The Corrections
discussion
why the one star?
message 51:
by
Kelly
(new)
-
rated it 2 stars
Feb 14, 2013 08:14PM
Someone up there said, why would someone criticize an author for trying to dazzle us with prose? Well, I would criticize because he may have been trying to dazzle, but all he succeeded in was stunning me into a near coma with long, dense descriptions of unpleasant, dense characters. If I want stupid people thinking nasty thoughts and treating each other meanly, there's plenty of real world for that; I don't want to read about it for entertainment.
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Magnus wrote: "I have not read Freedom, but what is there not to like about The Corrections? It is rich in beautiful metaphors, in elegant prose, in humor, in convincing and multidimensional characters, and in interesting themes."You see elegant prose, I see overly long sentences. You see humor, I see meanness. You see multidimensional characters, I see stupid people who don't learn from their errors. That's what's not to like.
Kelly wrote: "Magnus wrote: "I have not read Freedom, but what is there not to like about The Corrections? It is rich in beautiful metaphors, in elegant prose, in humor, in convincing and multidimensional charac..."Humor and meanness, multidimensional characters and stupid people who don't learn from their errors, these are not mutually exclusive things. Maybe the distance between the punctuation marks wouldn't bother you if you listened to the audiobook instead. His sentences are fine.
This book surprised me when it finally revealed the hidden truth behind people's actions and attitudes. My goodness, they are us!
This novel isn't for everyone and I could see how some people can find this boring or long-winded, but I personally loved this book. I enjoyed it so much that I recommended it to some of my friends. I've gotten mixed reviews, some people loved it, and other found it boring. The bottom line is people read for different reasons and there are plenty of people out there who find Franzen boring.
Magnus wrote: "Kelly wrote: "Magnus wrote: "I have not read Freedom, but what is there not to like about The Corrections? It is rich in beautiful metaphors, in elegant prose, in humor, in convincing and multidime..."Magnus, nobody is arguing with you about the quality of the book. It is just not to the taste of a lot of us, and that is a perfectly valid view to have.
I would cite my original criticism, that Franzen writes his characters with a snide tone, as though he knows more than them, as though they are there to be laughed at for their pettiness and their ignorance.
I'm currently reading Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue, which, like Franzen's work, has incredibly twisty prose, sentences that read like swimming through molasses. But I'm enjoying the book because the characters have affection for each other, and Chabon has affection for them. They are not perfect, they are not even all good people, and we don't have to "root for" their motives, but they are all written with depth and roundness, and Chabon writes them like they are all worth exploring. This is the kind of novel experience I prefer.
After being burned by both Corrections and Freedom, I am very much looking forward to not reading his next novel.
Erin wrote: "Magnus, nobody is arguing with you about the quality of the book. It is just not to the taste of a lot of us, and that is a perfectly valid view to have."This is not my experience, and it is a very different and ultimately uninteresting discussion.
Erin wrote: "I would cite my original criticism, that Franzen writes his characters with a snide tone, as though he knows more than them, as though they are there to be laughed at for their pettiness and their ignorance."
I will reread The Corrections for the nth time and have this perspective in mind. I can see from where you are coming. Franzen is brutally honest and exposes many painful weaknesses and truths in a humoristic light. But I believe that there's a layer to the book that you are missing, a dimension of warmth and affection towards the characters, and humans in general, that is extra deep and profound because it is not "blind love" that is felt despite the weaknesses, it is mature, "all-inclusive" love.
You're right, Magnus. I'm definitely the problem.
Erin wrote: "You're right, Magnus. I'm definitely the problem."I am tempted to play along. All of us are definitely "the problems" when it comes to appreciating some things. I couldn't fully appreciate a top level chess game, for example, or the latest Starcraft 2 patch, or rocket science or whatever, not because of any faults inherent to whatever. I wouldn't rate these things 1 star though, I would humbly leave the task of rating for more knowledgeable people.
Erin wrote: "I'm currently reading Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue, which, like Franzen's work, has incredibly twisty prose, sentences that read like swimming through molasses. But I'm enjoying the book because the characters have affection for each other, and Chabon has affection for them. They are not perfect, they are not even all good people, and we don't have to "root for" their motives, but they are all written with depth and roundness, and Chabon writes them like they are all worth exploring. This is the kind of novel experience I prefer."I'm with you. I love Michael Chabon's writing, and it's entertaining.
For those people who "hated this book" because of the dysfunction of the characters, I have news for you: you're SUPPOSED TO! I'd be a little weary for you if you were cheering for any of them. And for the others who hated it because you couldn't "connect", well, isn't that the point of reading a book? To escape your comfort bubble?
Ryan wrote: "well, isn't that the point of reading a book? To escape your comfort bubble? "No, the point of reading a book is to escape real life. To be entertained, amused, interested, enlightened, enriched. If I want to be made uncomfortable, I'll read nonfiction about politics.
Kelly wrote: "Ryan wrote: "well, isn't that the point of reading a book? To escape your comfort bubble? "No, the point of reading a book is to escape real life. To be entertained, amused, interested, enlightene..."
That's exactly what I said...I think 'comfort bubble' and 'real life' are pretty much the same thing.
I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interesting and amusing characters, Franzen's are no better crafted, and if I want "the people next door," I can look out my window. Reading a novel shouldn't feel like homework and the satisfaction should not be that, despite its molasses prose, you got through it. I can't speak for all, but I believe that many who say they enjoyed the book say so because they feel they were supposed to.
Stuart wrote: "I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interesting and amusing characters, Franzen's are n..."Actually, I enjoyed the book because I enjoyed the wit and the fact that Franzen can craft well-written sentences, not because someone said I had to. Don't be presumptuous and put words in my mouth, or others. That's no different than me declaring the people who didn't like just didn't "get it".
Stuart wrote: "I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interesting and amusing characters, Franzen's are n..."In addition, also claiming that people who liked it because "they feel they were supposed to" is just as arrogant as saying the people who disliked did so because it was just a fad and commanded a lot of notoriety at the time so something this mainstream couldn't possibly have any literary merit.
Kelsey wrote: "Haven't read it yet, but I picked up a second hand copy of it the other day. These comments make me glad that I only paid 90-cents for it."I hope that after you've read it, you change your mind.
Ryan wrote: "Stuart wrote: "I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interesting and amusing characters, ..."C'mon Ryan, I didn't say nobody could like the book, and if you did, I'm glad you got your money's worth. 'Literary merit' is meaningless out of context. Merit to who, for what? Mainstream just means a lot of people buy it and talk about it, and by itself should have no bearing on one's judgement of merit. It's wonderful if you find his sentences well crafted, but strung together the way they are, I find the result completely uninteresting. You may find him witty, I find him pompous. I'm not crusading against the book, though I would tell anyone who asked not to waste their time with it. The two things that bother me most about the posts for this book are that the good ones are always qualified, and the bad ones always include sheepish remarks about how perhaps the reader was just not up to the book. All I'm saying is, that by the standards I use to judge a novel, The Corrections is bad, and others who feel the same way shouldn't be afraid to say so, even if the book was popular and hailed for its literary merit.
Stuart wrote: "Ryan wrote: "Stuart wrote: "I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interesting and amusing...""Literary merit is meaningless out of context." What's that about being pompous?
And what I mean by merit is - let's face it - most of what is published today is either uninspired crap or completely derivative of the canon. I'm not saying this was the best books I have ever read, certainly there were problems with it. I think, however, as soon as the term 'Great American Novel/ist' started surfacing in conjunction with Franzen and the novel, many authors/critics/scholars started to become overly defensive. God forbid someone publish a work that surpasses most of the drivel published today. I'm not certain how your "standards" to judge made you the expert, but I fail to see how it makes you an expert and puts you in any position to damn the people who may have enjoyed the book.
Stuart wrote: "I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interesting and amusing characters, Franzen's are n..."I found Franzen's writing to be engaging and rich. I enjoyed what I felt to be a lyrical flow to the book. In purely technical terms, I believe him to be a gifted writer. In creative terms, I believe him to be well above the average and rank him among my personal favorites. Of course, I completely support everyone's right to their own opinion and have no desire to force mine upon him/her.
Stuart wrote: "Ryan wrote: "Stuart wrote: "I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interesting and amusing..."Stuart wrote: "Ryan wrote: "Stuart wrote: "I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interesting and amusing..."
Telling someone not to waste their time on a book you did not like IS a crusade and a subtle form of censorship. Shame on you. I hereby invite any adult to read any book I've ever read whether I've liked it or not because I respect your right to draw your own conclusions from what you read.
A review and recommendation is not censorship. Censorship means preventing someone from being exposed to something by use of force (ie only a government can censor). There are too many books to read them all, so I encourage you to take the advice of someone you trust, if you seek advice at all. If someone asked you what you thought of "Honey Boo Boo" I hope you wouldn't hold your opinion back. I'm sure there are loads of people who love The Corrections, and if you think your tastes align with them, knock yourself out.
Too many books too read them all is a given. Be they good, bad or different I, unlike you, have never wasted a single moment by reading them. Open your mind sweetheart. There's a lovely world out there if you would only let it in. Cheers!( Gotta love that honey boo-boo! )
Franzen's story moved me, and so many of the little details have stuck with me throughout the years. For example, whenever we BBQ my husband and I joke about having "mixed grill", The image of making "mixed grill" paints an instant portrait of panic, craziness, and unraveling.Still not sure why people didn't like this book. You can not like the characters and still like the book (Gone Girl anyone)?
Some of you guys only want to read books with likeable characters? What kind of world you you morons live in?
Agreed. Likable characters tend to be the most boring.
To those of you who post opinions without insulting others, thank you! Generally, I read the reviews posted by others after I've already read the book and formed my opinion. Sort of a 'check in' to see what others think.For those of you who post snarky, negative attacks on other people--please move your attention to Face Book or Twitter or any number of other media and help us preserve the Goodreads site as a safe place to share insights about books, stories, and authors. Very much appreciated as I see so much negativity in so many other places, it would be wonderful to have some where to go devoid of it all. Many thanks.
Apologies if I came across negative - it surely wasn't my intention.I'm still wondering whether people didn't like the writing style or if the characters didn't 'grab them'. . .
Kcoppe wrote: "Apologies if I came across negative - it surely wasn't my intention.I'm still wondering whether people didn't like the writing style or if the characters didn't 'grab them'. . ."
Nope, my comments were not directed at you.
Fred wrote: "Kcoppe wrote: "Apologies if I came across negative - it surely wasn't my intention.I'm still wondering whether people didn't like the writing style or if the characters didn't 'grab them'. . ."
N..."
They were for those "what world do you live in" , "are you crazy or just stupid" commenters.
Yes, pretty much all of the characters in "The Corrections" are bitter and some form of dysfunctional, but I think that is the true beauty of the book. Who of us actually have perfect families? who of us don't come with our fair share of baggage? Real life stories don't always have these nicer little endings that come wrapped all pretty with a nice little bow and neither does this book. However, if you work past the pretentiousness, pretty much all of the characters do have significant development. Do they get all of their dreams come true? No, but they do come out better people by the end.
Silverpiper wrote: "Stuart wrote: "Ryan wrote: "Stuart wrote: "I have yet to hear from anyone who enjoyed the book a reason they enjoyed it not qualified by some deficiency in the style. I can imagine my own interest..."Hear! Hear!
I enjoyed the book and recommended it to many friends (who also enjoyed the book). I was drawn into the many facets of the characters and felt like I knew them on a deeper level with each chapter.
At times it was a comedy, and at others a tragedy, and always mixed in with a good mystery.
I tend to enjoy books where I can't predict the outcome and keep me on my toes, and this was one of those books. Mixed grill anyone?
I am almost halfway. Honestly,I struggled to get in the story at the beginning and I almost gave up. I'm glad that I didn't . All the characters are extremely dysfunctional, but it is the reality of our society. Each character have different thoughts, and their stubbornness make concessions almost impossible. Franzen is really at bring hope through the complexity of life. Life is far than being perfect and happiness is not state always easy to keep. Enjoyable reading,
I had the most difficult time getting through this book, it was just agonizing. In the end, it's just boring and reading it felt like work.
I don't mind the dark atmosphere of this book, and, also I don't mind characters: their behavior (but also their feeling, thought and act) is in relation with all corrections (the title is clear key of book) they received and give away. For me, it was very interesting to read different evolutions of control’s consequences in the diverse ambient... There is one thing I really don't like: I've got an impression that in one moment the writer had understood that book had becoming too long, and how it was sin to cut parts already (well) written, he over accelerated the ending: the end looks like accidental and too cheap...
Also, I don't like a constant looking for the guilty one, and the needs to punish him, I feel it like another, the last, correction that could be avoid...
Rebecca wrote: "And I liked The Corrections much more then Freedom. Who knows why...............but the dark humor in the The Corrections just stuck with me. Maybe you have to have been brought up in the midwest..."Yeah. Don't you think Franzen had the midwest down, I mean really perfectly?
I started this book and was extremely turned off by the characters, especially Enid. For some reason, I later returned to the book, finished it, and loved it. Franzen's next book, FREEDOM, is just as good if not better.
This is probably one of the best books I've read this year specifically because the characters are so well rounded, so humanly flawed that the characters I hated (Chip, Denise) still had redeeming qualities and felt like human beings, not mini-caricatures as so many flat characters in fiction tend to be.Not every story is a plot-driven event with a neat beginning, middle, and end. This book drops us into the middle of an outwardly functional yet secretly unhealthy family (and which of us here can claim to have a family without demons) and we see what drove them there, and how much of that was because of their personalities and how much of that was because of the world around them.
Stop looking for friends in the book you read. The characters are the story in this one. It's the Gatsby of Generation X.
I can't imagine giving this novel one star. I can't imagine giving it 5 stars. I can't imagine feeling very strongly about it at all.
I gave it two stars, and was probably a little generous. For me, the characters were uninteresting, as was the non-drama of their lives. A boring story about boring people.
I agree. If I wanted a boring story about boring people, I'd just put down the book and take a long, hard look at my actual life.
Shayne wrote: "I agree. If I wanted a boring story about boring people, I'd just put down the book and take a long, hard look at my actual life."Ha ha, may you sell a hundred gazillion copies.
Olga wrote: "Personally, I found the book to be boring. I enjoyed Freedom, and have no objection to reading books with unlikable characters, but those characters have to be or do something interesting. I got ab..."You hit the nail on the head...except that I have not read Freedom and after reading The Corrections I have no desire to.
Cy wrote: "Stop looking for friends in the book you read. The characters are the story in this one. It's the Gatsby of Generation X."Did you really type that? For REAL really? This makes me hate this book even more.
After reading this discussion, I removed my (low) rating altogether, since it was based on getting to around page 140, then giving up. Probably not fair to negatively judge an abandoned book.But still...
I have no problem with unlikable or flawed characters. Crime and Punishment went down just fine. But my appetite for reading about adult characters who choose to be around one another and do nothing apart from make each other miserable is nil. Fictional or non-fictional, I tend to react to reading about emotional cruelty in the same way as to reading about sadism; it depresses me. In small amounts, I can deal with it, but all I was perceiving the book to be was a catalog of emotional cruelties. After 140 pages, I stopped. I felt as if I were mired in a manure pile, hoping there was a pony in there somewhere.
People might act like this in reality, granted. But to those who feel like Franzen is "holding up a mirror and showing us the way we all are"...stay the f--- away from me. :-)
BTW, I haven't ruled out taking another shot at it one day, when I'm feeling more prepared to deal with it, but frankly it won't break my heart if I don't. As others have pointed out, there are far more excellent books out there than one can read in many, many lifetimes.
If I had read The Corrections before Freedom I probably wouldn't have read the latter (or finished the former). Freedom is a kick ass book. It was probably my residual affection for Freedom that motivated me to get through The Corrections, even though the first 100 or so pages were a bit boring and focused on a character who is pretty repulsive in an non-relatable way. However, I'm broadly glad that I did because it's interesting and moving in parts. I probably rated it a bit unfairly but I gave Freedom four and I think The Corrections was half as good.
I absolutely LOVED The Corrections.............
