I had not heard of Jonathan Franzen till a couple of months ago when Time lifted me out of slumber and informed me that he was the current big American novelist, cast for fame – and perhaps immortality – in the mould of Saul Bellow and John Updike. That made me curious enough to scour several stores in two big towns of South Africa till I found one copy of The Corrections. It would not have mattered and indeed it was a bonus that the 650 plus page book was even priced reasonably.
The story of Lambert family is an attractive tale of great sadness. A dull ache runs through the book and as you turn each page, you keep looking for relief that must arrive, perhaps with delightful suddenness. You never lose hope because the characters are not evil; they are simply us. There is always a chance then that a new window would open and defeat the sad gray enveloping the Lambert life. But, as is life, this is not a story with dramatic twists and turns that change the course so suddenly that one has to catch ones breath or say aha! Even a leading character’s fall from a luxury liner fails to alter anything and the trajectory corrects itself into a smooth wave again. In fact, if it were a film, it would masquerade as a reality-show like documentary, where the characters had no clue that they were being filmed incessantly. It rings true to life and one can trace bits of oneself littered innocuously across the pages, some that have already been lived and other, one suspects, might be lived a bit later.
I wish I could put my finger on one thing and say that this is a book about ‘old age’ or ‘love’ or ‘family’ or ‘character’ (Half a dozen more ‘themes’ readily spring to mind); It is hard for me to say it in one word what the background music of this symphony was. But it is certainly a poignant tale, one that makes issues of responsibility, loneliness, love, selfishness and individuality fellow-travellers on one journey, sometime walking on different paths but always converging and looking in each other’s eye for answers.
It is an enjoyable read, of course, but, for me, had several stretches that were relatively pointless – Albert Lambert’s tryst with his turds, for example – and the writing is deliberately not ‘tight’ in most part. Like most things American, it is a big book that takes a very small slice of time and spreads it delightfully on a large canvas, celebrating each detail with every stroke of the brush. Franzen is no Ian McEwan (one of my favourite authors) and he isn’t so by choice. By the end, it became very clear to me why, when posed the question, McEwan forgot to mention Franzen as a great contemporary American novelist.
For me, much as I enjoyed the book thoroughly, even I – with my extremely limited familiarity with English literature, mind – would hesitate to pin the lapel of greatness on this book.
