Critical Mick

Reviews Free of Rules.

Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
HarperPerennial, 2002

The Game of Life

The Corrections is a board game.

Check out the box below if you don't believe me.

Most readers are surprised. "Didn't The Corrections win the National Book Award?" In actual fact, that coup was the most unexpected trans-media promotional sensation since "Where's the Beef?" The same way certain movies are released to cash in on popular video games, Jonathan Franzen's transcript of an early The Corrections prototype was published in book form as part of Milton Brothers' (pun intended) novel marketing campaign. A lot of people dug it, even those who had never bought those stupid "Know What I Mean, Vern?" tee shirts.

Rather than wholly complete with flashy computer graphics, The Corrections rides the retro vibe towards its slice of the $15 billion games industry. This is a board game like the ones we members of the target demographic played years ago on various card tables across the Midwest, with little men who start off in the same place then move around the board, ultimately aiming for the same goal.

Suitable for two to eight players, The Corrections is a journey in which dice are rolled, and paths chosen. Players must accumulate not only money, but Moral Score, Libido Points or Independence Factor. Cards that are drawn when landing on certain places. In the book version, five characters set out: Alfred and Enid, a retired couple, and their three children: Gary, a banker, Chip, a college literature professor, and Denise, a celebrity chef. The routes chosen, rolls of the die and cards pulled set them off in all sorts of wacky directions.

But this is not Life or Monopoly, comprehensible to children. Though even these games involve the collection of money and choice of investments, The Corrections adds a whole new dimension.

The feature I like best about The Corrections is that however much money the players believe they have accumulated, however high their Moral Score, Libido Points, Blood Alcohol Level or Independence Factor, there’s an element of poker. You’re never quite sure how what you have stacks up against the opposition. At unexpected times during The Corrections, migraine lights flash, the buzzer sounds, and various players (or, more accurately, their characters) are called to stand up for comparison. These reckonings with reality are The Corrections.

Here’s where an element of Pictionary or Cerebellum comes into the game. Players have to literally face off and adlib a little scene:

In this except we see Denise call Chip into Correction. The brilliant, hip young professor must face that he is broke, low status, of low morals, too horny and too sober. Man! Doesn't Life just have a way of putting you in your place-?

And what bizarre, unexpected places-! After this Correction, Chip lands on New York City. There he draws an Evil Corporate Screw-Over card, has to hide salmon in his trousers, draws the dreaded Driblett card and lands in Lithuania. I am not making this up.

It’s possible to play certain Guilt cards during these adlibbed encounters- bonus points for making them stick to the other player, regardless of the outcome of the Correction. The remarks made during these exchanges can be hilarious! As soon as a small legal matter is cleared up, I will post here on criticalmick.com a video clip of some friends playing a pirated advance copy of The Corrections.

The Corrections should be available in stores before next year’s holiday rush. Keep looking, because as soon as they’re on the shelves they will be snapped up and impossible to find! Everyone else will be talking about The Corrections and you will be left with a Clue. (Or Cluedo, as it’s called for unknown marketing reasons here in Ireland.)

Annendum, November 2006

Attorneys for Milton Brothers have made me take down photographs of The Corrections game board and scanned-in images of what the score sheets and Driblett cards look like. Sorry about that.

I am glad that Mr. Franzen, a fine writer with several highly-regarded titles to his credit, included in his book version of The Corrections a segment discussing how an evil, manipulative corporation got its due. To promote the latest version of their software product, this evil W_________ Corporation hoodwinks America by publicizing the tragic case of a breast cancer victim, who t turns out is fabricated down to her Internet-publicized medical records. A PR executive of this thinly-veiled evil software giant is later publicly beaten almost to death. Hurrah, says Critical Mick!

Update, January 2007:

This review has taken so long to write, Milton Brothers have actually announced a spin-off. No doubt inspired by The Sims 2, this fine company has begun to leak rumors of a blockbuster sequel game, The Dribbletts.

Inquiries have since made clear that Jonathan Franzen knows nothing at all about a forthcoming spin-off called The Dribblets.

Update, July 2007:

One late-breaking correction… in actual, actual fact, this Critical Mick unruly review is a different kind of game. Yep, it’s all just a bit of fun. The book The Corrections contains five distinct characters revealing their entire life story, fully realized plots and exotic settings ranging from Illinois to Eastern Europe. And all the deeply-detailed secondary characters, conflicts, influences and unlicensed pharmaceuticals, hitting every major theme in modern American life? That's more than a novel.

Immediately after finishing its 568 pages, I believed The Corrections was actually five books wedged into a newfangled absurd epic cycle. I sat down with a pint at my local and reflected for months on the derelict power plants transformed into restaurants, Austrian Olympians, death sentence fall color cruises, the drop-kicking of Christmas presents, the teamsters, lesbians and statutory rape…. Far too big to be one novel, I thought to myself. That’s something more. That's... a game!

Wouldn’t that be cool if it was true? If The Corrections book was promotional hype that crossed over into-? Strange things, as Jonathan Franzen’s famed novel so well demonstrates, happen every freaking day.

As much as I hate to agree with Oprah, this is one fine novel.

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2006 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

Irate, huh? Managed to piss off another one? Direct your hatemail to mick @ mickhalpin dot com.

This Page Was Last Updated On 29 July, 2007.