The Corrections (Oprah Edition) | Jonathan Franzen | Well worth the investment in time

The Corrections (Oprah Edition) | Jonathan Franzen | A Real Mixed Bag

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The Corrections (O...

	The Corrections (Oprah Edition) Jonathan Franzen, 2001 - 568 pages average customer review:based on 1013 reviews view larger image
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Winner of the National Book AwardAfter 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 nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man-or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

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Well worth the investment in time

Don't believe the hype about the hype. Brilliantly imagined, extremely well written, and just a pleasure to read.

A Real Mixed Bag

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I found it a very unpleasant read, although obviously well written, by a talented author.

On the downside, these were among the most pathetic, unsympathetic characters I can remember meeting in a book in a long time. The main characters are the members of the Lambert family, consisting of Enid, the incredibly insecure wife of Alfred, a retired engineer, and mother of three grown children, Gary, Chip and Denise. Alfred, is a wholly uncommunicative, repressed, overly moralistic mid-westerner deteriorating from Parkinson, dealing with the embarrassment of incontinence, and facing the onset of dementia. The author spends many harrowing pages describing Alfred's terrorized hallucinations.
Like so many older people, Enid faces an uncertain future due to Alfred's health problems. Enid is in exquisite denial about Alfred's deteriorating condition, believing that everything would be OK if he just "tried harder." The one thing that Enid is clear about, is that she wants her three children to spend an idealized Christmas in their small, midwestern town of St. Jude (the patron saint of lost causes).
While hard to believe, the Lambert children are in no better condition than Enid or Alfred.
Chip--the smart one--is a college professor who loses his tenure track job in an affair with a student, and is reduced to sniffing his couch for vestiges of his former lover's body odors to achieve sexual comfort.
Gary, perhaps even more pathetic than Chip, is an investment banker with a developing alcohol problem, completely henpecked and controlled by not only his attorney wife, but by his children as well, and seething with poorly concealed rage against Enid and Alfred.
Finally, there's Denise, a well regarded chef, who loses her job in an affair with a desperate, shelf-hating lesbian affair with her investor's wife.
While the characters achieve some small modicum of redemption and growth in the last 25 of the 600 or so pages, the getting there is a harrowing ride--particularly as it relates to Alfred.

On the other side, if you can get past the depression and pain, there is some real merit in this book. Its undoubtedly well-written, Franzen being a truly talented wordsmith. The pace tends to move relatively quickly,offsetting the extended length of this book.

Franzen shows great insight into the human condition, doing an exemplary job presenting the factors that drive the Lamberts to their desperate situations--but desperate they are. As I read this book, I kept imagining myself on the freeway, looking over to the other side of the road where the emergency workers were removing the dead and bloody bodies from the twisted wreckage.

While the novel does hold up a mirror to the reader, it tends to focus almost entirely on the uglier side of life.

Again, if you have the stomach and patience to get through that, the book is worth the read.

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might make you appreciate your own family a little more....

i made an effort to sympathize with the Lambert family, but just couldn't do it. alfred was the only one worth any pity on account of his deteriorating health after a life wasted by masochistically denying himself pleasure and enjoyment in anything besides his tinkering in the basement. the rest of the lot were self-absorbed and whiny. my favorite images were chip falling asleep at the dinner table after refusing to eat the putrescent food his vindictive mother had prepared and when alfred fell off of the cruise ship while attempting to peep at an attractive woman on a lower deck (whom he would probably refer to as a 'succubus'). the end of the book had most of the lamberts taking more responsibility for themselves and their contentedness which was the closest thing to a happy-ending these dysfunctional characters could hope for.

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