Fiction chronicle November 2001
On the hysterical playground
A review of The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen; After the Plague and Other Stories, by T. C. Boyle; Up in the Air, by Walter Kirn; John Henry Days, by Colson Whitehead; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon & Pafko at the Wall, by Don DeLillo.
Kingsley Amis to Martin Amis
Some very good books have been written by misanthropes. One certainly cant accuse Dawn Powell of being keen on people, or Evelyn Waugh of cutting anybody slack. But their books are satirical novels, their characters largely conceived to illustrate, or prove, just how awful everybody is. I am not sure if Jonathan Franzen is a misanthrope, but he demonstrates in his new novel The Corrections a dislike for his subjects that is sharp and unflinching. He humiliates these awful people in public and in private, shows us their social and intimate incapacities, and brings us internal monologues that reveal petty, selfish motivations. The Corrections is not, however, a satirical novel. Franzen was clearly after a broader stroke, and as a result the ...
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