The Corrections

Summary (from the publisher): 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.

Review: This book. Where to begin with this book? For starters, I struggled mightily with this, and despite my best judgment, kept reading it when everyone around me, including myself, told me to stop reading it because I clearly was not into it. I typically love family saga style books, so I had high hopes for this, especially after reading many glowing reviews, but unfortunately, I just did not enjoy it. Maybe it was the fact that I just plain didn't like any of the characters. Maybe it was the depressing and farce-like nature of the plot. Or maybe it was the fact that Franzen is trying so hard to convince the reader that this book is Really Important Literature. Either way, it was not to my taste, and I congratulated myself on the sheer feat of will that was my effort to finish reading all 568 pages.  

This book is about a family in crisis. Enid and Alfred, the less than happy parents, are slipping into their elderly years. Alfred is increasingly using his mental and physical faculties due to Parkinson's disease. The three kids aren't much better off. Gary is slipping into a deep depression, Chip has been fired and goes on some crazy (and unbelievable) "business venture" to Lithuania with his mistress's ex-husband, and Denise is ruining her career through bad choices in love. For the most part, all the characters proceed under the illusion that everything is fine, although in a rare moment of honesty Enid opens up to a fellow cruise traveler saying, "It's been years, Sylvia, since we had a relationship with him. I don't think he tells us the truth about what he's doing with his life. He said once he was working for the Wall Street Journal. Maybe I misheard him, but I think that's what he said, but I don't think that's really where he's working. I don't know what he does for a living really" (315). No one in the family has a solid relationship with any of the others, which is perhaps while mother Enid is fixated on the idea of one last family Christmas in St. Jude, as a way of recapturing their former family dynamic. 

This novel defines itself when it uses the phrase "tragedy rewritten as a farce" (537). Everything is crazy depressing, yet comical in its exaggeration, from the over emphasis on the mid-western dowdiness of the parents, to the fall of Alfred from the cruise ship in a dementia-clouded moment, to Chip's desperate attempt to pay off his debts through traveling to Lithuania and defrauding the Lithuanian people, to Denise being fired from her job as a nationally known chef because she slept with not only her boss but her boss' wife. Everything is over the top and absurd. You'd cry, but yet it almost makes you laugh. Almost.   

It's not so much that this book was poorly written. It fact it's well done and themes are well integrated throughout. It's more that it's just not the sort of thing I like. Although, none of the characters liked themselves or each other either, so I doubt they would blame me. 

Stars: 2