Well, I just finished reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I received it as a gift. I had been avoiding it because of the whole Oprah Hoopla [Oprah chose it as an Oprah Book Club book and the author balked, and then people thought he was snotty, and the he sort of apologized, but not really, etc.], but I have to say, it is truly tremendous.
It is rather sad, and also rather draining. Frankly, it's depressing. However, it is well-realized and the characters are fascinating, and I never lost interest. It wasn't nearly as pretentious as I had expected. I mean, it certainly has a "great american novel" vibe to it, but it's pretty easy to overlook (the page I linked above is an example of that vibe). I'm nonplussed that their making it into a movie, but you never know, it could work beautifully.
Posted by waking slow at January 9, 2003 04:51 PM