Correction is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the problems of the aging Midwestern couple and their three adult children, who trace their lives from the mid-20th century to the "last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium. The novel was awarded the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002.
Corrections were published for widespread recognition from literary critics. The anxiety and fear that was found in his character was compared to the Americans after the September 11 terrorist attacks, despite the release of the novel that had preceded the event by ten days. As a result, many who interpret this novel have future insights into the atmosphere of American life post 9/11, and many publications have ranked it with the best works of contemporary fiction.
Video The Corrections
Ringkasan plot
The Corrections explores the life of Lamberts, a traditional and somewhat pressed Midwestern family, whose son fled to the East Coast to begin a new life free from the influence of their parents. Chronologically, the novel shifts back and forth throughout the late 20th century, which describes in detail the growth and personal faults of each family member.
Alfred Lambert is a railroad and patriarchal engineer of the Lambert family, based in the fascist Midwestern suburbs, St. Jude is not named. After his children grew and moved to the East Coast, Alfred retired, but soon began to suffer from Parkinson's disease, causing his regular and tight personality to become broken. Alfred's loyal wife, Enid, has long suffered from his authoritarian behavior, and his life is further complicated by the ever-worsening dementia by Alfred. He is also concerned about the three choices of the lives of their children in question, as well as their neglect of traditional Protestant values.
Gary, Lambert's eldest son, is a financially successful alcohol banker in Philadelphia. His family suspects he is depressed, though he tries to resist him (mostly for himself). Chip, the middle child, is a Marxist scholar whose affair with a college student loses a tenure-track university teaching position; with money problems he accepted a job by a corrupt Lithuanian politician who cheated American investors. Denise, the youngest of the family, was a successful chef in Philadelphia but lost her job after secret affairs apart with her boss and his wife.
When the economic boom of the late 1990s swung full, family problems became impossible to ignore. The separate plot lines meet on Christmas morning at St. Jude, when Enid and his sons were forced to deal with the physical and mental deterioration experienced by Alfred.
Maps The Corrections
Themes
The title Correction literally refers to a technologically driven economic boom in the late nineties. Franzen explains this at the beginning of the last chapter of the book, also entitled "Correction":
Correction, when it finally comes, is not a bubble burst that takes place overnight but is much more lenient, a year-long leak from the primary financial market value...
(At a more abstract level, the title is a tribute to William Gaddis' The Recognitions .)
This economic correction is parallel to the simultaneous "correction" perpetrated by Franzen's character for their own life in the final pages of the novel. Franzen says that "the most important correction of this book is a sudden throwing of truth or reality to characters who spend more energy on self-deception or denial." Enid becomes more flexible in his world views and less obedient to his husband's authority, and Chip starts a more mature relationship with a woman, at the same time making peace with his father. Gary, the only main character who failed to learn from his mistakes and grew up during the novel, lost a lot of money as technology shares began to decline.
Another major theme in this book is the American transition from industrial to economic economy that is largely based on the financial sector, high technology and services. Alfred, a railroad engineer with a deep retirement and loyalty to his company, embodied the old American economic order of the mid-20th century. His children, a chef, investment banker, and an internet professor/entrepreneur, embody a new economic order at the turn of the millennium. Franzen describes this most concrete economic transition in the workplace description of Denise, an abandoned Philadelphia coal mill converted into a trendy and expensive restaurant.
The narrative of Chip's involvement with Gitanas' efforts to bring the Lithuanian state to the market - "lithuania.com" on the internet - comments about uncontrolled capitalism and the privileges and powers of the rich while the meaningful difference between the private and public sectors disappears. "The main difference between America and Lithuania, as far as Chip can see it, is that in America, a handful of rich people conquer un- rich people by means of amusing and murderous entertainment and gadgets, and drugs, while in Lithuania, strong strong men, many are powerless by threatening violence. "
This book discusses conflicts and problems in the family that arise from the presence of progressive disease weakens an elder. Since Alfred's dementia and parkinsonism are expressed mercilessly, they affect Enid and the three children, eliciting different reactions and, over time, changing. Medical aid and sensation - the last in the form of the "Corecktall" investigative method - does not provide a solution. In the end, Alfred refuses to eat and die, the final "correction" of the problem.
Reception
The novel won the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction and Prize James Tait Black Memorial 2002, was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, nominated for the 2001 National Book Prize for Fiction and the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award, and was selected for the 2003 International IMPAC Award for Literary Literature. In 2005, The Correction was included in the list of TIME magazines from the top 100 best English novels since 1923. In 2006, Bret Easton Ellis declared the novel "one of three books- great book of my generation. "In 2009, The Millions website surveyed 48 authors, critics and editors, including Joshua Ferris, Sam Anderson, and Lorin Stein; the panel voted the best novel "The Corrections" since 2000 "with a landslide".
This novel was the Oprah Book Club's choice in 2001. Franzen caused some controversy when he publicly expressed his ambivalence on his novel which has been chosen by the club because of its inevitable relationship with the schmaltzy books elected in the past. As a result, Winfrey canceled his invitation to him to appear on the The Oprah Winfrey Show .
Entertainment Weekly placed The Corrections on its best-of-best list, saying, "Forget all Oprah hoo-ha: 2001's doorstop Franzen from domestic drama taught it, yes , you can go home again, but you probably will not. "
Themes and interpretations
With The Corrections , Franzen moved from the postmodernism of previous novels and to literary realism. In a conversation with Donald Antrim novelist for BOMB Magazine, Franzen said of this style change, "Enough to write a book that is not dressing up in swapbuckling, a Pynchon-sized megaplot is very difficult." Critics point to many similarities between Franzen's childhood in St. Louis and the novel, but the work is not an autobiography. Franzen said in an interview that "the most important experience in my life... is the experience growing up in the Midwest with certain parents I have I feel as if they can not fully speak for themselves, and I feel like if experience they - I mean their values, their life experiences, born at the beginning of the century and die by the end, all of their American experience - are part of me. One of my companies in this book is to perpetuate that experience, to giving it real life and form. "The novel also focuses on topics such as the multi-generational transmission of family dysfunction and waste inherent in today's consumer economy, and each character" embodies the conflicting awareness and personal and social drama of our era. " Influenced by Franzen's life, the novel in turn influenced him; during his writing, he said in 2002, he moved "away from angry isolation and fear toward acceptance - even celebration - to be readers and writers."
In the Newsweek feature of American culture during George W. Bush's administration, Jennie Yabroff said that although it was released less than a year into the Bush administration and before the September 11 attacks, Corrections anticipating almost a daunting major problem from the next seven years. " According to Yabroff, a study of The Corrections shows that many of the fears and anxieties seen as characteristic of the Bush and post-9/11 States actually precede them. In this way, the novel is a characteristic of time and prophecy of things to come; for Yabroff, even the controversy with Oprah, who saw Franzen as "elitist," is a symptom of the subsequent process of American culture, with increasingly prominent anti-elitist tensions. He argues that The Correction stands on the next novels that focus on the same theme, because unlike his successors, he addresses these themes without being "paralyzed by 9/11 problems" Bush era novels by writers such as Don DeLillo, Jay McInerney, and Jonathan Safran Foer.
Movie adaptation
In August 2001, producer Scott Rudin selected the movie rights for The Corrections for Paramount Pictures. Even 15 years later, those rights still have not turned into a complete film.
In 2002, the film was said to be in pre-production, with Stephen Daldry attached directly and playwright David Hare working on the scenario. In October 2002, Franzen gave the Entertainment Weekly wish list to the cast, says, "If they told me Gene Hackman would do Alfred, I would be happy.If they told me they had chosen Cate Blanchett as [daughter Alfred] Denise, I'll jump up and down, even though officially I really do not care what they do with the movie. "
In January 2005, Variety announced that, with Daldry probably from the project, Robert Zemeckis was developing the Hare script "with the aim of directing." In August 2005, Variety confirmed that the director would definitely help The Corrections . Around this time, there was a rumor that the players would include Judi Dench as head of the Enid family, along with Brad Pitt, Tim Robbins and Naomi Watts as his three children. In January 2007, Variety wrote that Hare is still working on a movie scenario.
In September, 2011, it was announced that Rudin and screenwriter and director Noah Baumbach are preparing The Corrections as a drama series project to potentially co-star Anthony Hopkins and air on HBO's cable channel. Baumbach and Franzen collaborate in a scenario, which will be directed Baumbach. In 2011, it was announced that Chris Cooper and Dianne Wiest will star in HBO adaptation. In November 2011, it was announced that Ewan McGregor had joined the cast. In an interview March 7, 2012, McGregor confirmed that working on the film was "about a week" and also noted that both Dianne Wiest and Maggie Gyllenhaal were among the cast. However on May 1, 2012, HBO decided not to take the pilot for the full series.
Radio adaptation
In January 2015, the BBC broadcasted a radio dramatization of 15 parts of the work. The 15 minute episode series, adapted by Marcy Kahan and directed by Emma Harding, also stars Richard Schiff (The West Wing), Maggie Steed (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), Colin Stinton (Rush, The Bourne Ultimatum) and Julian Rhind-Tutt Lucy, Rush, Notting Hill). The series is part of the drama "Drama" and the original drama of the drama "Radical Drama" BBC Radio 4.
References
External links
- Jonathan Franzen's web page on Corrections
- An interview with Franzen in the magazine BOMB magazine issue 77
- Listen to Interview 2001 with Jonathan Franzen, conducted by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air
- Answer the Audience Question in Big Think from April 14, 2008
- Full Review: detailed summary and reviews about reviews
- BBC Radio Program page, 15 Minutes Drama
- James Wood review
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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