Readers Review: "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-22/readers-review-corrections-jonathan-franzen
Listeners are invited to join Diane for a conversation about the novel which put author Jonathan Franzen on the literary map. "The Corrections" is a tragic-comic look at an American family at the end of the twentieth century as each of its five adult members try to make up for some botched aspect of their shared lives.
Guests
Kate Lehrer
author, most recently of "Confessions of a Bigamist."
Ron Charles
fiction editor at The Washington Post
Dr. Laura Tracy
psychotherapist, former assistant professor of English at American and Georgetown Universities and author of "The Secrets Between Us."
Comments
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I want to recommend a book for your consideration:
Day for Night
by Frederick Reiken
A celebration of familial dysfunction and readers partaking in schadenfreuden. What a meanspirited waste of time!
I was interested in the earlier comment about the children's feeling of pity and guilt and how these feelings imprisoned them. I am concerned that in our culture, such feelings are not understood to be productive or constructive...perhaps this is the fault of our baby boomer sense of entitlement in which we fight not to have any demands on us, but rather to soak up as much as we can with little real or emotional risk...is there not another way, though, in which pity and guilt can lead to compassion and creative coping...
This may be good writing, but its impossible reading.
It's in a current mainstream publishing style that is obtuse and convoluted. For me this is everything wrong with corporate novels. See this Reader's Manifesto
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-reader-apos-s-mani...
I Have been listening for 40 minutes, would it kill you to say , if you've just joined us ......lucky I have an I pad so I could figure it out.
Thank you for a great and illustrative discussion.
This book has bugged me since it first came out and I was unable to articulate to others what exactly I didn't like. So many moments of resonance hit me today it was a joy.
When the book first came out I was one of several caregivers who watched my father die of Lou Gehrig's disease. I believe if you really allow yourself to be present in that care, life changes. My father, sister, mother, brother and I faced it as a family and we are so much more connected for it.
I found I didn't really care about any character in this book, and felt the author didn't either.
I felt the same way - it was very frustrating because I didn't have an I pad.......
I will disent from the other commenters to state that I loved "The Corrections". I read it several years ago, and have found people to be extremely divided over this book, as if it is some sort of litmus test--for what, I do not know. Some, like myself, find it hilariously funny, while others hate it with passion. I do not find it a "celebration" of dysfunction, but rather a unflinching look at real, imperfect family dynamics. As I have seen first hand with ailing parents, spousal relationships during illness are not always tidy; and yet, while people may not always behave as we believe they should when faced with crisis, they cope the best they can. Ultimately, rather than mean-spiritedness, I saw in Franzen's work redemption: an exploration of the beautifully flawed nature of us fragile humans.
I find it interesting that different readers have very different reactions to this book. I loved reading it, but found it too sobering to laugh at the funny parts.
can someone please tell me what book has been chosen for the next readers review program? and also exactly what day it will be discussed?
i can't seem to find this information on her website.
I believe it's "A Tale of Two Cities," on Oct 20th.