Rating: 
Summary: Read It; Don't Be Put Off By The Hype
Review: "The Corrections" has been delivered with a blizzard of media hype than can be off-putting to the very readers the publishers want to reach (people starved for serious, readable, intelligent fiction.) But you really should get ahold of this excellent novel. I devoured it in one night's frenzied reading. Yes indeed, Franzen has taken the somewhat inaccessible avant-garde concerns of writers like Don DeLillo or the David Foster Wallace of "Infinite Jest" and placed them in the context of a mainstream novel about *family* and how it prepares you to function (or not) in the larger world. Franzen manages to create a little universe that mirrors our own crazy world, yet makes the madness more comprehensible. He is devilishly funny, in a laugh-out-loud sort of way, yet his message is ultimately one of forgiveness and reconciliation. The Lamberts, the screwed-up family at the heart of the story, have the feeling of real people you know. That are unique, unforgettable individuals, but you may squirm when the self-destructive ways of Gary, Chip or Denise remind you of the stupid mistakes you have made in your own life. Alfred and Enid, the mom and dad, will make you shake your head; when did Franzen meet *my* parents? The book becomes genuinely suspenseful as Enid struggles to get her wayward children home for "one last Christmas" before Alfred's decline becomes irrevocable. And don't let Franzen's bad-mouthing of Oprah deter you from reading this. Ironically, his comments are just the sort of thing one of the Lambert kids would say in order to sabotage themselves. It just proves Franzen really does know what he's talking about.
Rating: 
Summary: Like "Seinfeld"...
Review: ...Well written, and clever. But the characters are so unlikable and pathetic, even as they are hilarious, that the book failed to satisfy me. Franzen's writing is great, but occasionally goes into that Look-how-good-I-am territory.
Not a Must Buy, doesn't merit the hype, but still enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: not just being contrarian; I honestly didn't like it
Review: All the hype surrounding this book really excited me. Finally, a piece of fiction I can sink my teeth into, I thought. Then I started reading.
Maybe my family just isn't dysfunctional enough? I really didn't find any of the main characters sympathetic or intriguing, with the possible exception of Alfred as he struggles invisibly to maintain control over his body and life. Enid, along with most of the other characters, was a total mystery to me. Chip I found downright odious and not sympathetic in the least.
Nevertheless I kept trying to like the book. I stuck it out for about 200 pages. What finally made me put it down and walk away was Franzen's writing style. There are apparently lots of people, some of them on prestigious award committees, who love the way this man writes. Personally I cannot fathom why. To me, the writing reeks of narcissism. While struggling through the book I had a persistent mental image of the author as an insufferably pompous academic, smirking to himself as he typed out ironically modest responses to his fan email, the majority of which had been sent by pompous academics exactly like him.
But then, Oprah liked this book enough to choose it for her book club, and she's hardly pompous. What I propose is this: if you pick this book up and do not start to feel some kind of kinship with the main characters within the first 100 pages, put it down and don't pick it up again. Don't subject yourself to Franzen's self-indulgent prose for anything less.
Rating:
Summary: One of my all-time favorites
Review: I absolutely love this book. I've read hundreds of novels and this one is in my top ten. It is beautifully written and makes mundane suburban life seem interesting and important and... cinematic. If you are an avid reader, I bet that you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: The Corrections is in need of corrections.
Review: I decided to read The Corrections because I was mainly curious about the book following the publicity and hype it received a couple years ago. From page one of this book, it has never grabbed me and only once or twice did I experience a scintilla of truth in any of the characters. Moreoever, the title and purpose of this book have yet to become clear to me. (I should mention I have not finished the book - I am currently at the scene on the cruise ship where Enid attempts to talk to the doctor about her husband - and probably won't waste any more time reading it.) With an occasional reference to the words "correct" or "corrections" and the description of the newly researched medical procedure "Corecktall", the author fails to show what the corrections really are about. If Franzen merely wants to portray a family whose members miss opportunities to correct themselves (i.e. overcome their dysfunctional behavior), he does a poor job of it. Granted I haven't finished the book, so maybe it redeems itself. However, the writing in this book is so bad, that I can't imagine between now and the end of the book, it will improve in anyway. I wish I had read the Amazon reviews before starting this book. It may have saved me money and several hours of wasted reading!!
Rating:
Summary: A New Favorite
Review: I loved this book. The characters in this quintessentially dysfunctional family are totally belieavable and totally loveable. Maybe this book was just a little too long, but overall an absolutely excellent read. Loved it.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the Price of Admission
Review: I resisted "The Corrections" because of the all the early hype, but Franzen pulls it off and honestly lives up to the hype. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down.
Review: I wasn't aware of the hype when this book was handed to me. (Yes, I live under a (book-filled) rock.) Hype or not, I love this book. There are a lot of books about weird families with issues but none of them are as well done with characters so alive and real. This book is definitely character-based and not plot-based so some might find it slow moving. It's a book to be savored. When I finished it, I had the distinct feeling of saying goodbye to friends after a wonderful visit.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated and Overlong
Review: I'd like to say that I just finished wading through The Corrections, but honestly, I have not been able to force myself through the last couple pages that comprise the epilogue, called "The Corrections." Perhaps in those pages lay the key the entire novel, the purpose with which it was written and read, but I doubt it. Franzen is more or less consistent in let-downs following his set-ups.
Franzen proves himself an adroit writer with undeniable skill. He turns deft phrases that provide points of light like little gemstones throughout the novel. Unfortunately, these diamonds and rubies drown in seas of overly wrought details and unnecessary longwindedness. Perhaps Franzen's problem is that he recognizes his own skill, and he pretentiously tries to feed us as much of his piggy pudding as we can stomach-and even then, he continues.
As a former executive at a publishing company and a current freelance novel editor, I would have told Franzen that he had more than one book here. With his furious intent to write a character and relationship based novel, he's shoved in too many characters, too many relationships. I would have coldly and unrelentingly made him cut out any information about Robin Passafaro, Nick Passafaro, Billy Passafaro, and Brian Callahan that were not directly related to Denise. With two parents, three siblings, three grandchildren, one in-law, and several exes, I could have foregone the Bible-like lineage of Denise's boss' wife's father and uncles. This example is merely the most memorable of a long list of "stuff" that should have been left out of the book.
I would have been much, much more satisfied if I had read a book about Denise and her relationship with her parents. OR about Chip and his life. OR about Gary and his own family, depression, neuroses, and anger management issues (well, not really Gary-to me, Gary was the least likable of any character in the book). Franzen probably could have realistically and interestingly accounted the fall of Lithuania in a singular novel. What was that plot doing in here? A book ostensibly about Christmas?
Two words for you, Franzen: too much. Or should I say, cut back. How about more than two words: you have a lifetime to write novels; stop trying to put all your ideas into one.
All in all, as I said in the subject line-overrated. Franzen deserves laudatory praise for his obvious skill as a writer, but the Corrections deserves no praise for its success as a novel, as it was not successful. Maybe Franzen is a writer, but he's no novelist.
Rating: 
Summary: Low family...High art
Review: Jonathan Franzen's finding of so much epic poetry in the most mundane and banal aspects of the 20th century American dysfunctional family would rank him among many fine writers of his generation. It is, however, make no mistake, his incredible skills as a writer and his compassion for the characters that transcends the arrogant voyeurism that could be considered the foundation of the very art form he has grown to master that puts him in Toni Morrison/Mishima/Steinbeck-land with this wonderfully heartbreaking book THE CORRECTIONS.Franzen for me never actually defines what he means by the term that is the title of the book. And that's where part of the magic is. The theme of corrections; corrections of mistakes within lives that could be so easily be thought of as existential mistakes as a whole is a leit motif that continuously returns in the novel at the perfect times in the most unexpected, artistic and inventive ways, from the most mundane to the deepest of allegorical levels. Franzen throughout this novel does not judge his characters, as much as he reveals their faults in such detail and context that one's desire to judge them as much as sympathize with them is seduced to the point of making the putting down of his book nearly impossible. By the same token Franzen does not make a judgement on Patriarchy, or capitalism, or, the concept of "race", or the tragic farce that often is what we call modern marriage. But in the weaving of his stories within stories, pasts within pasts, dreams within dreams, all centered around the final Christmas one aging mid-Western family plans to have with all their sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers and grandkids--and demons--he reveals underneath his judgements of globilization, the intolerance for pain of any kind in American society (shown through our love of both dysfunction and pain killers) and insular suburbanism the many facets to all of these grand topics and ideas. He does so in a way that forces you to think about them; to feel them while you are thinking about them; to see your self and your own life in their context; all while never letting you forget that love does not conquer all...love is life itself. Oprah's incredible taste in literature brought awareness of this book to me--though, like most of the things she recommends, I didn't read it until the hooplah about it died down. You will find Jonathan Franzen's life and his family in virtually all of the characters, I'm sure--particularly the much beloved but ill-fated brother Chip (ill-fated in the way Jung describes fate as the life made from the denial of ones true passions). You will see the history of America in the 20th century in the rapidly declining Patriarch of the novel, and his eldest son the depressed suburban financier in a marriage spinning out of control, and the father's growing soulless relationship with his wife of 48 years. But above all, you will feel as if you have moved into the architecture of the human soul through his writing style; a style that has moments of shimmering transcendence the likes of which will make you refuse to believe these characters are not a family you've known all your life...or maybe even was raised by. I will be looking for the rest of his works based onmy experience of him and this great novel. I highly recommend it.
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