Published 2001 / Length 568 pages
The Corrections was launched with a blaze of publicity in September 2001 as the new great American novel. Its backdrop is a rapidly changing world, and four days before the book was published this sense of change accelerated when the World Trade Center in New York was destroyed.
The plot centres on a dysfunctional Midwest family trying to bring their children together for one final Christmas. The title is a recurring motif throughout the novel, as characters try to correct their faults and lifestyles to accommodate one another. On a macro level, the corrections refer to a broad spectrum, from neurological rewiring to stock-market adjustments. It’s the ripples created by these corrections and the selfish motivations behind them that the book explores. Franzen doesn’t shirk from the big topics; the subtext examines the morality of greed and the effects of debilitating illness. Yet all this is not to say that the novel lacks humour – in fact, it’s the use of comedy in the face of adversity that characterizes its best passages. The Corrections is perhaps the last of the ‘great American novels’ written before the world changed on 9/11.
‘Think of the book as a blend of postmodern meganovel and Victorian family saga.’ – Raleigh News and Observer
• Are all the themes Franzen explores universal, or are certain corrections too American to resonate with non-US audiences? Did you feel the European chapter fitted naturally with the rest of the novel? Was it an attempt to downplay the American-centric narrative?
• How much compassion do you feel for Alfred and Enid Lambert? Is the generation gap growing ever wider? To what extent does technology create this division in the novel?
• The New York Times said of the book: ‘If you don’t end up liking each one of Franzen’s people, you probably just don’t like people.’ Do you feel this is a true statement, or is the opposite true?
• In a novel populated by largely unlikeable characters, with whom do your sympathies ultimately lie?
• The Corrections won the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction and was included in Time magazine’s list of All-Time 100 Novels.
• Franzen was the first novelist to express dissatisfaction with Oprah’s Book Club, in a bid to promote his novel as a highbrow read. This action ignited a debate in the US regarding highbrow versus mainstream literature. Arguably, it influenced Oprah’s selection process thereafter, with a greater emphasis on classic books.
• A film of the novel is currently in pre-production.
• Saturday by IAN MCEWAN – a British take on dysfunctional family relationships and dealing with a parent’s debilitating illness.
• Underworld by DON DELILLO – a similarly panoramic novel about family and society in America.