Environment World

I´m back for a new review of an audible book. This audible book was decided on the recommendation of someone I will not state in this review, Oprah Winfrey (not to mention names). This was a book that was on the Oprah´s picks list and I thought that I could do worse then going with that recommendation, on hindsight I dont think I could have done worse. As the opening lines of this review may let on to the astute reader (you know who you are), this review won´t be very positive. I suppose that there where enough positive aspects to permit me to finish the book. I hope I can convey those points.

The Corrections

Authored by Jonathan Franzen

Read by Dylan Baker

Is this what middle America wants to be? I don’t really know what the heartland wants to be. I don’t know if I want to know if this is what I will find there. This story is a look at an American dysfunctional family from the mid-west. The family is statistically sound with three children, 2 boys and a daddy´s girl, now adults. A mother that is a servant to her domineering inventor engineer husband. The father that is stubborn in not the nicest way. There are few facets to the story that make it interesting to me and my expectations of a novel. The kids (now adults) have their own lives to live and are fiercely protective of their individuality but it looks like they could all use some help to discover common sense. One son, an unskilled writer trying to fulfill the promise of his doctoral degree, finds himself in Eastern Europe, but not to worry the story is not a spy thriller. His sister, the highly skilled chef, is so fiercely competitive that she misses a few steps in life, but nothing really interesting. Their brother, the oldest, the rock of the family is such a bastard to the family he came from but so giving to family of his making. The mother finally comes to some grips in life after her husband is out of the day-to-day part of her life (did I say too much?). The husband is, of course, the cause of everyone´s woes (as men are apt to be). Throw in some sexual confusion and you´ve got the making of an Oprah recommendation. I wouldn´t call the book predictable but it also didn´t offer any new elements to sink a set of teeth into, even false teeth.

Probably the only reason I finished the book was the narration of Dylan Baker. Some people are very good at telling stories or jokes. They know how to keep you memorized in the narration with well-timed pauses or changing of the tempo. Dylan is this good storyteller. The other aspects of the story were lacking compared to his telling of the story. I found the story pretty predictable but not in a far reaching sort of way. In better English, I wouldn´t be able to tell you what will happen at the end but once I started the second to last chapter I had the end figured out.

I´m down on the story but I guess what I disliked the most were the characters. I´m not a fan of the American mid-west and the thinking that comes from there. The “matter of fact&quote, this is the “right way of thinking” thinking. As if there were a right or wrong way. Sure there are wrong ways that are common in all culture, sticking body parts into flames comes to mind. But that the retired go to this place and not to that place is not one of them.

Good points:

The story-telling was enjoyable. I´m much too young to know radio dramas but this gave you a strong hint on why they were so popular. Even a bad story can have a charm when read aloud by a gifted orator. Maybe I was deprived of that and I´m trying to make up for it now.

Bad points:

Didn´t like the characters, the situations they got themselves into had no relation in my life. I found that I had no sympathy for the mother, or father or anyone.



It´ll take some convincing for me to get another audiobook written by Jonathan Franzen. What will it take to listen to another audiobook read by Dylan Baker, I´m looking at www.audible.com now.