Lack Of Sympathy
Sep. 13th, 2007 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselAug 2007
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen - Fourth Estate, 2002
* *
This is one of those books where you get the impression that the reviewers on the back were reading an entirely different text from the one that you are. If this is the “first great American novel of the twenty-first century”, as one of the more hyperbolic of them put it, then God help the American novel. Which is not to say that it is completely devoid of merit: the prose is rich and sinuous and its observations of daily life are strikingly original. However, whilst appreciative of good writing, I read books mostly for the characters and the plot, and in this one the former are uniformly unsympathetic and the latter is absurd. In fact, it reminds me most of my brief channel-hopping glimpses of Eastenders, but without the occasional leavening humour of that programme.
Ah, humour. It is, of course, supposed to be funny - a number of the reviews make reference to the fact - but I read it stony-faced throughout. This is probably because it is best described as a black comedy, which for me is a synonym for “not funny”. The modus operandi of a black comedy is to introduce unlikeable protagonists and then have bad things happen to them; their unlikeability gives us permission to find these events amusing rather than tragic. In my case, however, this does not work. My response when people are unpleasant (in books as in real life) is to reach for the emotional off-switch and unless what subsequently happens to them is a particularly fine example of poetic justice, I simply don’t care enough to laugh. So this book wasn’t really for me.
The story is told from the viewpoints of Alfred and Enid, an elderly mid-western couple, and their grown-up children Gary, Chip and Denise. Alfred is gradually succumbing to the horrors of Parkinson’s Disease, which ought to be sufficient to make us sympathise with him were he not presented as emotionally cold, stubborn and indifferent to the needs of others (and flashbacks make clear that it is not his illness that has made him so). Similarly Franzen undercuts our sympathy with Enid’s predicament, trapped in a marriage to a mentally deteriorating husband, with her small-minded provincialism, refusal to accept reality and desire to interfere in the lives of others.
The most interesting feature of the novel is the way in which the character flaws of the parents refract and recombine in their children. Gary probably comes off the worst, inheriting his father’s inflexible authoritarianism combined with his mother’s passionate interest in Family, resulting in a brutal running battle for the affections of his children with his wife Caroline (herself a nastily manipulative piece of work). Whilst absurdly over the top, the depiction of his hellish life contains enough nuggets of truth to put one off having a family altogether.
Chip is a priapic professor, like Howard Belsey in White Teeth but even more annoying. Now I know that the horny academic has been a staple of mainstream literature since The History Man, but I am getting tired of supposedly clever individuals who engage in quite clearly idiotic relationships with no more explanation than that their hormones tell them to. It would be all right if they ever got away with it, but of course they hardly ever do and the plot is therefore tediously predictable. To be fair, Franzen does the unexpected and segues into a satire of rampant capitalism in post-perestroika Lithuania, but this felt both preachy and out of keeping with the rest of the book. Denise, sadly, is as over-sexed as Chip and her story follows the same self-destructive trajectory with only the salacious details varying. It wasn’t wise of Franzen to try to pull the same trick twice.
Towards the end of the book, some glimmers of sympathy do start to emerge - Enid in particular mellows a little as we realise that her flaws arise from the loveless marriage in which she has found herself trapped - but for me it was too little, too late. Despite the good writing, I found this a very hard book to finish because I was so little engaged with the characters. However, if you appreciate black humour and are more tolerant of irrationality than I am, then you will probably, like the reviewers, like it a lot.
The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen - Fourth Estate, 2002
* *
This is one of those books where you get the impression that the reviewers on the back were reading an entirely different text from the one that you are. If this is the “first great American novel of the twenty-first century”, as one of the more hyperbolic of them put it, then God help the American novel. Which is not to say that it is completely devoid of merit: the prose is rich and sinuous and its observations of daily life are strikingly original. However, whilst appreciative of good writing, I read books mostly for the characters and the plot, and in this one the former are uniformly unsympathetic and the latter is absurd. In fact, it reminds me most of my brief channel-hopping glimpses of Eastenders, but without the occasional leavening humour of that programme.
Ah, humour. It is, of course, supposed to be funny - a number of the reviews make reference to the fact - but I read it stony-faced throughout. This is probably because it is best described as a black comedy, which for me is a synonym for “not funny”. The modus operandi of a black comedy is to introduce unlikeable protagonists and then have bad things happen to them; their unlikeability gives us permission to find these events amusing rather than tragic. In my case, however, this does not work. My response when people are unpleasant (in books as in real life) is to reach for the emotional off-switch and unless what subsequently happens to them is a particularly fine example of poetic justice, I simply don’t care enough to laugh. So this book wasn’t really for me.
The story is told from the viewpoints of Alfred and Enid, an elderly mid-western couple, and their grown-up children Gary, Chip and Denise. Alfred is gradually succumbing to the horrors of Parkinson’s Disease, which ought to be sufficient to make us sympathise with him were he not presented as emotionally cold, stubborn and indifferent to the needs of others (and flashbacks make clear that it is not his illness that has made him so). Similarly Franzen undercuts our sympathy with Enid’s predicament, trapped in a marriage to a mentally deteriorating husband, with her small-minded provincialism, refusal to accept reality and desire to interfere in the lives of others.
The most interesting feature of the novel is the way in which the character flaws of the parents refract and recombine in their children. Gary probably comes off the worst, inheriting his father’s inflexible authoritarianism combined with his mother’s passionate interest in Family, resulting in a brutal running battle for the affections of his children with his wife Caroline (herself a nastily manipulative piece of work). Whilst absurdly over the top, the depiction of his hellish life contains enough nuggets of truth to put one off having a family altogether.
Chip is a priapic professor, like Howard Belsey in White Teeth but even more annoying. Now I know that the horny academic has been a staple of mainstream literature since The History Man, but I am getting tired of supposedly clever individuals who engage in quite clearly idiotic relationships with no more explanation than that their hormones tell them to. It would be all right if they ever got away with it, but of course they hardly ever do and the plot is therefore tediously predictable. To be fair, Franzen does the unexpected and segues into a satire of rampant capitalism in post-perestroika Lithuania, but this felt both preachy and out of keeping with the rest of the book. Denise, sadly, is as over-sexed as Chip and her story follows the same self-destructive trajectory with only the salacious details varying. It wasn’t wise of Franzen to try to pull the same trick twice.
Towards the end of the book, some glimmers of sympathy do start to emerge - Enid in particular mellows a little as we realise that her flaws arise from the loveless marriage in which she has found herself trapped - but for me it was too little, too late. Despite the good writing, I found this a very hard book to finish because I was so little engaged with the characters. However, if you appreciate black humour and are more tolerant of irrationality than I am, then you will probably, like the reviewers, like it a lot.
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 02:33 pm (UTC)Thinking about it, there isn't really a term that accurately describes the style to which I was alluding - "comedy of contempt" was a phrase I used in an earlier draft of the review, but that could also cover satire which I do enjoy when it has something original to say and isn't simply recycling received opinion.
I would certainly like there to be a label for this style of comedy as it is becoming increasingly common particularly in television, and for me it means that a number of highly acclaimed shows like The Office and The Thick Of It are well-nigh unwatchable. This book is the literary equivalent.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 02:51 pm (UTC)Maybe a true black comedy is something that is both funny and disturbing. The wikipedia definition is broadly in agreement with this.
IMO, the Radio 4 "Comedy" department are the worst offenders for producing shows which are fundamentally unfunny, populated entirely by unappealling characters doing nothing interesting, and then labelling it as "darkly comic" which know by bitter experience means "isn't funny at all". Sometimes they give the characters a Scottish accent as though that makes it any better...or making them talk in a silly voice...oh god, do you remember the wheelibins? That was a low moment.
So, what's your favourite black comedy (as defined by being both funny and disturbing)?
no subject
Date: 2007-09-16 08:04 pm (UTC)