The Corrections: A Novel

I love books that make you think. Reflect. Open your perspective on the world and those close to us. Life is bittersweet. Franzen's book really illuminates this aspect of life through various different relationships through a single family.

Jonathan Franzen's `The Corrections' is a skillfully conceived and adeptly written novel about a family, the Lambert's, who are navigating the new realities of modern society with mixed success. The patriarch and the matriarch, Alfred and Enid, still live in St. Jude in the home where they raised their three children. Alfred, who is a retired railroad executive, suffers from depression and battles the onset of Parkinson's disease, while Enid perpetually competes with the Jones'. The Lambert's oldest son, Gary, lives in Philadelphia with his manipulative wife, Caroline, and their three sons. Like his father, Gary denies that he may suffer from depression. The middle child, Chip, is a disgraced college professor who lost both his job and his chance at tenure by willingly allowing himself to be involved with (and manipulated by) a precocious female student. Emotionally bankrupt and having no place else to go, Chip agrees to travel with Gitanas, the husband of his recent former girlfriend, to Lithuania and create an Internet business to defraud American investors. Finally, Denise an accomplished chef in a trendy Philadelphia restaurant and a part-time lesbian, is beautiful but has no moral compass. The superb prose is no better illustrated than during the extended metaphor Franzen uses to allow Denise to compare her romantic experiences with her ex-husband, Emile, with those of her same-sex lover, Robin. With Emile, Denise thinks, "The last thing she wanted late at night was to follow a complicated and increasingly time-consuming recipe for a dish she was too tired to enjoy. Prep time was fifteen minutes. Even after that, the cooking was seldom straightforward. The pan over-heated, the heat was too high, the heat was too low, the onions refused to caramelize or burned immediately and stuck; you had to set it aside to cool off, you had to start over after painful discussion with the now angry and anguished sous-chef..." Conversely, continues Denise's stream-of-consciousness, "Robin was prêt-a-mange. You didn't need a recipe, you didn't need prep, to eat a peach. Here was the peach, boom, here was the payoff." The title is a multifaceted play on words that relates to themes and ideas in the parallel story lines. For Chip, the corrections are literally his belief that his screen play immediately requires changes. (Chip's girlfriend, Julia, gives Chip that idea when, after she reads the screen play, she dumps him.) For Alfred, corrections to his deteriorating mental state may be possible through a phase-II testing drug being manufactured by a biotech firm that bought a patent that Alfred himself developed in his basement many years earlier. The idea of corrections permeates in some way each of the main characters' lives, some of the secondary characters' lives, and throughout the entire story as well. The stories build to a climax when, after a great deal of emotional blackmail from Enid, the family, sans significant others, convene

I absolutely love this book. I've read hundreds of novels and this one is in my top ten. It is beautifully written and makes mundane suburban life seem interesting and important and... cinematic. If you are an avid reader, I bet that you won't be disappointed.

As a "matoor" woman of 58 raised in the Midwest, a member of the "working poor", and as one-half of a couple who doesn't understand why even though "we are smart, we aren't rich", it was gratifying to learn that at least SOMEONE recognizes we're here.The myopic Enid and I are sisters. The highly principled, stoic Albert and my husband (albeit, sans illness) are made from the same cloth. We have a "Gary" and a "Denise" and five more independent, self-reliant, contributing members of society who refuse to be "Dollys" in a culture of consensus mentality.Not EVERYONE has a hunky-dory existence. Some of us intelligent, well-educated people are struggling. Our children are far from perfect and struggling too. But we get up every morning, put one foot in front of the other, do the best we can, and hide our secrets behind forced smiles.I was awestruck by JF's ability to get inside our minds and speak our thoughts, fears, so well. The dichotomy between the parents and their baby-boomer children, the difference in priorities, each defining "family values" as it suits them from a smorgasbord of choices, no two alike. It's amazing that, in the end, each Lambert does the right thing. They are a family after all.God bless you, Jonathan Franzen, for writing a novel that needed to be written. Somehow I feel less alone knowing Enid is with me. For the rest of you naysayers, finish the book. Read and savor the first few pages. The writing is smooth as silk...

If you read only one novel all year, let it be this one--so powerfully moving, yet carefully constructed, that it will surely win every literary award of the year. Such a statement would be hyperbolic in any other context, but it is realistic here, and necessary to describe the magnitude of Franzen's ambition and achievement. Spanning the last forty years of the 20th century, this is a magnificent family drama focusing on the elderly parents and three grown children in a midwestern family. Labeling the characters as dysfunctional does not do justice to their uniquenesses or to the reader's ability to identify with them. Their difficulties as a family arise because the family dynamics require them to hurt each other if they are to be true to themselves. Enid, the mother, while not assertive in a traditional sense, is nevertheless controlling, cleverly wielding the age-old guilt ploy to get her own way. Albert, suffering from Parkinson's-induced dementia, is trying to hang on to the last shreds of his independence and dignity, while causing enormous strains on Enid and the rest of the family. Gary, the eldest son, often manipulated by his wife and children and often depressed, believes in toughing it out, an attitude he imposes on his mother and siblings. Chip, something of a flake, is the insecure author of a never-finished play, a wandering spirit who goes to Lithuania, where he is hired to create a web site to siphon money from gullible American donors. Denise, a very successful and much-sought-after chef, is bisexual, constantly enduring her mother's urging that she find the right man and start a family. When Enid decides that the whole family must come home to St. Jude's for "one last family Christmas," the stage is set for an emotional family reunion which results in many "corrections." Seven years in the making, this novel elevates intimate, domestic drama to whole new heights, smoothly incorporating themes which question who we are, what we owe our parents, how we become who we are, and where we are going. Franzen's pointed observations about contemporary life--as revealed by upscale restaurants, the green movement, cruise ship behavior, use of the internet for fund-raising, dispensation of "happy pills," nursing homes, and even the crassness of Christmas--enliven the plot as it spirals around and through time and the lives of the five characters. Albert's decline, told in part from his point of view, is particularly heart-breaking. This book is a wonder, offering a stunning and intimate view of a middle-class American family, its values, and its dreams, all presented with wit, sensitivity, and enormous power. Mary Whipple