rick_williams 's review for:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

2.0

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I was recommended this book by a colleague who is an avid reader and rates this as one of the best books he has ever read. I don't agree with him. The book certainly has moments of beauty and pathos; it is clever, funny and for the most part extremely well written. The narrative strands of the novel are complex, but never confusing, and the shifts between characters and time frames feel natural and effortless. No mean feat for a 650 page book. The sentiments of the author regarding the over-consumption and hollowness of aspects of modern life are ones that I share, and at times it is acutely perceptive and funny. However, the characters are so self-absorbed, narcissistic, vain, and shallow, and with so little self control, that they were, at least for me, unbelievable. I therefore almost entirely failed to share their dilemmas, which were often only dilemmas due to their sociopathic selfishness, and ended up not caring very much what happened to them. Franzen spends an enormous amount of time inside the characters' heads, and the inner monologues often feel brutally honest to the point of self confessional, but it just didn't generate anything other than a slightly nauseous feeling rather than any empathy. On occasion the references to "corrections" felt like they had been crow-barred into the book, jarring and disrupting the narrative flow, and some of the writing about sex left me cringing. It is certainly a clever, accomplished, at times beautifully written book, but in the end it left me rather cold and unmoved.