(no subject)

I loved The Corrections. I loved the way I had moments of empathy with even the least sympathetic characters. I loved the fact that large sections of it were set in Philadelphia and I loved the accuracy of Franzen's description of the city. I loved the tiny little connections between the different sections of the book, things you really needed to be paying attention to notice: the name of the mutual fund started by Chip's girlfriend's family turned up in Gary's section, Gary and his wife woke up to a radio report about Khellye Withers, who turns up later on in Enid's conversation with her new friend on the cruise ship. I loved the fact that it contained the best take on the old food-sex metaphor that I've read in quite a while. I loved the way Franzen was able to convey the existential crises lurking in such mundane activities as grilling dinner and untangling Christmas lights. I loved the way the present and the past interacted in the book, the way the story of each character's life in the present would suddenly jerk backward for pages at a time yet still feel completely seamless. I loved the fact that the Lamberts came from a town named for the patron saint of desperate causes (although I would have loved it more if Franzen hadn't felt the need to explain it to us). I loved the little moments of foreshadowing (or backshadowing, perhaps), the bits of the past that intruded on the present before they had been explained, and I loved the feeling when it finally made sense--as when Alfred thinks briefly of the blue-cheeked man from Signals who had betrayed him, and then, as soon as Don Armour appears, we know who he is and what he does. The only thing I'm not sure I loved was the ending. At the moment when I finished it, I felt strongly that the short final chapter, almost like an epilogue in function, should not have been added. Now, however, I am not as sure as I was. The impact of the book would perhaps have been stronger without that final chapter, but it would also have been much bleaker.

And now I am reading The Ground Beneath Her Feet, which has drawn me in more completely in the first few pages than any Rushdie book I've read since Midnight's Children. That's an excellent sign, and I'm very much looking forward to the rest of it.