Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections
Bookworm
KCRW
4.5 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2001
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When The Corrections appeared, it was immediately nominated as a candidate for The Great American Novel. Jonathan Franzen discusses his manner of writing, his method of construction, and the possibility that his book advocates a family values-based neo-conservatism.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation. |
| 0:07.0 | You are a human animal. |
| 0:11.0 | You are a very special breed. |
| 0:15.0 | Or you are the only animal. |
| 0:18.6 | Who can think, who can reason, who can read. |
| 0:21.6 | The cow... |
| 0:22.6 | From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm. |
| 0:27.6 | This week my guest is Jonathan Franzen, the author of The Corrections, published by |
| 0:33.6 | Farris Jouss and Giroux, the author as well of Strong Motion and of the 27th City. |
| 0:40.6 | Probably no novel I can remember in recent years has been reviewed as rapturously as the corrections, |
| 0:48.9 | and it seemed that it would be a pleasure to talk to the author about the book because there are so many things about it that people are beginning to discover. |
| 0:59.6 | I wanted to begin because I am interested in secrets. |
| 1:06.3 | The novel has certain themes that recur in certain chapters. |
| 1:12.7 | The first one I wanted to talk to you about was the appearance of the word square. |
| 1:18.7 | There's a diagram of a square and a formula for squaring numbers. |
| 1:23.2 | That chapter has the word squared away with and the phrase repeats. |
| 1:28.4 | Square meal. |
| 1:29.7 | Yeah. |
| 1:30.3 | What's the design there? |
| 1:33.3 | Oh, the design there. |
| 1:34.8 | I don't know. |
| 1:37.2 | When I was starting to play around with the book and this book was written as something |
... |
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