In a 1996 Harper’s Magazine article, Johnathan Franzen quotes another author by asking, “What story is there to tell about the average American whose day consists of sleeping, working at a computer screen, watching TV and talking on the phone?” Battered by the inability of his first two novels to move off the shelves, Franzen questions in his essay whether or not the novel is still able to retain social significance when most Americans pass their days, months and years without ever picking up a book.
Yet, in his third novel, The Corrections, he finds quite a story to tell about an average American family?the Lamberts, from small, mid-Western St. Jude. Firmly ensconced on the New York Times Best-Seller list and having won both the National Book Award and an Oprah’s Book Club endorsement, The Corrections is the first novel in a while to assume event-level importance.
This large novel concerns a retired couple, Enid and Alfred Lambert. Enid is challenged to acknowledge the inevitable in the face of Alfred’s developing Parkinson’s disease. The couple’s three grown-up children have all attempted to move far away from home. Denise, a talented chef, has married and divorced a man twice her age and since engaged in several sexually confusing episodes. Gary, the first-born, is a banker with a bitch of a wife and two out of three kids spoiled rotten. Chip is a former professor fired for liking one student a little too much, currently trying to sell his screenplay version of a deconstructionist tragedy. The story centers around Enid’s attempt to get her family back together for what could be Alfred’s last Christmas.
This is a novel about family, although it partly achieves Franzen’s essay’s plea to link the private with a larger social framework. There is veiled and overt criticism of modern day society within The Corrections. Alfred, a former railroad engineer, finds his solid Midwestern work ethic challenged by his children’s East Coast obsessions with quick money and selfish satisfaction.
Each of the Lamberts’s suppressed feelings for each other pops up in later relationships, and they mirror America’s obsession with consumerism as a source of pleasure. Franzen writes, “And so in the house of the Lamberts, as in St. Jude, as in the country as a whole, life came to be lived underground.” He views excess consumerism as an attempt to fill a spiritual or social hole, which is pushed below the surface. A clear example is that of elder son Gary’s family. His needy and spoiled wife uses money and gifts on her children where more adjusted people use love. Sadly, this fiction reminds us of families that we know all too well.
The novel truly shines in the truthful familiarity of its family relations. Franzen’s treatment of the Lambert’s neuroses, sibling rivalries and parent-child divisions makes one literally wince at his accuracy. It is hard not to reflect on one’s own disputes and misunderstandings while reading his prose. Although it is generally acknowledged that the sins of fathers come to bear on their children, Franzen paints a portrait of family as both confinement and salvation.
On a flight to Lithuania to set up an Internet wire-fraud scheme, Chip relates this truth to his new boss, a survivor of a particular form of torture in a Soviet prison:
”’So what, you got cigarette burns too?’ Gitanas said.
Chip showed his palm. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Self-inflicted. You pathetic American.’
‘Different kind of prison,’ Chip said.”
Each trapped in their own prison, half their own making and half not, the Lamberts radiate humanity in all its disfunctional glory. It is interesting to note just how adroitly Franzen portrays his character’s weaknesses, making them believably nasty while never detracting from our sympathy for the person. Our hidden, secret weaknesses are reflected in the beautifully detailed limitations of the Lamberts.
One can see how easy it is to call The Corrections a depressing novel with no redeeming characteristics. Yet, its one overarching and most important characteristic is the existence of actual characters. The Lamberts are identifiably real. A common critique of contemporary novels is their weak characters and character development. Sure, these books have fancy, convoluted plots and claim to deal with deep social issues, but what is the last recent novel of serious caliber where a character etched himself into your mind? Men and women with real problems, real feelings and real drawbacks, the Lambert clan remains separate while assuming the form of a collective character.
In his Harper’s essay, Franzen asks, “Does the distress I feel derive from some internal sickness of the soul, or is it imposed on me by the sickness of society?” The Corrections is a direct result of the ambitious questions raised by that essay. Do the problems of the Lamberts stem from their family difficulties, or the ever-changing society around them? The answer is probably both, although the author leaves it to us to figure out, with the implicit understanding that an answer might never come. The Corrections poses many questions, offering few answers but exposing some amusing and heartbreaking truths about family and America. The book is a quick 560 pages, worth saving for a read at home over Christmas break, when all those annoying family habits start reminding you why you went off to college in the first place.
