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frazzle 's review for:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
5.0

I can't say I enjoyed reading this book.

It is so self-evidently brilliant. Unbelievably engaging. Franzen has a knack for identifying self-delusions and inconsistencies. He finds them everywhere - in capitalism, socialism, professions, communities, families, and within individual people. And once he's identified a self-delusion, he is irrepressible in laying it bare under the bright lights of his narrative's operating table. I felt seen at several points. I felt for the characters - each of them - far more than I thought possible at the beginning of the story. Franzen made me feel constantly uneasy about the characters and *for* the characters. If society operates in part because everyone has the right to an interior life, spared from others' prying eyes, The Corrections shows us why this is so necessary. A deeply cynical book. A person emerges from this book less innocent and closer to the point of despair than they began it.

So no, I didn't enjoy The Corrections. But that its 600 pages actually brought me closer to the point of despair about the state of humanity is a remarkable achievement.