Book Report: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Book Report: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Introduction

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen is Americana's welcoming chunk. In spite of focusing on fairly unlikable and distasteful events and in spite of being populated by basically unsympathetic and insensitive characters, this novel is a consistently pleasurable read (Burn, 2008). It is barely wearing and even though being near six hundred pages long, it is a novel one would not have minded being even longer.

Discussion

Jonathan Franzen is an American writer who did his graduation from Swarthmore College. Franzen has acquired extensive acclaim for his novel, The Corrections. He was honored with the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the National Book Award (Marschall, 2011).

Franzen's novel, The Corrections is a well written, old-fashioned novel. The presentation and writing seem effortless, the stories and characters are well engaged. There is humanity and pathos, tragedy and humor (Marschall, 2011). The intensely personal misfortunes of life are in particular captured amazingly in this book.

Franzen puts the narrative of the Lamberts in the picture: Enid and Alfred, retired in Midwestern St. Jude, their native land, are growing old. Especially Alfred is having difficulties, physically and mentally. Their three grownup children reside on the East Coast: Gary a banker, Denise is a chef, Chip is stuck between jobs (Franzen, 2001). Gary is married and is a dad of three children, whilst Chip and Denise are less tied-up. St. Jude, as noticed by one of the characters, is the patron saint of discouraging causes, however living in a metropolis named after him has not helped the Lambert family much. Alfred has appeared strong-minded to avoid victory for years: he gave up his job only short of the point when he could have gathered a much bigger pension. Another possible bonus is also passed up: Alfred used to fiddle in his underground room, and yet patented some of his findings (Franzen, 2001). Something now appears to be a major ingredient in an innovative neurobiological mediator, Corecktall that is developed by pre-IPO organization Axon. It guarantees to be a wonder remedy. However, Axon at first only provides Alfred a token amount for his exclusive rights and he is eager to accept it, more willingly than ask for more.

The growing debilitation of Alfred as his hardwiring not passes him and the attempts of Enid at making an environment of what she thinks familial ordinariness might lead the book. Enid wishes to bring the family together in any case for one last Christmas in their native city, a long-standing plan that does not look very hopeful. Almost completely unaware of the failures and failings of all surrounding her, Enid focuses mainly on this one objective (Franzen, 2010). The narrative moves between pasts and present, as the focal point moves from child to child and the narrative of each of the 5 members of the Lamberts Family is recounted. Unfortunate Chip seems to be the ultimate loser, his sad and pitiable life disintegrating totally as he is brought ...