The way Kindle books work is that you have the option of seeing the passages other readers have considered especially valuable. If more than 2 people have highlighted a quote, you can see it.
In Jonathan Franzen ‘ s novel The Corrections there are very few highlighted quotes. That’s not surprising since the novel is an exercise in extreme superficiality. One passage, however, struck the readers as so important that hundreds of them underlined it.
In the passage, the protagonist is thinking about her middle-aged children, and arrives at the following tragic realization:
They didn’t want the things that she and all her friends and all her friends’ children wanted. Her children wanted radically, shamefully other things.
When I think of those hundreds of stupid dumbasses who felt compelled to highlight the earth – shattering bit of news that 40 – year-old people are human beings even though they are somebody’s children, I feel very sad.
People create all kinds of idiocies to torture themselves and others instead of simply enjoying life. Your children are alive? Healthy? Then just unclench already, you stupid fuck, and go do something useful with your life instead of lamenting the very evidence that they exist.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Her children wanted radically, shamefully other things…..”
Trying to imagine what these ‘shamefully’ other things might be.
They wanted to eat rude shaped chocolates for breakfast.
They wanted wear berets and use words like ‘metonym’ and ‘arriviste’.
They wanted to paint their houses in yellow and green stripes.
They wanted odd reptiles named after Greek mythic figures and 17th century French philosophers as pets.
They wanted subsriptions to magazines on artisanal embroidery and thimble collecting.
They wanted to decorate their homes with nothing but vintage office furniture.
… I got nuthin’
LikeLike
This is a lot more original than anything Franzen could ever come up with. 🙂
In the novel, the mother is unhappy that her daughter has a career. In the 1990s when the novel is set, that doesn’t sound like all that shameful and radical.
Thank you for this great comment!
LikeLike
That’s not even grammatical to my ears.
LikeLike
I was thinking the same thing, at the purely mechanical level it’s crap (unless the writing is trying to mimic the syntax of a non-native speaker or something like that).
LikeLike
Yes, it does sound completely indigestible. And it isn’t a non-native speaker. This is the kind of “high literature” (in his own words) that Franzen creates.
LikeLike
Note to self: Never read anything by Franzen. brrrrrrrrrrrrr
LikeLike