SOURCE: Blincoe, Nicholas. “High Art Lite.” New Statesman 130, no. 4567 (10 December 2001): 52-3.

In the following review, Blincoe explores whether The Corrections is an extension of Franzen's 1996 essay “Perchance to Dream” and discusses the novel's critique of Western commercialism and pop culture.

The news about The Corrections, the celebrated novel by Jonathan Franzen, is that it works. Franzen aimed to link mental depression to economic depression, and he does this in poignant, non-trivial ways. Franzen talked of his own struggle with depression, and his hope to connect this private experience with a public context, in an essay entitled “Perchance to Dream”, published in Harper's in 1996. At 15,000 words, this essay was already pretty long. But it is only completed by the publication of this novel, all 566 pages of it. I believe The Corrections is a triumph. But it is a triumph that leads, as depression often does, into a black hole...