The Corrections

This was great!

Who remembers the scandal Jonathan Franzen caused back when this book was published? Oprah chose it for her book club, and Franzen was all like, "Okay, but you're not putting your Oprah's Book Club logo on my book cover because that is not the audience I was writing for," and then America was all like, "WHAT?! Let's throw things at this ungrateful, pretentious author. How DARE he try to preserve some control and prevent the pigeonholing of his own novel?! What. A. Snob."

It was a great practice run for Americans who were just about enjoy voting for Bush over Gore (what a nerd!) and Bush over Kerry (what a bore!), supporting an unsupportable war, and choosing things like his preference for Dijon and arugula as reasons to steer clear of Barack Obama. And making hateful disdain for education and excellence fashionable.

Reading this book is bizarre, because it was written and published before September 11, 2001. There is no mention of W. None of that had happened. And yet the book is startlingly familiar - it's, on the one hand, an intimate look at an America that disappeared shortly after the book's publication. On the other hand, it's a prescient dagger to the heart. Politics aside, this book is also full of gut-wrenching observations on family, work, and the pursuit of happiness in America. I sometimes had to put it down to give myself a break, but that's okay. Mostly I couldn't stop reading it.

I loved it! This is the best fiction I've read in a long time. I feel energized.