The above statement is my new mantra. Notice I used the word 'mantra' and not resolution. I am feeling more optimistic and hopeful about this phrase and somewhat less than resolute. I am ok with this. Therefore, I will not feel like such a failure should something be left undone. I am embracing my erratic and infrequent bouts of blogging and hope that you will simply bear with me. So, here we go...no more whining about goals or messy houses or unemployment (largely because I am now employed, no longer attempting to goal set and have just come to terms with the domestic skills I so desperately lack). Without further ado....."The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen
Prior to this summer, I had never heard of this author. But the release of his much-acclaimed novel, "Freedom" garnered so much attention, I knew I had to read it. I ran out, bought Freedom, put it on my nightstand and proceeded with my summer. I completely forgot all about it until September when I realized that he was going to be a guest author at the Library of Congress Book Festival. Simultaneously, I recognized that he would be speaking at the same time as Suzanne Collins and we can all guess whose tent I was happily occupying. I never thought about this author again until I stumbled across a used copy of "The Corrections" and decided to read it first. I have been composing this entry in my head ever since I started this novel and can say with certainty that the thoughts I would have expressed during this novel, differ vastly from what I have to say upon completion. This almost never happens to me...I either like it, or I don't. In this case, I spent 500 some odd pages in complete loathing of a family with whom I did not like or care to befriend. Upon reflection, I realize that my dislike was so intense because Franzen so thoroughly delves into the lives and relationships of this fictional family, that you can't help but fidget uncomfortably and/or laugh while also falling for them regardless.
The novel follows the Lamberts, a mid-western family of five through events leading up to the possible occurrence of one, final Christmas together. The three children have all grown and gone their separate ways, one of them with a family of his own. The elderly parents, Alfred and Enid, are struggling to come to terms with Alfred's increasingly difficult "affliction", Parkinson's. It is Enid's one and only wish that the family spend one Christmas together, as a whole, in the house they grew up in. With their own lives moving at rapid and dramatic paces and familial relationships in a constant state of bend and fray, this wish is harder to grant than it would seem . Franzen chose to break the book down into segments with each segment focusing on a particular family member. I felt that this was an integral part in the understanding and empathy (or initial disgust, in my case) the reader ultimately develops for the characters.
As the novel progresses through a year of cruise-ship mishaps, psychedelic drugs, bouts of depression, illegal Internet fraud and illicit sexual affairs, I gradually found myself warming up to this dysfunctional family and falling in love with Franzen for the subtleties he felt compelled to include in his narrative. From the contents of a laundry room cupboard to the character traits of consumers who frequent medical supply stores, Franzen creates a world that is morbidly comedic and all too closely related to our own. Both a fictional narrative and a wry societal commentary, I was constantly in awe of the nuances he refused to omit as well as the breadth of knowledge he appears to possess about everything. Additionally, it is the relationships this family has with one another and the possibility that they could eventually parallel my own, that kept me going to the finish.
I have to wonder, though, if my age has something to do with my perception of this family. This family has long ago dispersed, each member molded into their lives, for the most part. Because my family is still in a state of flux, with siblings still in school and those yet to be married, the stagnation and boredom these characters were experiencing were altogether unfamiliar. Enid's focus on Christmas and her tangible excitement of the holiday was one of the few traits with which I could relate. Christmas tradition is the one topic on which my family unilaterally agrees. My parents and siblings, along with my spouse and my children always spend Christmas together at my Grandmother's. It has always been this way. Christmas tradition is the one element that I will not ever be willing to sacrifice. The idea that we may never all be together on Christmas, or that my children will not want to be with me on Christmas, is one that makes my stomach tighten. Enid and her devotion to the the way things were and the hope that they can be re-created was heart wrenching to read. No parent wants to envision a future with children who merely tolerate them.
Also, my parents are not anywhere close to the physical and mental deterioration of Albert and Enid. By most standards, they are still considerably young. Although I was unable to connect with the characters in this regard, the knowledge that day may actually arrive is painful enough. You can't help but wonder how you will react when the parent-child dynamic begins to shift. Alfred's deterioration amid his children's claims that "he is fine" is yet another example of the astute observations that have made me a Franzen fan. It is these observations, these nuances and questions, these relationships and these emotions that made "The Corrections" a novel not only worth reading but Jonathan Franzen worth remembering.
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