The Corrections is the first book I’ve read from Jonathan Franzen, and I think it won’t be the last. This interesting book made me feel like I was watching a mediocre at best movie on tv late at night. But I kept reading.
There is a very ordinary subject, but it is scattered all over the place; nonetheless, there is something that keeps you reading. That’s the power of literature, I think; there is no remote control so you cannot change the channel. I couldn’t let go of the book, even though I was bored. Jonathan Franzen is an unusual writer; reading him was an exceptional experience for me.
During my long summer holiday, I discovered many different authors. Among them, Jonathan Franzen is one of the authors I’ll never forget. While reading The Corrections, I remember taking lots of breaks, often overwhelmed and, sometimes forcing myself to read. But I kept reading; I couldn’t put it down for good. It makes you wonder. “What is going to happen now?”. And do you know what happens? Nothing. Life happens. But the author writes so well, thus immersing the reader in various thoughts about life. You start questioning.
Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude.
The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen won the National Book Award for Fiction (2001) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction (2002). Although I was bored throughout the book; I admit I admire the characters and the way he wrote. Jonathan Franzen is a good writer; however, I’m a reader who gets bored easily. (Especially if I’m reading about an American family.) If you haven’t read any of his books, give this a try. You may end up falling in love with it.
About the book: The Corrections
After fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity, and their children have long since fled for the catastrophes of their own lives. As Alfred’s condition worsens and the Lamberts are forced to face their secrets and failures, Enid sets her heart on one last family Christmas.
Bringing the old world of civic virtue and sexual inhibition into violent collision with the era of hands-off parenting, however do-it-yourself mental healthcare and globalised greed, `The Corrections’ confirms Jonathan Franzen as one of the most brilliant interpreters of the American soul.
About the author: Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections, a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
