Did anyone else actually get through The Corrections?

Has anyone here read Frazen's The Twenty-Seventh City? I just finished it, in the past week or so, and can't figure-out just how I feel about the darn thing.

With the talking shit I was totally thinking of South Park. And the doctor on the cruise ship who pushed the yellow pills was named Dr. Hibbard.

I read a lot of stuff that's very engaging and well-written but not too memorable, so it's refreshing to find a book that's both. The characters are going to linger in my mind for a long time.

At first the characters appear supremely fucked up that it just seemed beyond comprehension. Over time, there's more dimension: you can see the humanity and emotion behind some of the flawed decisions they make, and the characters became more relatable. It's disturbing but interesting to start to see facets of people you know in such dysfunctional characters. I had a very hard time with Enid. Her desperate optimism and denial of reality, her determination to have a harmonious family Christmas. I think it hit a little bit too close to home.

I was really glad I read this *after* the holidays with my family.

What were your impressions of that other Franzen book you just read, MsLaura? Would you recommend it?

I have Strong Motion, but haven't gotten around to reading it. Can anyone tell me how it compares to Corrections?

However, TTSC has a certain odd charm of its own - though I don't know that I'd characterize it as being particularly likable. Basically, it's set in St. Louis in 1984 - and shows how the town's civic and business leaders react to the arrival of a female Chief of Police, who is also from India. Rumors start to abound of corruption and conspiracies - it's somewhat of a political thriller, somewhat of an allegory of "anytown" USA toward the end of the Cold War, somewhat of an odd love story, somewhat a story of a man being manipulated by a crafty foe ... quite compelling ideas and an interesting exploration of themes, but I can't say that I loved the book. But I didn't hate it, either.

I hope that that helps a bit.

I too have Franzen's Strong Motion sitting on my shelf, but I've not cracked the spine of that novel - maybe sometime later this year?

Okay, I'll bite - just what makes Franzen a dipshit? (I'm so not aware of the current literary scene - this is an honest inquiry.)

That said, I saw him talk (not a reading, more of a "here is my experience of 'the writing life'" thing) shortly after he won the NBA and found I didn't despise him in person as much as I expected to.

Jed: You're right, because when I hate a book enough, I don't finish reading it.

And about Lemony Snicket - woo-hoo, I also know nothing about him (er, the real author behind Snicket, that is - I do know something about Snicket based on those delightful blubs at the end of his books, and the Unauthorized Autobiography too). Wait, that isn't true - I remember reading somewhere that he was attracted to his girlfriend/wife because she reminded him of the daughter in either The Munsters or The Addams Family (sorry, I've never seen either show or the movie).

Someone said on an old Franzen ILE thread that he appears to have a total lack of sympathy for all his characters, but I thought Chip and Denise in particular came across pretty well, considering. This may be because I found myself identifying with Chip to a frankly depressing degree.

On a related note, based on his performance and the odd interview I've read of him, I can't understand how people (writingstatic) can take such an objection to him. I thought his manners were impeccable. And don't get me wrong: I usually find it very easy to dislike people.

what does this mean?

Yet, The Corrections ends quite poorly, I think, so maybe that was an oddly good odd decision?

TS: 'little lesbian fantasies' vs writing a big novel with lesbians in it.

TS: writing a novel with lesbians in it vs avoiding writing a novel with lesbians in it.

Matt DC says that he strongly identifies with Chip. I wonder what it is that most prompts his feeling: the promiscuity; the drug addiction; the teaching skills; the dismissal for sexual misconduct; the crazy interlude in Eastern Europe, ending with being held up by police in ski masks; or just the knowledge of Marcuse and Foucault?

I had thought that this thread was full of attacks on the book, which put me off it as I finished it last night. But I was wrong - the thread is more full of apt praise.

Could the book's (perhaps; arguably) poor ending harm its impression on some readers? A bad time to be bad, the end. (Brick Lane ends appallingly after being merely mediocre throughout.) Yet the bulk of it is so fine: so detailed and nuanced; so felt and thought-provoking. I strongly agree with the posters above who found Gary's domestic travails hilarious: repeatedly they made me laugh.

Franzen's at his weakest when he gets kinda hyperrealist (so-called) -- when he sounds like DFW, talking pharmaceuticals and "factors", for instance.

(PS / The book reminded me yesterday of Mark S himself, and I wonder whether he has read it [probably he has]: for it seems to have a couple of oddly large crossovers with his own life and preoccupations. [On reflection, I imagine he does not greatly rate it; but I am fantasizing now.])

The talking poo maybe seemed outlandish, but who knows what disgusting, silly things happen behind people's heads? My a/c went out a few years ago on the hottest night of the year, and I spend the night thinking that a band had come to stay in my house, and that they were shooting ping-pong balls over my head at the wall.

It was scary to see Gary beginning to exhibit the same characteristics (i.e. urinating into the beer stein.) The characters were real enough for me to wonder how Caroline would handle her husband in thirty years.

Judging from the photo on the inner sleeve, Franzen does look like an insufferable prick, but hey.