I recently finished The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. (Here's the Amazon.com link.) This is a book that elicits a lot of thoughts from me, but I am not sure if I'll be able to express many of them in a coherent manner.
The book is the story of a typical(??) dysfunctional American family: two parents and their three adult children. At the highest level, it tells of father Alfred's struggle with Parkinson's disease and his slipping further and further into dementia. But, it also goes in-depth into each of the main characters, exploring how messed-up each of them really is.
At times, Franzen is quite amusing with the jabs he takes at our 21st-century capitalist/consumerist society. As an example, the only model of Sport-Utility Vehicle driven by any of the characters is the Ford Stomper. (This inspired me to call my new minivan a Ford Behemoth.)
So, what's the point of it all? In my book club discussion of this book, everyone was disappointed by the "and they all lived happily ever after" ending. After spending 592 pages describing how dysfunctional everyone was, nobody thought the final five pages were very believable. If I had to find an overall theme, it would be that the story is a confirmation of Numbers 14:18b in the Bible: "[God] punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."
I found the book to be overly long. Also, why can't books be rated like movies? I found this one to be fuller of coarse language and sex than I prefer in a novel. It would be nice if there were some way to learn about a book's content or its "suitability for children" or whatever, othen than just reading it.
The author shows a lot of talent in this book, and I'm sure that some people will really like it and consider it to be an "example of meaningful contemporary literature". But in this case I don't think "a display of writing talent" necessarily translates into a book that I'd recommend.
Two stars out of five.
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