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markarayner

Dilettante

A cursory and curious listing of books and literatrivia. 

The Corrections

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen I'm not sure why people are so upset about the "talking turd" scene. Pretty standard stuff. His quotidian approach to loquacious fecal matter aside, this is a marvelous novel. I don't normally like reading family dramas, which seem to be the kind of book we regard as "serious literature" here in Canada, but this novel is really worth your time. It's well written, has some laugh-out-loud moments (Chip, and his various sexual neuroses, are hilarious) and is a fine examination of our consumer culture, our modern dislocations of family and relationships. My only complaint? His repeated references to scalp smell, or a scalpy smell, or something being "scalpy"? Freaks me, out man.