Disclaimer: I know everyone has loved this book so far. I really disliked it (a bit with a burning passion-much like my friend Nora's for The Road) so know that I mean no offense to the fans out there! I respect all of your book opinions, mine is just very different this time.
At first I was enjoying this novel. Sure I hated the characters, but in an interesting way. I was excited to see their character arcs and their cathartic transformations. I loved the satirical way Frranzen wrote and enjoyed his biting commentary on society. I waited anxiously for the story to move forward and the characters to start evolving. I waited and I waited and i waited.... I think it was around 400 pages when I knew it was over. This was not the novel for me.
First of all, boy did I hate the people in this book. I'm all for showing characters in a realistic light and accurately portraying the faults that they (like many of us) carry. But not every character has to be the absolute scum of the earth. Every time there was a choice between doing good and doing something selfish and disgusting, guess what every single person seemed to choose? Sure, sometimes, in real life, we choose the latter option and by all means show us that, but unless you are writing "Satan: Prince of Darkness, A biography", noone ALWAYS goes down the worst path.
And the SATIRE dear god...Im concerned that when writing this novel Franzen sat down with a list of every possible thing in society that he could satire/draw attention to its wrongness and then went "Well, there's my outline right there!" I felt that the sheer volume of things he was trying to point out to me made me stop caring about any of them. At first it was like, yes we ARE over medicated, yes it IS ridiculous the way we look at sexuality, or yes the patriarchal family structure is stifling, and yes I guess politics in scandanavia are messed up? and so on and so on, I couldn't keep up.
The characters were pretty much the same from the start of the story to the end, and may I just comment that the end was so despicable to me that it made me sort of nauseous. What I find interesting about books with "bad" people in them is that, if they are done right, I can relate to them (if only in a small way) and it makes me question my own choices and what selfishness and potential evil lives within myself, but with this novel the characters became so absurd that I stopped relating completely. One scene in particular jumps out where Denise and Chip are emailing eachother. Denise asks Chip to come home for Christmas and Chip replys that he shot a man in the stomach twice and watched him die. Denise's response is something like (im clearly summarizing based on my own bias here) Oh you knucklehead, stop making excuses! Just totally unrealistic human responses by everyone in this novel.
Ok, I am done ranting. This book got amazing reviews from most important literary people under the sun and everyone on this blog so I welcome your comments/discussion/fierce angry arguments!
2 comments:
You are a brave woman, Sanchez, for speaking that mind of yours. I would like to show some solidarity for your opinion.
Blog friends, you may have noticed that I have not yet reviewed The Corrections. That is because I am STILL only halfway through it because I cannot muster up the energy to finish. But finish I will, you mark my words! It's just going to be one of those ten-pages-at-a-time-over-the-course-of-seven-months kind of reads.
Allison, I am glad you are my partner in this venture. We're the only two people in the history of the literate world who weren't into this book... Let's just make a top secret fort in the living room and order in Chinese food and read the Hunger Games series on a continuous loop, okay?
I tried reading this when it first came out and quit reading it immediately but all these many years later, I picked it up again (thanks to our...ahem...March 15th deadline) and couldn't put it down. Sooo, what's the moral of the story? Try later? But it's okay, ladies. I, for one, forgive you.
Hey, that secret fort sounds like fun. Would an old mom be invited sometime? I could bring some cookie dough and 3 spoons.
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