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A review of The Corrections

by Jonathan Franzen

A slice of everyday Americana that centers on the Lamberts and their familial (and familiar!) trials and tribulations

Reviewed by: G-Lock
About G-Lock

The Corrections With all due respect to Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" is the truly heartbreaking work of staggering genius. An American epic, this poignant, dense tome chronicles the lives of the Lambert family: sensible, hard-working father Alfred, cruelly crippled by Parkinson's; well-meaning and frazzled matriarch Enid, striving to scrape up some semblance of a family; ne'er-do-well Chip, youngest child, hopping from scandalous affair to equally scandalous job; eldest Gary, whose depression quietly escalates in proportion to his professional and family "success"; daughter Denise, scurrying into the arms of her boss' wife and threatening her burgeoning career as top chef.

While this intricate focus may sound off-putting, its scope is wide and covers a gamut of cross-cultural touchstones that enthrall the reader. Franzen takes us from the American midwest to Lithuania, from the 1950s through the dotcom boom and bust, from sweltering summers to holidays that are frigid in every sense of the term. The author craftily swoops in on the various characters' actions and thoughts, and even the most tedious observation or movement is rendered clearly, as if the reader were watching -- almost more like feeling -- a documentary. The Lamberts' interactions both within and outside the nuclear unit provide, among other things, the groundwork for statements about what it means to be family. An emotionally charged center anchors a novel containing searingly funny passages and spot-on descriptions that are gasp-inducing in their vividness. Arguably the central character, Enid toils to assemble the Lambert children for one final dysfunctional Christmas while caring for her withering husband. But the central conceit of "The Corrections" should be that the book has nothing (and yet everything) to do with that premise. In its deceptive simplicity, "The Corrections" manages to be nothing short of profound.

Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: The Corrections

Copyright © by G-Lock, 2002

Reviewed by G-Lock :
-- The Corrections - by Jonathan Franzen
-- Naked - by David Sedaris
-- The Epic of New York City - by Edward Robb Ellis
-- The Catcher in the Rye - by J.D. Salinger
-- The Great Gatsby - by F. Scott Fitzgerald









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