SOURCE: Hensher, Philip. “Writing beyond His Means.” Spectator 287, no. 9042 (24 November 2001): 44-5.

In the following review of The Corrections, Hensher dismisses the novel as long-winded and feels that it lacks the concise construction of other acclaimed contemporary novels.

Jonathan Franzen, if you haven't heard by now, is the new big thing in American literature, and this novel a huge financial and critical success. He has written two previous novels, which made little impact, but The Corrections has had the sort of success which, in past years, has been attached to Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities or Donna Tartt's The Secret History. A clue to Mr Franzen's ambitions came with the obligatory literary scandal which surrounds books of this sort. A television hostess, Oprah Winfrey, has in recent years attained gigantic power in the American books world by taking a break, once a month, from her regular territory...