wallace-l: Franzen

[Paul Mackin]

As to the question has anyone finished the book yes I did a few days ago.
Think I liked pretty much all of it. Even Chip's writing project and its
hard to satisfy need for "corrections" may have served a salutory purpose.
Not even the first "correction" in the book if I recall rightly. "The
Corrections" is an inspired title I think.
            P.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Wake" <bobkat at smallbytes.net>
To: <wallace-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 7:02 PM
Subject: Re: wallace-l: Franzen


> Marcel Molina Jr writes:
> > Well, David Gates said in his review in the NYT that the first fifth of
the book really sucks canal water and that it suddenly
> > becomes, and remains, excelent, so...
>
> Good point, Marcel. I'm clocking in now around pg. 175 and things are
> looking up. Aren't there other Wallace-listers who've finished "The
> Corrections"? Any thoughts overall? Just add a "spoiler" warning to your
> post if you're divulging crucial plot details. I'm finding the domestic
> material with Gary Lambert and his family that kicks off the section
> "The More He Thought About It, the Angrier He Got" to be a real
> tour-de-force. Franzen's attention to the behavioral differences between
> the three sons and the endless little pinpricks of day-to-day marital
> discord is really first-rate. I suppose there's an element here of
> hybridized Updike, but I think Franzen, like Rick Moody, brings an
> unhinged edginess to this stuff.
>
> Those first 100 or so pages are problematic. Maybe they'll read better
> after finishing the book and then going back to them. (I do like the
> extended "alarm bell" metaphor in the opening two pages that David Gates
> found protracted and overdone.) I also wasn't much impressed with
> Franzen's political "satire" embodied in the character of Gitanas
> Misevicius, former "deputy prime minister of Lithuania." Gitanas and his
> elaborate international money bilking schemes seem like an uninspired
> Eastern European reworking of Heller's Milo Minderbinder.
>
> Anyone know what issue of the New Yorker has Franzen's recent piece
> about his father's Alzheimer's?
>
>
>
>
>
> Bob Wake