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
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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