Corporate Web

The Corrections is concerned with the consequences of the increasingly globalized world. Things have gotten so weird that the most popular rapper on the planet is Canadian—a Canadian who has been Bar Mitzvahed, no less.

The point is that everything is a lot more connected these days. While there's no shortage of arguments in favor or against globalization, Franzen is less concerned with making a political statement than cracking some good jokes.

In order to illustrate this, Franzen has created a dense web of interlocking individuals and businesses that's spread throughout the novel. Check out a few examples:

• Remember how Melissa Pacquette's parents own a company called "Westportfolio Biofund" (2.313)? Well, one of their major clients happens to be the Axon Corporation.
• Is it coincidence that Sylvia Wroth shares a last name with the guys who bought Midland Pacific (a.k.a. the "Oak Ridge Raiders") and the college hall where Chip worked (2.462)? Hmm…
• The ad campaign that Chip mocks in his college course was made for the W— Corporation, which is the same company that paid Brian Callahan millions for his "Eigen melody" (5.20) computer software.

We could go on and on. We can't blame you for missing these little nuggets the first time around—frankly, so did we. But take a look and see how many other unexpected connections you can find, because there's plenty more where that came from. It's like the world we live in now, kicked into hyper drive a bit. And to that end, any arguments you can find for or against this intense connectivity can probably be considered social critique. Franzen's hand is light when it comes to this, though, so we wouldn't go so far as to say this a major aim of his with this book.