Did anyone her read Jonathann Franzen's 'The Corrections'? If so, recommend me something like that!

it could just be that the plots share somethings, but it's probably a little more than that. they both highlight the farcical qualities of their character's striving suffering - the russian debutante's handbook is more overt with its absurdity though.

you should read it, it's good.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060975857/103-3098404-3896665?v=glance&n=283155

Not as expansive, but equally immersive.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0679720766.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

so , Freedom:

to sum up the reviews:

a modern classic.

who will be the first ilxor to finish it and approve/contradict?

didn't like the corrections, but really liked the excerpt of freedom that was in the new yorker

I did like his advice to writers, as told to TIME Magazine: buy a computer/laptop without a wireless card, or rip it out.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/06/08/090608fi_fiction_franzen?currentPage=all

xpost

liked this one even more
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/05/31/100531fi_fiction_franzen

I'm looking forward to it. Everything I read about it being a state-of-the-nation, iPod-dissing, Israel-critiquing Great Novel I can do without, I just want his people & his stories.

he is like an over-analyzed Updike, but i like it.

Oh dear

Do I send my unread, accidentally-printed draft copy back or keep it as a collector's item?

The Corrections, of Jonathan Franzen

there are better ways to have made that joke i realise

I tweeted that story and immediately got some bizarre Twitterspam for the Kindle, like it was mocking me and going "THAT WON'T HAPPEN HERE".

I don't generally have a good memory for specific lines from books but I started reading Freedom and I like when he's talking about the punk band playing, saying the band is so loud that loudness is their defining characteristic over melody or rhythm, and he compares it to something like food that's so hot that you can't taste it, and it's a good line and I keep thinking about it

"Then he and the band went totally haywire, churning out a vicious assault of noise that Patty couldn't hear any sort of beat in. The music was like food too hot to have any taste..."

yr paraphrase is better

Classic Guardian blog comment on the uncorrected proof snafu:

"Until this "error" happened I'd never heard of Jonathan Franzen, so if it was a stunt it's definitely worked."

Yeah, it's not as if he's been on the cover of Time or written the most celebrated novel of the past decade, you stupid, fatuous motherfucker.

4th estate wanted to pulp £800,000 worth of books. publishers making so much money and all that.

wonder if they did do that or not. or what the mistakes really were. i read freedom in any case. i liked it. dont know about instant classic or best book of the century or whatever but its a gripping read. at times i thought maybe he was trying to shoehorn every 00s issue going (the bit about the housing crisis toward the end esp) but a lot of the environmental debates were pretty great. and theres a lot of great writing. was just surprised that for a 'great american novel' it had so many modern culture refs. though maybe thats what makes it such a good *modern* Great American Novel. the guardian had a terrible review of it. they should get actual fiction experts to review books rather than novelists' peers.

I reread a lot of The Corrections, again, and loved it, again.

I recently read, and enjoyed, Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic which is in a similar vein. It even has the obligatory dreadful pop music reference, in that there's a scene where a character gets caned and listens to Radiohead and finds himself.

Tom Perotta's Little Children is in this vein (though a lot quicker & lighter), and a very enjoyable read. It's better than the movie adaptation, the tone is a lot surer.