started business, self-medicating, self-aggrandizing). I also found Chip and his Lithuania interlude--which seemed to be intended as a sort of fulcrum of the novel--bewildering and not especially inter...more

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May 11, 2007

Rob rated it

There are some sections and characters that don't play as well as the rest for me, but that's the only thing that keeps this one from being a 5 (which I think of as something like "not written by human hands"). Here, I'm harsher on the imperfections because of the parts that really were transcendently good [Jonathan Franzen, as you are undoubtedly reading this, take note].

The opening chapter had me grinning ferociously at the pages in front of me, and many of the later pas...more

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Dec 16, 2008

Abraham rated it

Recommends it for: people who like long well-written pieces of prose

Shelves: fiction

Well, it's a damn well written book. Franzen creates scenes in such minute and often excruciating detail that you find yourself squirming where you sit. And his characters are so clearly of this era and of this set of issues that it becomes clear how romanticized the fiction writers of the world have become, focussing on such a pastoral idea of the problems of Americans, stuck, generally, in a time some five decades old. I love it and I hated it. I used the book as an explanation for a foreign-l...more

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Oct 15, 2008

Jeremy added it

Was anybody else bothered by the fact that the "fictional" city of St. Jude turns out to just be a stand-in for Franzen's hometown of St. Louis? So that, by extrapolation, the parents in the book are stand-ins for Franzen's own parents? This bothered me throughout. Either own up to the fact that you're situating your novel in your hometown (and rather viciously depicting your own parents), or make it a more generic mid-sized midwestern city with a name that doesn't so clearly parallel ...more

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Nov 15, 2010

Karenina rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: americana

tre stelle, perché non so resistere ad un personaggio che alla domanda "a cosa serve la vita?" risponde: non lo so, ma non credo che lo scopo sia vincere (cito a memoria ma il senso è questo). Per il resto di difetti questo libro ne ha molti dal mio punto di vista: come per altri autori americani della stessa generazione, il rischio "minestrone" è in agguato, è tutto "troppo": dal padre allucinato alla madre castrante, dalla figlia sessualmente promiscua al figlio f...more

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Sep 05, 2010

Caitlin Constantine rated it

So you know how you can hear so much about a particular thing and how amazing it is and how it seems like everything thinks that thing is so amazing and you must check it out because you will love it because it is THAT AMAZING, and how the tsunami of AMAZINGNESS is so overwhelming that it wipes out any inklings of curiosity you might have had about that thing, and you end up studiously avoiding it just because you are so goddamned SICK of the praise? And then nine times out of ten, when you fin...moreSo you know how you can hear so much about a particular thing and how amazing it is and how it seems like everything thinks that thing is so amazing and you must check it out because you will love it because it is THAT AMAZING, and how the tsunami of AMAZINGNESS is so overwhelming that it wipes out any inklings of curiosity you might have had about that thing, and you end up studiously avoiding it just because you are so goddamned SICK of the praise? And then nine times out of ten, when you finally break down and read the much-praised thing, you find yourself really liking that thing as well?

(Or is this just me?)

Anyway I had a copy of this book kicking around, and I'd tried to read it once, several years ago, but I was so bored by the first pages, which consist of a heavily detailed inventory of a house that belongs to an old married couple, that I put it down and did not pick it up again. At least, not until all of the effusive praise for Franzen's latest started swirling around my ankles, starting with Stephen Elliott's "OMG BEST NOVEL EVA!" Rumpus email and swelling to a crescendo of praise and backlash and backlash against the backlash. In the end my curiosity won out over my instinctual anti-snob snobbery.

I'm glad it did, because I enjoyed the hell out of this novel. I've seen people try to dissect it by using vaguely pomo-ish ideas like "experiencing the objective through the subjective" or some such junk, but really, what it is is a story about the myriad of ways in which your family can fuck you up, and in which you fuck your family up, and yet despite all of the fucking-up-ed-ness that is going on in your little nuclear family unit, you are all emotionally bound to one another on a molecular level. Like, who among us can't relate to that?

The plot of the book is incidental, and I won't bother recapping it here. This book is all about the characters, and the way they relate to one another. The characters are not nice people, and they often treat each other poorly, but occasionally some decency shines through in a way that feels realistic and not saccharine. I know that a lot of people disliked this book simply because they found the characters so unlikeable, but the sad reality of the world is that it is filled with people who are not likable. The question is, are they believable? I thought that, for the most part, they were, and that Franzen did a good job of showing why they were the way they were. My one complaint is that Franzen was way harder on the parents than on the adult children, which may or may not have been a deliberate choice.

Despite that, I really liked this book a lot. This is how much I liked this book: it's nearly 600 pages long and yet I read it in three days. I liked it that much. And in fact, I will probably end up reading Freedom, and I bet I'll like that, too. I may have learned my lesson about reflexive anti-snob snobbery when it comes to Franzen. We shall see.(less)

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Aug 14, 2011

Ben Bush added it · review of another edition

Al's hallucination of the taunting turd was totally surprising and I kinda loved it. On the other hand, the part where the unborn baby gets covered in spunk seemed jarringly out of tone with the rest of the scene. When Chip is stuck at the dinner table refusing to eat his liver, it made me think of "Bartleby, the Scrivener." It certainly does pull you along and I'm enjoying it. I like the way different sections focus on different characters without ever losing sight of the others. Ther...more

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Mar 14, 2007

Lilly G rated it

It takes a special kind of writer to create a cast of characters each and every one of which is extremely irritating. I couldn't finish it. It was "seinfeld" in book form for me. Blech.

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About Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen is the author of The Corrections, winner of the 2001 National Book Award for fiction; the novels The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion; and two works of nonfiction, How to Be Alone and The Discomfort Zone, all published by FSG. His fourth novel, Freedom, was published in the fall of 2010.

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Quotes from The Corrections

“The human species was given dominion over the earth and took the opportunity to exterminate other species and warm the atmosphere and generally ruin things in its own image, but it paid this price for its privileges: that the finite and specific animal body of this species contained a brain capable of conceiving the infinite and wishing to be infinite itself.” — 34 people liked it

“And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight--isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before? You see things more clearly and you KNOW that you're seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this.(p. 302, Sylvia to Enid on the boat)” — 29 people liked it

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