"His Body Was What She'd Wanted. It Was the Rest of Him That Was The Problem" The Correctioning Readalong Week 5

Guys.

GUYS.

It's over. It's finished. We never have to read about Caroline or Chip (hmmm both C names, I call Conspiracy) or Lithuanian scams or cheating partners or the miserable Lamberts ever again!

I've had a lot of fun paying this book out, but I didn't hate it. I didn't love it, and I'm not sure if I even liked it, but I definitely didn't hate it. And this section (save for that bullshit final couple of everything-is-perfect pages) was definitely decent.

So here we go. Can we talk about how much I hate Caroline? Like I really, really detest her. More than Chip. Which, I know guys, I know that's a big thing to say. But everyone knows how much of flake Chip is and no one (save Denise giving him $20,000) really trusts him with anything. Caroline on the other hand is the mother of 3 kids, her husband is so browbeaten (although not completely innocent in all of this) that he seems to just accept her bullshit as fact and she is just HORRIBLE. The fact that she was going to stay home with two of the kids and avoid Gary's family was bad enough, but when she  buys tickets to The Lion King to tempt Jonah into staying? THE KID IS 8 YEARS OLD. STOP USING HIM AS A PAWN IN YOUR POWER TRIPS.

Caroline made me so angry that I was just seething through the first part of this section. But then her lovely husband took that role because duuuuude, stop being such a dick. I mean, I can get where Gary's coming from. It must be frustrating to see your parents so ambivalent about their future and finances when you know the burden will fall on you in the future to keep them afloat. I can completely understand those feelings. Ok, brief detour. A few years ago my mum went home to Adelaide to care for my uncle and grandparents. My uncle had MS and my grandparents were his carers, but over the course of the week my nana had to have a stent placed in her heart and my papa needed a hip replacement. My mum went down to help them all out, because she's their kid and she loves them, but also because she's an occupational therapist so she knows how do this better than her other two brothers. Anyway, the reason I'm telling you this is because my mum would call me, frustrated, because my papa was putting on his shoes and bending down to lace them up, and after a hip replacement you aren't supposed to put that sort of pressure on it. But both my grandparents are super stubborn (sort of like Al, without the distance and assholery) and my mum was at her wits end, because she loved them and she didn't want them to cause themselves further pain down the road. So I can understand Gary's desperation at making his family sit down and discuss their future, because they're your parents and you want the best for them. BUT I don't think Gary actually gives a shit about them, I think the only thing he can think about is how much they're going to disservice him in the future. He takes a reasonable concern and blows it out of perspective. Like demanding his mum pay him the $5 for the screws. I mean FFS dude, it's $5. Family means occasionally letting $5 slide. And his blow up on Christmas breakfast was fucked up. I know everyone in this book is horrible, BUT DO NOT TREAT YOUR FAMILY LIKE THIS.

Another frustration was the reaction everyone had to whether or not Chip would make it to Christmas. I completely understand that he's a terrible person, and he never comes through on his promises, but you've just heard about massive civil unrest in Lithuania. Maybe show some concern for you brother. Oh the airports closed, see he won't be here after all! Never mind that that could mean that he's trapped or in an internment camp, or has been robbed and murdered for his stuff. Now I feel pretty weird standing up for Chip here, but it's not like he dashed to France. There is serious shit going down (sort of, Chip's section does sort of suggest that it's more talk than action) and your brother is in the thick of it. Pull your heads out of your asses!

The other thing I really wanted to talk about was the Al stuff. I really liked that we got to see this back story to Al, like him quitting his job to save Denise the spectacle of people finding out about her affair and calling out to Chip in the middle of the night. But I also had an issue with Franzen making it seem like "see he did love them, he just didn't like to show it, so all that abuse doesn't count!" Chip can rest easy now that he knows his dad loved him best, it doesn't matter that he was TERRIFIED of the man. It's like everything is erased because a sick old man occasionally thought about how much he loved his kids. Granted it seems he always treated Denise pretty well, and I did really love the sacrifice he made for her and how, in turn, that impacts current Denise. But while certain concessions can be made, at this point in time the damage is done.

I loved how the book suddenly "corrected" everyone, "we learnt some stuff about Al and Gary acted like petulant child and Chip lost his leather pants and didn't really talk about ANYTHING we'd been upset about, but suddenly we're all adjusted enough to start families with doctors and get new jobs as teachers and move to New York or to care for our dad". PUH-LEASE.

This is both me at this final section, and Al trying to escape the hospital.

They didn't sort out shit at Christmas, and all of their character flaws were based on their ridiculous childhood and that shit doesn't just heal overnight. Does Franzen think it does? Does he think psychological problems or ingrained character traits can just be fixed with a turkey dinner and a brief moment on a Lithuanian road? This family is fucked. They're all horrible people and they don't deserve a magical happy ever after. I would have been okay with Chip's magical transformation IF it stopped at his sacking up and taking responsibility and looking after his dad. And why do we get so much about Chip anyway? Why is it that all we get about Denise is that she moves to Brooklyn? And Gary comes back to visit his mother with Jonah? Ugh.

But that's it. That's all I want to discuss. I am done with the Lamberts. I am happy to leave them and I sure as hell am not going to say goodbye. But I am sad that the readalong is over, because even though this book had some poopy moments, everyone else's posts were golden and made me appreciate and enjoy the book way more than I would have otherwise. So thanks everyone for such hilarious posts and inspired gif choices and an extra big thank you to Alley because you're awesome and you hosted this SOB like a boss.

"They'd held their peace and let the proxy war unfold inside their daughter's head" The Correctioning Readalong week 4

DENISE SECTION!

And shush with your "it's boring" and "she's pretty bad too" - I NEED THIS. Jonah is great and all, but there needs to be one adult - just one! - that I don't actively hate and wish a house would fall on.

But yeah, ok, maybe it wasn't as great as it could have been. And did anyone else feel like Denise's section was re-heally tiny compared to the Lambert brothers? I mean, Chip even gets another 60+ pages this week! I think the biggest problem was starting with Brian and Robin - did we need to know that Robin comes from eleventy-billion generations of Teamsters*? Did Brian's work for the W-- corporation actually impact anything in any way? Also, why do literary authors do the W--- thing, is it because they're using actual company names and don't want to be sued? In which case, why not just make something up? I also really REALLY hated this whole "Robin is so beautiful and smart but she dresses like a grad student" bullshit. First, because I am a grad student and fuck you Franzen I have IMPECCABLE style, and two, why does she need to dress fancy and shave her armpits** - how does this impact on her worth as a person, a mother and a woman working in a community garden? Is it because of her mobster connections? Like, has Franzen watched too much Sopranos and decided he liked the idea of the less than classy mob aesthetic? I mean, look, I know people who argue "well each partner needs to keep their shit together visually because sex and stuff" but it doesn't really sound like Robin was super glamorous and then slumped into some sort of depression that she displayed through windbreakers and white sneakers, thus causing some kind of road block between her and Brian. And what was with Denise's incredulity that Robin owns white sneakers? Do Americans avoid plain white sneakers for some reason? Are they considered gauche? I know my mum always went for colourful and/or black ones when I was a kid because they were easily identifiable and didn't show dirt as much but Robin is a grown-ass woman. So what I'm saying here, or what I'm trying to say, is uhhhhh....?

But Denise! I kinda love her. I had a sneaking suspicion that Franzen would try and make her a lesbian (because obvs Enid would hate that) but I actually kind of liked this bisexual-attracted-to-older-married-people thing she has going on. Don't get me wrong, she's still a not great person and potentially worse than the others because she's purposely putting herself in a position that could end marriages, but unlike the others she seems to understand how fucked up her compulsions are and seems to both accept and understand the ramifications. Unlike Chip, who seems to still be unable to understand why screwing and stalking a student wasn't OK, and Gary who does shitty things under the guise of family. I also felt like it was an interesting complication to read about. It wasn't without the usually Franzen blehs, but I found it a lot more compelling and thought-provoking than the other two.

Like, OK.

"She didn't understand what made her so very mean. She was unhappy to be so mean. There seemed to be something wrong with the way she thought about herself and other people."

"She wanted above all to be a private person, and independent individual. She didn't want to belong to any group, let alone a group with bad haircuts and strange resentful clothing issues. She didn't want a label she didn't want a lifestyle.

And actually, maybe it's this quote that made me love her because it reminded me of Jonah (without the adultery undertones).

"She felt returned to a childhood world of Grimm and CS Lewis where a touch could be transformative" 

 I liked that she always seemed to be motivated to prove something. That even if she wore a short skirt she was going to be the most useful summer intern ever. Or she might be cooking for the size-zero elite but she was going to feed them damn good comfort food. She seems to genuinely love her career and for the right reasons. Again, she's nothing like Chip who seems to only be where he is because Enid and Al hated it or Gary who is almost allergic to trying hard. I feel bad that I'm pushing the good qualities of Denise while she's still a shockingly bad person by regular standards, but for Franzen she's basically an angel.

Or Batman. Because she has that whole hidden side, except she breaks up marriages not crime.

Do I have to talk about Chip? I really, really don't want to talk about Chip. Although surprise surprise he's a complete dick about his dad nearly dying, the importance of the last Christmas and Denise's life spiraling out of control. Like I needed a reason to hate him more. Even if he couldn't come back for Christmas, he could have been less of an absolute turd about it. But then he wouldn't be Chip, right guys?

Also, is Chip dead now or about to be tortured in a Lithuanian prison? If I've said it once I've said it 10,000 times - Franzen writes his book like a soap opera. Everything is super dramatic and with that awkward bright-lighting that makes everyone look terrible and the sets are made of cheap cardboard and every section ends with someone possibly dying. Except then, whoops don't worry they somehow survive falling 8 storeys and being dragged for several miles by a cruise liner. And we're not going to explain what sort of witchcraft made this work.

I groaned out loud when I read that Al was still alive. Franzen even acknowledged how flippin' big cruise liners are and the unlikeliness of his survival and STILL kept him alive. Why did he even need to fall off? Is that going to add anything to the narrative, anything that his goddamn Parkinson's and old-man-grumpiness wouldn't have already brought to the table? It's almost like Franzen anticipated us reading this book in sections and was like "I'm going to cliffhang the hell out of these bitches, aw yeah" (which is absolutely how Franzen speaks btw). And this man is considered not only a good writer, but a great writer?!

One more week until freedom!***

*Cheers to Alley for giving me the heads up on what a teamster even is. 
**Ok, it does weird me out a little to see ladies with hairy pits, but as long as they're not BO-y I couldn't care less.
***The State of being free, not the next Franzen novel.

Howdy Ho! - The Correctioning Readalong Week 3

What. The. Fuck.

Thanks to Alley for hosting this readalong, because I sure as hell can't call this book boring. Just when I think the characters are all as despicable as possible and I'm not sure how much more I can handle, Franzen throws a curve ball in the way of a legitimite talking shit. A TALKING PIECE OF POO. WITH AN ARMY OF OTHER POOS. WHO HARRASS AL.

Franzen seems to be trolling us so hard in the middle of his goddamn "literary" fiction book about a dysfunctional family and A TALKING PIECE OF POO (seriously, I can't even). I mean, there are other sections which are a bit WTF (mostly when Franzen tries to get his literary on) but seriously, THERE ARE LIKE 10 PAGES DEDICATED TO A HALLUCINATION ABOUT POO ATTACKS.

If you had asked me what I expected from this book (and I guess Alley kinda did in the intro post) I never would have imagined it'd be stinky hallucinations. Characters acting like colossal assholes yes, I saw that coming, but this? I honest to god thought I was going mad and hallucinating the whole thing. I have 4 pages of notes about this section, but I just don't know if I can get past this. I mean I'll try, but how do you talk about the breakdown of two separate marriages when there's talking poo on the table?

*shakes head*

Oh and Franzen, just a note, if you're going to write in a hallucination about a racist/misogynistic/Ayn Rand-uber-conservative talking poo, don't then get all coy and describe a toilet as 'ordure strafed'.

So how terrible are both Carline AND Gary? Every now and then I'd start to be like "fuck Caroline, god damn she's awful" and then Gary would do something bonkers like mutilate his hand while drunk and wrap a bread bag around it, and I'd be like "fuck Gary, he's legit insane". They're both the absolute worst, and they are dragging those poor kids down with them. At this stage my hope for this novel is that they have Christmas in St. Jude and during a tremor Al knocks over a candle and sets the house on fire and they all die. But the kids manage to live because they were outside playing soccer with Denise. Denise's survival all depends on how awful Franzen makes her in the next section, so it's possible the kids just have some kind of Peter Pan like existence where they go wild and then steal a girl to be their mum. They've already got the surveillance equipment.

The really annoying this is, Franzen keeps trying to give this back story to their childhoods to try and reason away why they're being so awful, but it's not just the Lamberts* that are awful, EVERYONE is. The Swedish people on the cruise are dogshit. The boss of Chip's married ex-girlfriend is a bitch. Al's old neighbour who bought stock on an inside tip is a jagweed. And I don't know if Franzen's whole point is to be like "look how shitty and depressed humans are, regardless of how they're brought up", but it's really starting to piss me off. Because that isn't real life. People aren't like this. People escape rubbish backgrounds and act like civilised human beings. People are brought up by abusive dads, or inattentive dads, or wacko obsessive mothers every single day, and they can't use that as an excuse to behave like escapees from Arkham Asylum. Because you know what, playing your kids against each other is fucked up. Buying your child surveillance equipment that they'll use for a week and then discard or not holding them responsible for breaking something (whether it's tacky or expensive is unimportant) is fucked up. Picking at your wife about her injury for weeks in order to ignore the real problem is fucked up. Refusing to go to your husband's family home for Christmas because of a promise he made 8 years earlier is fucked up. Throwing out the gift your mother-in-law gave you ON CHRISTMAS DAY WHILE THEY'RE STILL AT YOUR HOUSE is fucked up. Normal people don't do these things, hell, even crazy people don't do this. It's getting to the point that it isn't fun to read anymore. Chip's section was a real doozie, but at least we got to point and laugh at how pathetic he was while he was being a douche. Now I'm just getting angry all the time and this is turning into one of those books that I'm pretty sure I'll finish and then need to spend an entire day crying in a shower to feel clean again. This book is rough guys.

With all of that said, I don't entirely hate the book. I'm not enjoying it as much as last week, and it's definitely harder for me to motivate myself to read more than 10 pages at a time, but there are bright points. Like Sylvia. I'm not sure what I make of her and her story about a daughter being murdered (seriously, Franzen is the soapiest of literary authors) but there was something really great about the line;

"She wanted him dead despite even her realisation, in therapy, that his smirk had been a protective mask donned by a lonely boy surrounded by people who hated him, and that if she'd only smiled at him like a forgiving mother he might have laid aside his mask and wept with honest remorse"

I also found the story about Enid and Al's marriage troubles, and Chip and Gary's various attempts to please their family compelling reading. I didn't like it as a way of explaining or rationalising their grown up behaviour, but it was well written and well constructed. There's that passage (and I can't be bothered finding it, but Other Kayleigh took a photo of it on her instagram) when Chip's at the dinner table for so long that Enid's speech just becomes the various grammar components, and I really liked that. I liked reading from Enid's perspective "he came home and didn't even kiss me and now he's in his lab, what an asshole" and then switching to Al "I've been in here for 3 hours with the lights out, what the F woman" because that felt like the kind of stubborn reactionary actions I could see snowballing into a marriage that endures but continues to fester for 40 years. There are so many bits to this book that I like, but Franzen is so heavy handed and just seems so angry himself that the book as a whole just isn't working properly.

So I'm a little nervous about the next section because it must be time for Denise right? We've had such tiny little glimpses at her, and so far she seems to be pretty sensible and level-headed. She also seems to be the primary recipient of her family's ire. Al obviously worships her (which is, I'm sure, a large part of Enid's issue with her), but both Chip and Gary have some weird Freudian obsessions with her. There was the satiny pecs note from Chip last week when she featured in that magazine, and this week we had Gary stressing out about her "naked legs" when they went to that pharmaceutical investment meeting. It's super weird.

Also, has anyone made sense of the medical stuff thus far? We have the potentially patent-infringing PD cure and Enid's lion pills (that scene with the cruise doctor was super-bonkers) and I can't really make sense of what Franzen is trying to say here. Is he against pharmaceutical advancements? Big Pharma? Capitalism? Investments? Advertising? Shilling for investors? The legally drugged out upper-middle class? Why two scenes of such dense and boring and borderline insane medical jargon so close together?

Anyway, I expect we've got a whole lot more insanity waiting for us next week. But guess what! We're two thirds of the way to finishing this book!

*The Lamberts thing is throwing me for a loop because of Breaking Bad. These assholes don't deserve to use that name.

"Self-inflicted. You Pathetic American" - The Corrections readalong Week 2

   Week 2 of #MonthofFranzy and we're off with a bang! Thanks x10 to Alley for hosting this readalong, and - I assume - paying for our therapy if this book turns out to be rubbish. Right Alley? Alley...?

So get this, I think I like The Corrections.

I know Anne, I know

I honest to god was expecting this book to be hella dense and that pretentious '25 word sentence when 4 would have done fine' crap so I'm really, truly surprised at how readable it is. I really didn't like the opening paragraph - actually that whole first section before we meet Chip was a bit bleh- what with the sentences about acorns showering onto homes with no mortgages, but once I got into the swing of it, I really got into the swing of it.

So that first bit with Enid and Alfred. I found it a little confusing, like I was coming into the story 10 pages in and was madly scrambling to work out who each of them were and why Enid hides things all over the house and something about an alarm bell that I'm still not sure if it was metaphorical or literal. But I guess in a weird way it did its job, because I didn't just give up or scribble BLECHHH across the page, and I think I may hate Enid even more if I hadn't had this period of crazy weirdness to add some depth to her. So good job Franzen.

So I guess it's time to talk about Chip. What. A. Pretentious. Dick.

In this scenario Chip is Kirk, and I am Kirk's hand.

First he shows up to meet his parents in leather pants and earrings, then we get some sound-bites of his screenplay which is 10 pages of literary criticism and then 150 of boobs. Then we find out that he was the WORST teacher, like ugh, his class sounded like the pits. And then we see not once, but twice, how fucking insane he is in a relationship. Like seriously, if you ever meet Franzen  Chip then for the love of all that is holy, RUN. Otherwise he will stalk you and sniff at a couch for your scent (ugh, seriously, this guy) before masturbating over whatever sensory hallucination he manages to spark.

He's literally the absolute worst. No one, in the history of humankind, even comes close. And I think a lot of my enjoyment in this book is going to be derived from how much pain he inflicts. God I hope it's a lot.

 This first section was basically all about him. We slipped back to Enid and Alfred and Chip's sister Denise from time to time, but mostly we followed Chip as he stole money from a bartender, ran in the rain, heard about his revolting sexathon with his undergrad girlfriend and came into some money. And while I am definitely loving hating Chip. I think I'm more interested in hearing more from Denise. she seems to actually be a decent person. Like, since everyone is god-awful people in this book I'm guessing she's going to do/say something to change my mind soon, but for now her biggest crimes are giving Chip money and disappointing her mum at every turn. She seems to genuinely care for her dad (probably because her mum is such a bitch to her) and anyone who can cook is friend material in my book because, tasty benefits of friendships are my jam.

I'm a little unsure about Enid and Alfred. Alfred has sort of been set up as this distant, demanding father (at least in Chip's eyes) but he seems like a pretty cool guy. The scene where he buys the armchair to command a little agency in his home was brilliant, and I liked the little insights into his mind as he struggled to eat Denise's snacks or sit down on Chips sex-scent-stalking-couch. Maybe we'll find out that he was as viscous and mean as Chip remembers, but at this stage he just seems like a stubborn old man who, like many people from that generation, aren't exactly fantastic at showing their emotions. It actually broke my heart a little bit when he kept asking about Chip, and wondering where he was. If Franzen explores that a little more I'll maybe stop referring to Chip as Franzen in my head (nope, they'll always be the same guy to me).

I'm not a huge fan of Franzen's metaphors just yet - case in point: "Two empty hours were a sinus in which infections bred"  is that even a metaphor or was he stating a fact - but I do like the descriptions about Alfred's Parkinson's. The lost in the woods analogy about birds eating up the bread he left as markers, which I thought did a really fantastic job of laying out exactly how hard the disease would be to live with after 50+ years of health and mental acumen.

I'm not going to discuss Enid yet because she's not even a character, she's just a lazy cartoon of the evil meddling mother stereotype

And I think I'm just about done.

Wait. Notes! I have notes that I couldn't work out how to fit into this post!

~What the fuck does "satiny pecs" mean? Chip is offended by Denise wearing a tank top in a magazine picture and showing off her "satiny pecs". Is Franzen referring to Denise's breasts, because it's a reeeeaally creepy description.

~OF COURSE Chip's girlfriend is married to the fucking Prime Minister of Lithuania. He couldn't possibly just be a banker or lawyer. Jesus Christ Franzen, you better be going somewhere with this.

~Although, I really love Gitanas. I would be happy for an entire book about Gitanas. His sass to Chip about his "scars" is perfection (see title quote) - the guy was a freaking dissident and has been TORTURED. Ugh, Chip is the worst.

~Every now and then Franzen will include a single word in a characters accent, "I'm explaining to Cheep" "He's matooring" - either write in their accent all the time or never. It's just obnoxious otherwise, we know where they're from we can work the accents out for ourselves thank you very much.

Monday Links

*If I could meet any celebrity I think I'd choose Tom Hanks. It's not even an acting admiration thing, he just seems like a genuinely awesome dude who never disappoints. Anyway, this is a long way around to pointing out that he did an AMA. (Via Reddit)

*Remember that time I ruined Rugrats for some of you (Laura? I'm pretty sure it was you)? Anyway, Funny or Die put together a live action video which reboots the show as a thriller. It's pretty great AND it has some Arrested Development alum, so double yay! (Via Funny or Die)

*Ever wondered what David Bowie's top 100 books are? Well, here ya go! (Via The Independent)

*Hey #MonthofFranzy ladies, here's some relevant douchebaggery to lead into our first section read. Franzen is hitting out against twitter...again. (Via Teleread)

*P.S It's not too late to jump on the The Corrections readalong Alley is hosted this month. Come on, you know you want to hate read it as much as the rest of us! (Via What Red Read)

The Correctioning; an introduction post

Intro posts are weird right?

Like I get why we do them, but I always feel a little like I'm in AA for the first time.

Hi, my name is Kayleigh Murphy. I'm a book blogger and English lit graduate and I've never read any Franzen before.

I'm not sure why I avoid Franzen. I mean, I've heard he's a colossal dick, but that hasn't stopped me from reading other authors in the past and I only heard that well after reading glossy reviews for books like Freedom and The Corrections. 

Maybe it's because I heard about him during my undergrad days where I basically avoided literary authors on principle because of all the lit-snob douches in my classes who were too busy kissing people like Franzen's ass to admit that they were just jealous that genre authors like Stephen King make bank AND write awesome books. That was a really long sentence, and I'm sorry for that.

Or maybe it's because his books are freaking HUGE and I just haven't been able to bring myself to sit down and read something when I have a high probability of disliking it. Because I just read the opening line to The Corrections and I'm thinking that me and this book are not going to be bros. Sometimes I just take awhile to get into the rhythm of literary fiction, what with the unnecessary amount of words used to describe wind and the colour of a tree and bullshit like that. So I am hoping that around page 50 I'll settle in and be able to actively engage with the characters and the story and this can be a fun and happy gif-filled readalong. But thankfully, thankfully, since I'm doing this with all of you lovely ladies (just ladies right? If there's a dude present I apologise) it will still be fun and gif-filled even if the book is terrible.

On the gif-front I have found myself a bunch of awesome "I hate this" themed gifs that I hope to use sparingly (but expect to use often), plus a bunch of squeee gifs in case I end up loving it AND a bunch of Lee Pace gifs in case it all just becomes too unbearable. Oh oh, and a huge THANK YOU to Alley for hosting this mammoth of a book. It's going to be awesome, no matter what

!I'm feeling pretty damn ready guys. LET'S DO THIS!