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The Corrections

(Oprah Edition)

By Jonathan Franzen

(242)

| Hardcover | 9780374100124

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Book Description

THE CORRECTIONS is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century-a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes.

After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Continue

THE CORRECTIONS is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century-a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes.

After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man-or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

Stretching from the Midwest at midcentury to the Wall Street and Eastern Europe of today, THE CORRECTIONS brings an old-fashioned world of civic virtue and sexual inhibitions into violent collision with the era of home surveillance, hands-off parenting, do-it-yourself mental healthcare, and globalized greed. Richly realistic, darkly hilarious, deeply humane, it confirms Jonathan Franzen as one of our most brilliant interpreters of American society and the American soul.

Critics

  • 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen

    Without a doubt, this is my Book of the Year for 2002. It's a giant, rollicking, complicated, multi-layered novel about an all-American family facing up to the reality of the past as two ageing parents, Enid and Alfred, plan one last Christmas dinner ... (read full critics)

    readingmatters published on Mon, 27 Sep 2010

  • What the Dickens

    The Corrections Jonathan Franzen (Fourth Estate, £10.99) Jonathan Franzen is the slightly damaged child of Don DeLillo's peculiar relationship with American culture. DeLillo's Underworld has been the most influential American novel of the last 15 yea ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

12 Reviews

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  • 3 people find this helpful

    A witty, exhilirating hurricane ride through the Christmas gathering of a family so dysfunctional that The Simpons have got nothing on them. Very cleverly written; its host of real, fallible characters absorbed with their problems are neither very likable or sympathetic, but if they can finally forg ... (continue)

    A witty, exhilirating hurricane ride through the Christmas gathering of a family so dysfunctional that The Simpons have got nothing on them. Very cleverly written; its host of real, fallible characters absorbed with their problems are neither very likable or sympathetic, but if they can finally forgive each other we can do that too.

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    Danelectrico said on Dec 6, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • 2 people find this helpful

    Reading The Corrections

    I was extremely unhappy with this book. An epic novel that comes in at more than 500 pages, every character is contemptible and impossible to relate to. Early on, I thought there was a chance I might be able to find common ground with Alfred, the patriarch, and Denise, the sister/daughter, but alas, ... (continue)

    I was extremely unhappy with this book. An epic novel that comes in at more than 500 pages, every character is contemptible and impossible to relate to. Early on, I thought there was a chance I might be able to find common ground with Alfred, the patriarch, and Denise, the sister/daughter, but alas, it wasn't to be.

    The Corrections centers on a Midwestern family that has spread out and lost touch. Father and mother live in their St. Jude home in an unnamed state (Illinois? Indiana? Iowa?) while the kids have relocated to New York City and Philadelphia. We weave through their various existences as we learn more and more about each individual and the reasons they are the way they are.

    One of my biggest issues with the book is Franzen's treatment of women, though admittedly the men don't fare better. His contempt for the female persuasion seems to shine through. I wish I had given myself permission to quit on the book after about 150 pages, but I felt as though I ought to see it through.

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    moogle said on Mar 28, 2007 | Add your feedback

  • That Franzen they are talking about

    Economic transition from an industrial economy to a financial, high-tech and service economy, Domestic Conflicts, Family relationships, Female submission within the family, Addiction, Dementia, Depression, Individual crisis, Sexual disorder, multi-generational transmission of family dysfunctions, De ... (continue)

    Economic transition from an industrial economy to a financial, high-tech and service economy, Domestic Conflicts, Family relationships, Female submission within the family, Addiction, Dementia, Depression, Individual crisis, Sexual disorder, multi-generational transmission of family dysfunctions, Denial and self-medication, Obsession with money (obsession with rapid change in personal financial situation).

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    Ermellissimo said on Jan 20, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • It's a well written book (maybe too complicate), the characters (all of them!!!,not only the main characters) are finely depicted. Deep and broad, it's more than a novel.

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    Max Rebus said on Jan 9, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • Halfway through and about to abandon

    I'm wondering why people rave about this book and about Jonathen Franzen. I have not read his other books but i found this too self-indulgent. It was in the middle chapter "At Sea' that i lost the will to continue: the narrative seemed to become detached from the plot, character building or any aspe ... (continue)

    I'm wondering why people rave about this book and about Jonathen Franzen. I have not read his other books but i found this too self-indulgent. It was in the middle chapter "At Sea' that i lost the will to continue: the narrative seemed to become detached from the plot, character building or any aspect of the book to that point.... A slight diversion is fine in a shorter book, but this book is LONG. Admittedly, he at times writes very witty, evocative and well-constructed prose, but it needs to have some attachement to story-telling. Sadly, not for me.

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    Matthew Hardcastle said on Dec 9, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • *** This comment contains spoilers! ***

    I can't even think of a tag for it, because it's just slices of life from a weird family. One son is in a disfunctional marriage. Another son spends his life rewriting his first screen play over and over. The daughter lets sex drive her life and ruin her career. And if there's a story in there somew ... (continue)

    I can't even think of a tag for it, because it's just slices of life from a weird family. One son is in a disfunctional marriage. Another son spends his life rewriting his first screen play over and over. The daughter lets sex drive her life and ruin her career. And if there's a story in there somewhere, it ends with the mother finally having a life once dad is put in a home and the father wishing he were dead. I don't understand why so many people loved it. (p.s...it's very depressing, if you haven't already figured that out)

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    Missmath144 said on Jun 22, 2011 about the School & Library Binding edition | Add your feedback

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