03 The Corrections Jonathan Franzen

Meet the Lamberts, and go home for Christmas this year.

Chip - Golden boy, prick of a brother, and a pedophile

Denise - Home-wrecker, chef, sexual deviant

Gary - Family man + hater of his family = depression

Enid - Oppressed Midwestern wife, just wants one more Christmas in St. Jude

Alfred - Pater familias, dementia stricken, hero

I know that Mr. Chilton has read, reviewed and dismissed this novel. I have found it worthy, and I look forward to reading the next book with which Chris finds fault. Franzen has a style that isn’t his alone, but he has mastered it. I’m not a lover of the sentence. And I don’t like reading authors that put massive amounts of importance on each sentence they write. Franzen lets his prose flow like the true storyteller he is. The dialogue is real and believable. Each of the Lambert’s has their novella woven together in a page-turning family drama. Franzen makes the reader root for each of them, but all of them are less than admirable characters. I hope to read Freedom this year. What follows requires a spoiler alert, but seeing as most have already read it…

Chip is considered a wise, focused, and free child that was born during the good times of the Lambert history. In reality he is a failure. He can’t have a healthy relationship, he can’t keep a job, and he’s writing a screenplay that will forever be rejected due to his motivation for writing it: revenge. The entire family respects him though, and this affords him endless love and admiration. He accomplishes this by never telling them the truth, but even if he tried to tell the truth the parents and siblings would find a way to turn his admission into a positive. I love Chipper, he is doomed, but there is hope for that screenplay after all.
Denise is the confused youngest child and only daughter. She makes poor sexual decisions throughout her story and each ruins someone’s life. Her virginity is taken by an older, married man that is a subordinate to her father at work. Her first marriage springs from a work relationship but ends in lesbian exploration. And her ultimate relationship in the story consists of a heterosexual married couple; she fucks them both. Denise does have a conscious, and I love Denise, but she is a home-wrecker and disappointment to all she touches. A damn fine chef, and there is always a need for sustenance.

Gary is my least favorite of the five. All he loves becomes all he hates. He is spiteful and not the least bit redeeming. His depression affects his marriage and relationship with two of his three boys. An effort to appease his mother by showing up for Christmas only results in his judgment of the status of her existence and his father's decline.

Enid is taking care of Alfred. She hates her responsibility and needs help. Her lack of culture is masked by a love of Europe, but she only loves what she cannot have and there is little optimism for how her life will turn out. She sees her family creating their own lives as a sign to make one last effort at a family Christmas, a holiday that for her is a symbol of happiness from a time she wishes she could return.
Alfred is a hero. He is losing his mind to Alzheimer’s, but he takes care throughout his life to do the right thing. His depression comes from his inability to do things for himself. Early in life he finds release by experimenting in his basement. Late in life he finds freedom by napping in a chair. His quiet sadness is a hallmark of his generation. Never complain. Always support. He is my own grandfather and father wrapped in one.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all the 50 Bookers. Thanks for participating and making 2009 the most successful year so far for this little project.

Just a reminder to get any books you're planning on reviewing, plus your year-end best-ofs, before the first of the year. In January we'll be changing the color scheme and jumping into 2010 with some new members, some old members, etc.

Thanks again!

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

Dammit Meagan, why would you post your review first just because I was too lazy to do it within a week of reading the book?

Well, I don't have much to add. This was the most fiction by David Sedaris that I've ever read, and I've gotta say that I prefer his memoir pieces. Most of his short stories are dark humor, and a wee bit twisted. I did really enjoy the reviews of elementary school Christmas plays by critic Thaddeus Bristol, who notes that "in the role of Mary, six-year-old Shannon Burke just barely manages to pass herself off as a virgin."

I think Meagan pointed out that the first story, "Santaland Diaries" (actually an anagram for "a Satan dines in lard") is now a play, but I can't imagine that it works very well. I like all of Sedaris's stories best over the radio, read either by him or someone else just as funny. Luckily most of them are online under NPR's archives, or This American Life's.

There are his non-fiction accounts of working as an elf, getting locked out of the house in the snow with his sisters, having Christmas drinks with his sister's friend who works at the K&W and is also a prostitute, and his visit to the morgue as an adult (just 'cause). The two that stand out are his fascination with the TV-less family in the neighborhood as a kid, and the retelling of the Dutch Christmas tradition. That last one, "Six to Eight Black Men," is one of my favorites of his.

While eight flying reindeer are a hard pill to swallow, our Christmas story remains relatively dull. Santa lives with his wife in a remote polar village and spends one night a year traveling around the world. If you're bad, he leaves you coal. If you're good and live in America, he'll give you just about anything you want. We tell our children to be good and send them off to bed, where they lie awake, anticipating their bounty. A Dutch parent has a decidedly harrier story to relate, telling his children, "Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed. The former bishop of Turkey will be coming tonight along with six to eight black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you in a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don't know for sure, but we want you to be prepared."

This is the reward for living in the Netherlands. As a child you get to hear this story, and as an adult you get to turn around and repeat it. As an added bonus, the government has thrown in legalized drugs and prostitution -- what's not to love about being Dutch?

Then there's the Christmas letter from the wife trying to deal with the arrival of her unknown Vietnamese step daughter, the family that outdoes each other in the spirit of Christmas, giving to the point of multiple organ donation, and a pretty good one about a selfish cow and a turkey and Secret Santa in a barn.

All in all, entertaining, especially if you're already a Sedaris fan. If not, I'd just listen to these, and start off with one of his other books, like Me Talk Pretty One Day.

You can hear "Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!," "Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol," and "Based on a True Story" all in one episode here. You can also listen to "The Monster Mash" (about the trip to the morgue; gruesome, be warned), "The Cow and the Turkey" and "Santaland Diaries." You're welcome for looking up all those links. You'd damn well better use them, especially you, Christopher.

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

I don't know that I could look someone in the eye and exclaim, "Oh, my goodness, I think I see Santa!" or "Can you close your eyes and make a very special Christmas wish!" Everything these elves said had an exclamation point at the end of it!!! It makes one's mouth hurt to speak with such forced merriment...I prefer being frank with children. I'm more likely to say, "You much be exhausted," or "I know a lot of people who would kill for that little waistline of yours."

I am afraid I won't be able to provide the grinding enthusiasm Santa is asking for. I think I'll be a low-key sort of elf.


Holidays on Ice was one of the few Sedaris books I hadn't gotten around to reading yet, so the new 2008 edition seemed like a good excuse to check it out. Well, that and the fact that both Nathan and Genie recommended it as a favorite over dinner on MLK weekend. In fact, I had already heard or read some of these stories before in other collections or on NPR recordings that I sneak-listen to at work when my office mate is away. If my other coworkers ever walk by my glass-fronted office and wonder why I am laughing to myself while presumably checking client emails or the day's financials, well, that's why.

My favorite story in this book was probably the first one, "The Santaland Diaries," excerpted above, wherein Sedaris recounts his early '90s experience of being an elf at the NYC Macy's. I actually read most of this story while sitting at a McDonald's early yesterday morning and every so often I would chuckle to myself. The other patrons would look over warily, and I would show them the cover. Their presumably limited understanding of English was probably what kept them from smiling in recognition of this literary comedy and thumbs-upping me.

In "Santaland," we hear of parents who nudge the nearest elf and whisper, "We would like a traditional Santa. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about." Sedaris-as-elf sends them gleefully to his black coworker Santa Jerome. We hear of parents who, nerves frayed by hours of waiting in line, scream at their exhausted and terrified toddlers to "get on that man's lap and smile or I'll give you something to cry about." And we learn about the people behind the costumes, a disturbing number of whom are painted as sex-crazed lunatics.

Not all the stories in Holidays on Ice are about Sedaris. His take on the annual family Christmas newsletter is funny but too long, and "Christmas Means Giving" is disturbing and a bit weird. My favorites were some of the ones about him: "Santaland," "Jesus Shaves," and "Six to Eight Black Men," an essay that Sedaris reads aloud. Find it on YouTube, it's worth it to hear it in Sedaris's voice.

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Charles Dickens

Apparently Charlie Dickens only had a few ideas regarding Christmas. They are as follows:
1. ghosts, ghouls, or goblins
2. a large, poor family
3. someone who is either sick, dying, or dead…preferably a small child
4. a miserly old man
Nearly all of the eight stories in this collection feature at least one of these themes. On a number of occasions, it felt as though Dickens was forcing them into the story.

While I realize that it is not fair to judge Dickens by this collection alone, the poor quality of these stories was shocking. Like most, I was familiar with ‘A Christmas Carol’, but I had never heard of the other seven stories that make of this collection. There is good reason that I hadn’t. Again, to be fair, they were not necessarily selected because they were some of Dickens’ best work, but because they deal with Christmas in some way.

‘Christmas Festivities’
This was a very short article describing – you guessed it – Christmas festivities. Not bad, but nothing noteworthy.

‘The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton’
This short story was about a gravedigger who is working on Christmas Eve, which I am sure Dickens considered tantamount to blasphemy. As he is toiling away late in the evening, he is confronted by a group of goblins, who, based on Dickens’ description and the accompanying engraving, strongly resemble court jesters. They take the gravedigger deep into the earth, possibly to one of the outer circles of hell, although this is not clear. Then they proceed to show him various people celebrating Christmas, as they feel he should be doing. They end by showing him the family of the little boy whose grave he had been digging. The gravedigger wakes up the next morning in the graveyard and is so freaked out that he just leaves. People speculate that he was taken by goblins (the natural assumption) and stories abound about his exact demise.
Dickens’ was not quite there yet…something was missing.

‘A Christmas Episode from Master Humphrey’s Clock’
This was an extremely short story about a man who befriends a deaf man on Christmas. A deaf man…that’s close, but not good enough. Come on, Dickens. Tug at my heart strings.

‘A Christmas Carol’
A tiny, dying boy who can only walk with the aid of a crutch…bingo! This was generally well written, and it featured the most character development of any of the stories in this collection. It was also funny. The same cannot be said for the other stories.

‘The Haunted Man’
Boy I hated this story. It was about the length of ‘A Christmas Carol’, maybe even a little longer. However, it was convoluted and disjointed. Much of the problem stemmed from ill-defined characters coupled with poor use of names. Dickens would refer to the numerous characters in this story by more than one name, making it very difficult to understand what was happening.
As far as I could tell, everywhere that this old man – a professor – went, he sowed discord and strife. For some only partially explained reason, this man was haunted by a doppelganger ghost…a doppelghoul if you will. At the other end of the spectrum, there is a young lady who seems to spread cheer. She is a maid for the professor. Because their paths were inadvertently similar one evening – with the geezer always a few minutes ahead of the girl – this young girl catches the brunt of the ill will that resulted in others due to the presence of the old man. The professor realizes this and sets out to make it up to her…sort of. Along the way, he encounters a ragamuffin orphan (bingo!), an old dying man, and a young student who appears to be faking an illness (at best he is milking his recovery time for all that he can). The professor also encounters a Cratchit-esque family, sans dying/crippled child. The old man, who doesn’t really appear to be particularly mean or bad, has a “change of heart” and miraculously the story concludes with essentially every character sitting around the professor’s table.
Ham fisted to boot.

‘A Christmas Tree’
This story was the most bizarre of this collection. Dickens spends most of the essay describing a decorated Christmas tree. A tree that is adorned with bulbs, string, pictures, scary porcelain masks, books, dolls, trains, and a slew of characters from The Arabian Nights, which Dickens apparently loved. About 10 pages into this 16-page essay, Dickens begins describing places or people that are haunted or visited by ghosts. He spends little more than a paragraph on each person or place. The result is a ridiculous, unimaginative listing of haunted people and places. Feliz Navidia de los Muertos!

‘What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older’
In the same style as ‘Christmas Festivities’, this essay describes a Christmas celebration, centering on the elderly family members in attendance.

‘The Seven Poor Travellers’
Dickens describes a Christmas dinner that he planned with the expressed intent of inviting some travelers that were boarding close to his house. Luckily this was rather short.

Most of the pieces in this collection were uninteresting, unimaginative, and really quite awful. Some of them made very little sense. At best they felt like toss offs by Dickens, which I suspect they were. Read ‘A Christmas Carol’ and avoid these other stories entirely.