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3.74 AVERAGE
3.74 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
dark
funny
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I appreciated the literary effort but halfway through the characters and plots didn't speak to me strongly enough to finish all the way through. also I read a translation, would reccomend an original language read.
In an interview with Slate earlier this year, Ira Glass discusses getting things wrong. Anticipating an ultimately wrong outcome can lead to disaster and disappointment. Our expectations are often largely a product of our beliefs and perspective; and, consequently, incorrect expectations can seem like a refutation of our views. Glass, however, reminds us that there is something about failed preconceptions that are both humanizing and truthful. In many instances, especially in journalism, he notes, “The collision of reality against expectation is what makes [a story] work.” While this quote might seem most applicable to stories of discovery and self-actualization, it also is relevant to what makes many novels interesting. A story that progresses along the lines of the general reader’s expectations can feel stilted. However, a book that takes our predictions and twists them is enticing. Moreover, these twists challenge the perspective that generated our incorrect predictions, and makes us reconsider the general trajectory of events.
In his book, The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen is at his best when creating scenes of sad disappointment and failed hopes. The Corrections, as a book about a normal-dysfunctional, American family, has its fair share of these. The Lambert family is one wreaked by, what Franzen perceives to be, the problems of most modern American families. The parents—Enid and Albert—now aged and dogged by physical and cognitive impairments, are still unwarrantedly anxious over money and their children’s success. And, the children—Gary, Chip, and Denise—have largely modeled their lives over escaping their parents, though unsuccessfully. The book jumps from past and present episodes in each character’s life while slowly building to the penultimate, main scene—the family’s reunion in their old, Midwestern home for Christmas.
As Franzen builds toward this final Christmas, the various Lamberts incur setbacks, failed expectations, and unanticipated reconsiderations of values and identity. Alfred, who is shown to have been a hard man, toughened by an ideological belief in the work of Schopenhauer and the experience of the Great Depression, grows increasingly senile. Enid, develops an addiction to antidepressants (possible??) in the wake of Alfred’s senility. And, the children—though grown and largely successful—are directionless and frustrated by their lives. Each character, in my opinion, is incredibly difficult to sympathize with. They are so inwardly focused that they are oblivious to their own faults and the pains they cause one another. While this is shown most prominently through Alfred’s past cruel treatment of Enid, scenes of familial neglect and manipulation seem to arise in each chapter of the book.
And yet, the Lambert family sticks together. Against all odds each member of the nuclear Lambert clan makes it home in time for Christmas day. Things don’t go as they hoped. Gary leaves an hour in to their reunion to return to his uncompromising spouse (another very dislikeable character). Denise learns that her teenage tryst with her father’s coworker led to Alfred’s early retirement. And Chip, though flattered to learn that his demanding father always loved him the most, finally realizes the extent of Alfred’s cognitive impairment (very good scene). Though I found each character to be so irritating as to be almost unrelatable, the extenuating circumstances and unanticipated mishaps that they encounter are so humanizing and poignant that their collective sadness and disappointment is strongly felt.
To Franzen, the American family is life—imperfect, but amendable. We are born into circumstances we didn’t choose, and face changes we don’t anticipate. We largely never understand who we are, and we find that even those who brought us into the world—our parents—are as human as we are. And, we are bound by obligations we feel—though regretfully—strongly. But, we adapt and we cope, and we attempt to draw strength through ourselves and those around us. Much of The Corrections is overwritten (the first page begins, “The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder (1).” Ugh…), and Franzen fails—in my opinion, hugely—in his attempts to make the story a tragicomedy (see: page 364-374, in which Enid speaks with the cruise’s resident doctor). But Franzen’s insistence that we move forward as well as we can resonates strongly.
“Her life…bore a strange resemblance to the lives of those friends of hers, Chuck Meisner and Joe Person in particular, who were ‘addicted to monitoring their investments. According to Bea, Chuck’s anxiety drove him to check quotes on his computer two or three times an hour, and the last time Enid and Alfred had gone out with the Persons, Joe had made Enid frantic by cell-phoning three different brokers from the restaurant. But she was the same way with Alfred: painfully attuned to every hopeful upswing, forever fearful of a crash.” (544)
In his book, The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen is at his best when creating scenes of sad disappointment and failed hopes. The Corrections, as a book about a normal-dysfunctional, American family, has its fair share of these. The Lambert family is one wreaked by, what Franzen perceives to be, the problems of most modern American families. The parents—Enid and Albert—now aged and dogged by physical and cognitive impairments, are still unwarrantedly anxious over money and their children’s success. And, the children—Gary, Chip, and Denise—have largely modeled their lives over escaping their parents, though unsuccessfully. The book jumps from past and present episodes in each character’s life while slowly building to the penultimate, main scene—the family’s reunion in their old, Midwestern home for Christmas.
As Franzen builds toward this final Christmas, the various Lamberts incur setbacks, failed expectations, and unanticipated reconsiderations of values and identity. Alfred, who is shown to have been a hard man, toughened by an ideological belief in the work of Schopenhauer and the experience of the Great Depression, grows increasingly senile. Enid, develops an addiction to antidepressants (possible??) in the wake of Alfred’s senility. And, the children—though grown and largely successful—are directionless and frustrated by their lives. Each character, in my opinion, is incredibly difficult to sympathize with. They are so inwardly focused that they are oblivious to their own faults and the pains they cause one another. While this is shown most prominently through Alfred’s past cruel treatment of Enid, scenes of familial neglect and manipulation seem to arise in each chapter of the book.
And yet, the Lambert family sticks together. Against all odds each member of the nuclear Lambert clan makes it home in time for Christmas day. Things don’t go as they hoped. Gary leaves an hour in to their reunion to return to his uncompromising spouse (another very dislikeable character). Denise learns that her teenage tryst with her father’s coworker led to Alfred’s early retirement. And Chip, though flattered to learn that his demanding father always loved him the most, finally realizes the extent of Alfred’s cognitive impairment (very good scene). Though I found each character to be so irritating as to be almost unrelatable, the extenuating circumstances and unanticipated mishaps that they encounter are so humanizing and poignant that their collective sadness and disappointment is strongly felt.
To Franzen, the American family is life—imperfect, but amendable. We are born into circumstances we didn’t choose, and face changes we don’t anticipate. We largely never understand who we are, and we find that even those who brought us into the world—our parents—are as human as we are. And, we are bound by obligations we feel—though regretfully—strongly. But, we adapt and we cope, and we attempt to draw strength through ourselves and those around us. Much of The Corrections is overwritten (the first page begins, “The madness of an autumn prairie cold front coming through. You could feel it: something terrible was going to happen. The sun low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder (1).” Ugh…), and Franzen fails—in my opinion, hugely—in his attempts to make the story a tragicomedy (see: page 364-374, in which Enid speaks with the cruise’s resident doctor). But Franzen’s insistence that we move forward as well as we can resonates strongly.
“Her life…bore a strange resemblance to the lives of those friends of hers, Chuck Meisner and Joe Person in particular, who were ‘addicted to monitoring their investments. According to Bea, Chuck’s anxiety drove him to check quotes on his computer two or three times an hour, and the last time Enid and Alfred had gone out with the Persons, Joe had made Enid frantic by cell-phoning three different brokers from the restaurant. But she was the same way with Alfred: painfully attuned to every hopeful upswing, forever fearful of a crash.” (544)
probably my favorite modern lit book/THE great american novel. amazing, and breezed through it.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Cada uno de los personajes de la novela se encuentra o va cayendo en su propia dificil situación, toman malas decisiones, cometen errores, son impetuosos, e inseguros. Y son únicos. Su humanidad y la vida que el autor les ha dado proviene de sus imperfecciones. Odiamos y amamos por ratos a estos personajes que van "sobrellevando los días por el procedimiento de no prestar atención a las verdades soterradas que a cada momento van haciéndose más irrefutables y decisivas".
El autor presenta de forma magnífica la demencia. También vemos con un poco de culpa o vergüenza las formas de la manipulación y el pudor.
Bello libro.
El autor presenta de forma magnífica la demencia. También vemos con un poco de culpa o vergüenza las formas de la manipulación y el pudor.
Bello libro.
men really have made a lot of bad art
i mean. seriously?
The cheeks of Axon’s CEO were puffed out like a squirrel’s. Merilee Finch put a napkin to her mouth and regarded the accosting Lamberts warily. “I’m so starving,” she said. It was a thin woman’s apology for being corporeal. “We’ll be setting up some tables in a couple of minutes, if you don’t mind waiting.”
“This is a semi-private question,” Denise said.
Finch swallowed with difficulty—maybe self-consciousness, maybe insufficient chewing. “Yeah?”
Denise and Gary introduced themselves and Denise mentioned the letter that Alfred had been sent.
“I had to eat something,” Finch explained, shoveling up lentils. “I think Joe was the one who wrote to your father. I’m assuming we’re all square there now. He’d be happy to talk to you if you still had questions.”
“Our question is more for you,” Denise said.
“Sorry. One more bite here.” Finch chewed her salmon with labored jawstrokes, swallowed again, and dropped her napkin on the plate. “As far as that patent goes, I’ll tell you frankly, we considered just infringing. That’s what everybody else does. But Curly’s an inventor himself. He wanted to do the right thing.”
“Frankly,” Gary said, “the right thing might have been to offer more.”
Finch’s tongue was probing beneath her upper lip like a cat beneath blankets. “You may have a somewhat inflated idea of your father’s achievement,” she said. “A lot of researchers were studying those gels in the sixties. The discovery of electrical anisotropy is generally, I believe, credited to a team at Cornell. Plus I understand from Joe that the wording of that patent is unspecific. It doesn’t even refer to the brain; it’s just ‘human tissues.’ Justice is the right of the stronger, when it comes to patent law. I think our offer was rather generous.”
Gary made his I’m-a-jerk face and looked at the dais, where Daffy Anderson was being mobbed by well-wishers and supplicants.
i mean. seriously?
Well written, but like The Believers, I didn't find any of the characters at all likeable...
emotional
funny
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes