Did I just read the best novel of the early 2000s? It won a bunch of awards. It was very well-received, and Jonathan Franzen was deemed to be a great American Novelist, and accolades were heaped. But why am I unsure about how I feel about the book I just read, The Corrections?
I admit that I read The Corrections out of some strange idea that I should read The Corrections. Back in 2001 when it was published I was a sophmore in high school, hardly attune to the literary world because I was reading Hemingway and Catcher in the Rye. And somehow, I just never read Franzen. So when all of the hype started for Freedom, I was uneducated. I vowed not to say anything about the book until I’d read it, and I decided not to read it until I read The Corrections.
I hope that my brain didn’t harp on this situation as I read it. But reading The Corrections felt like work. I didn’t feel connected to the characters, and while I admired its cleverness and the interesting plot, I felt like the book lacked heart.
Family dynamics are fascinating and deserving of literary examination. The revolving point of view was what distracted me, because as I was reading from Chip’s narrative I wondered more about this “Denise” character. And while I was reading Gary I was like, “What about Chip?” and when I read from Alfred’s, or Enid’s point of view I wanted to hear from their children. I felt like I was skimming the surface of five people instead of delving into one- resulting in me not knowing or ultimately, caring about what happens to anyone.
For some reason, the character I did connect with the most was Denise, and I felt like her section was the shortest. I found it interesting that Franzen kind of masculinized her, I wondered if this was a result of his inability to do female perspectives? Denise had the most interesting life, the most interesting and realistic relationships with her parents and siblings, and yet, her section was the shortest.
As I finished the book everything was all of a sudden rushed. Plots were resolved and relationships formed in mere sentences making the previous 500 pages somewhat negligible. But the most striking thing about The Corrections was the mood of sadness that I felt at the end. The end was really sad, but I couldn’t feel sadness for the characters. I felt sadness for people in general, and if that’s what Franzen intended, he succeeded.
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