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The Corrections

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The Corrections

By: Jonathan Franzen
Narrated by: George Guidall
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Summary

 THE NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ‘A genuine masterpiece, the first great American novel of the twenty-first century’ Elle ‘Funny, moving, generous, brutal and intelligent’ Guardian

A brilliantly perceptive and moving novel that announced Jonathan Franzen as one of our greatest living writers.

The Lamberts – Enid, Alfred and their three grown-up children – are a troubled family living in a troubled age. After fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid is ready to have some fun, but her husband Alfred is losing his mind to Parkinson’s. As his condition worsens, and the Lamberts are forced to face the long-buried secrets and failures that haunt them, Enid sets her heart on gathering everyone together for one last family Christmas.

‘Compellingly readable, funny and above all generous spirited’ Daily Mail

‘A novel of outstanding sympathy, wit, moral intelligence and pathos, a family saga told with stylistic brio and psychological and political insight’ Financial Times

‘A big-hearted, panoramic American epic, intelligent and wise but also wildly, stonkingly funny’ Independent

©2021 Jonathan Franzen (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Classics Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Marriage
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Critic reviews

"Jonathan Franzen has built a powerful novel out of the swarming consciousness of a marriage, a family, a whole culture - our culture. And he has done it with a sympathy and expansiveness that bends the edgy modern temper to a generous breadth of vision." (Don DeLillo)

"Funny and deeply sad, large-hearted and merciless, The Corrections is a testament to the range and depth of pleasures great fiction affords." (David Foster Wallace)

"In its complexity, its scrutinizing and utterly unsentimental humanity, and its grasp of the subtle relationships between domestic drama and global events, The Corrections stands in the company of Mann's Buddenbrooks and DeLillo's White Noise. It is a major accomplishment." (Michael Cunningham)

"A genuine masterpiece, the first great American novel of the twenty-first century." (Elle)

"Funny, moving, generous, brutal and intelligent." (Guardian)

"Compellingly readable, funny and above all generous spirited." (Daily Mail)

"A novel of outstanding sympathy, wit, moral intelligence and pathos, a family saga told with stylistic brio and psychological and political insight." (Financial Times)

"A big-hearted, panoramic American epic, intelligent and wise but also wildly, stonkingly funny." (Independent)

All stars
Most relevant
This is robably the best audio book I have listened to. Brilliantly written and read.

Fantastic

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Read this book if you like great writing, family intrigue as a satire which made me laugh out loud at how awful they all were!

Brilliant

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I greatly enjoy the author's detailed and exquisite examination of life and relationships. His prose style demands constant alertness and this is where the audio format is such a help because Guidel's astonishing virtuosity as a reader does most of the work of close scrutiny of the work for you, and you just have to luxuriate in the rich sinuousness of the writing.

An impeccable reading of an absorbing novel

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What’s not to like, a true story teller of the reality of living- being part of & parenting a family & watching the end. Poetic & exquisite in the telling.

So true it’s painful!

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Having read and thoroughly enjoyed The Corrections when it was first released 20 odd years ago, I downloaded the audiobook to see if the novel was a good as I remembered, but also to see if the story and characters remain as relevant a quarter of a century later. I was not disappointed. Franzen’s wonderful prose and his forensic understanding of each of the flawed and often desperate and despairing members of the Lambert family, still shine a light into modern family dynamics. Generational angst; sibling rivalries, personal greed versus private moralities, the pride, conservatism and pragmatism of aging parents and the hidden secrets and suppressed trauma’s of generations. It’s all here and told without trite aphorisms. Like the Lamberts, the story is not without flaws, notably some of lazy descriptions of Lithuania. But overall, this doesn’t detract from it being a great novel and benefitting from a lack of trite aphorisms. And to cap it all, the narration is excellent! Now if Franzen would just crack on with his Crossroads trilogy so I can get my fix.

A superb portrayal of modern family dynamics

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