The Corrections

by Jonathan Franzen

  On her map of the ship, at the stern end of the “D” Deck, was the universal symbol of aid for those in need. After breakfast she left her husband in conversation with the Roths and made her way to this red cross. The physical thing corresponding to the symbol was a frosted-glass door with three words lettered on in gold leaf. “Alfred” was the first word and “Infirmary” was the third; the sense of the middle word was lost in the shadows cast by “Alfred.” She studied it fruitlessly. No. Bel. Nob-Ell. No Bell.

  All three words retreated as the door was pulled open by a muscular young man with a name tag pinned to a white lapel: Mather Hibbard, M.D. He had a large, somewhat coarse-skinned face like the face of the Italian-American actor people loved, the one who once starred as an angel and another time as a disco dancer. “Hi, how are you this morning?” he said, showing pearly teeth. Enid followed him through a vestibule into the inner office, where he directed her to the chair by his desk.

  “I’m Mrs. Lambert,” she said. “Enid Lambert in B11. I was hoping you could help me.”

  “I hope so, too. What seems to be the problem?”

  “I’m having some trouble.”

  “Mental trouble? Emotional trouble?”

  “Well, it’s my husband—”

  “Excuse me. Stop? Stop?” Dr. Hibbard ducked a little and smiled impishly. “You say you’re having the trouble?”

  His smile was adorability itself. It took hostage that part of Enid that melted at the sight of seal pups and kittens, and it refused to release her until, somewhat grudgingly, she’d smiled back. “My trouble,” she said, “is my husband and my children—”

  “Sorry again, Edith. Time out?” Dr. Hibbard ducked very low, put his hands on his head, and peered up from between his arms. “We need to be clear: you are the one having trouble?”

  “No. I’m fine. But everyone else in my—”

  “Are you anxious?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Not sleeping?”

  “Exactly. You see, my husband—”

  “Edith? You said Edith?”

  “Enid. Lambert. L-A-M-B—”

  “Enith, what’s four times seven with three taken away?”

  “What? Oh. Well, twenty-five.”

  “And, what day of the week is it today?”

  “Today is Monday.”

  “And, what historic Rhode Island resort town did we visit yesterday?”

  “Newport.”

  “And, are you currently taking medication for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, epilepsy, parkinsonism, or any other psychiatric or neurologic disorder?”

  “No.”

  Dr. Hibbard nodded and sat up straight, rolled open a deep drawer in the console behind him, and withdrew a handful of rattling plastic-and-foil packages. He counted off eight of them and set them on his desk in front of Enid. They had an expensive sheen she didn’t like the looks of.

  “This is an excellent new medication that will help you enormously,” Hibbard recited in a monotone. He winked at her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Have we misunderstood each other? I believe you said, ’I am having trouble.’ And mentioned anxiety and sleep disturbance?”

  “Yes, but what I meant was that my husband—”

  “Husband, right. Or wife. It’s often the less inhibited spouse that comes to see me. In fact a crippling fear of asking for Asian is the condition for which Asian is most commonly indicated. The drug exerts a remarkable blocking effect on ’deep’ or ‘morbid’ shame.” Hibbard’s smile was like a fresh dent in soft fruit. He had a puppy’s lush eyelashes, a head that invited stroking. “This interests you?” he said. “I have your full attention?”

  Enid lowered her eyes and wondered if people ever died of sleep loss. Taking her silence for assent, Hibbard continued: “We think of a classic CNS depressant such as alcohol as suppressing ‘shame’ or ‘inhibitions.’ But the ‘shameful’ admission that a person spills under the influence of three martinis doesn’t lose its shamefulness in the spilling; witness the deep remorse that follows when the martinis have worn off. What’s happening on the molecular level, Edna, when you drink those martinis, is that the ethanol interferes with the reception of excess Factor 28A, i.e., the ‘deep’ or ‘morbid’ shame factor. But the 28A is not metabolized or properly reabsorbed at the receptor site. It’s kept in temporary unstable storage at the transmitter site. So when the ethanol wears off, the receptor is flooded with 28A. Fear of humiliation and the craving for humiliation are closely linked: psychologists know it, Russian novelists know it. And this turns out to be not only ‘true’ but really true. True at the molecular level. Anyway, Aslan’s effect on the chemistry of shame is entirely different from a martini’s. We’re talking complete annihilation of the 28A molecules. Aslan’s a fierce predator.”

  Evidently it was Enid’s turn to speak now, but she’d missed a cue somewhere. “Doctor,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I haven’t slept and I’m a little confused.”

  The doctor frowned adorably. “Confused? Or confused?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve told me you are ‘having trouble.’ You’re carrying one hundred fifty U.S. dollars in cash or traveler’s checks. Based on your clinical responses I’ve diagnosed subclinical dysthymia with no observable dementia, and I’m providing you, free of charge, with eight SampLpaks of Asian ‘Cruiser,’ each containing three thirty-milligram capsules, so that you may comfortably enjoy the remainder of your cruise and afterward follow the recommended thirty-twenty-ten step-down program. However, Elinor, I must warn you right away that if you are confused, as opposed to merely confused, it may compel me to alter my diagnosis, which may well jeopardize your access to the Aslan.”

  Here Hibbard raised his eyebrows and whistled a few bars of a melody that his faux-disingenuous smile robbed the tune of.

  “I’m not confused,” Enid said. “My husband is confused.”

  “If by ‘confused’ you mean confused then let me express the sincere hope that you intend the Asian for your own use and not your husband’s. Where dementia is present, Asian is strongly contraindicated. Officially, therefore, I must insist that you use the medication only as directed and only under my strict supervision. In practice, though, I’m not naïve. I understand that such a powerful, relief-bringing medication, a medication not yet available on the mainland, often finds its way into other hands.”

  Hibbard whistled a few more tuneless bars, a cartoon of someone minding his own business, while studying Enid to be sure he was amusing her.

  “My husband gets strange at night, sometimes,” she said, averting her eyes. “Very agitated and difficult, and I can’t sleep then. I’m dead tired all day and so upset. And there’s so much I want to do.”

  “Aslan will help you,” Hibbard assured her in a more sober voice. “A lot of travelers consider it a more important investment even than cancellation insurance. With all the money you’ve paid for the privilege of being here, Enith, you have a right to feel your best at every moment. A quarrel with your spouse, anxiety about a pet you’ve left behind, a perceived snub where none was intended: you can’t afford these bad feelings. Think of it this way. If Asian prevents you from missing just one prepaid Pleasurelines activity due to your subclinical dysthymia, it has paid for itself, by which I mean that your flat-fee consultation with me, at the end of which you’ll receive eight complimentary SampLpaks of thirty-milligram Asian ‘Cruiser,’ has paid for itself.”

  “What is Ashland?”

  Someone knocked on the outside door and Hibbard shuddered as if to clear his head. “Edie, Eden, Edna, Enid, excuse me one moment. I’m beginning to understand that you really are confused about the state-of-the-global-art psycho-pharmacology that Pleasurelines is proud to make available to its discerning clientele. I see you need a bit more explanation than most of our cruisers, and if you’ll excuse me for just one moment …”

  Hibbard took eight SampLpaks of Asian from his console,
actually troubled to lock the console and pocket the key, and stepped into the vestibule. Enid heard his murmur and the husky voice of an older man replying, “Twenty-five,” “Monday,” and “Newport.” In less than two minutes the doctor returned, carrying some traveler’s checks.

  “Is this really all right, what you’re doing?” Enid asked. “I mean, legally?”

  “Good Q, Enid, but guess what: it’s wonderfully legal.” He examined one of the checks somewhat absently and then tucked them all into his shirt pocket. “Excellent question, though. Really ace Q. Professional ethics prevent me from selling the drugs I prescribe, so I’m confined to dispensing free samples, which luckily conforms to Pleasurelines ‘own tutto è incluso policy. Regrettably, since Asian has yet to receive full American regulatory approval, and since most of our cruisers are American, and since Aslan’s designer and maker, Farmacopea S.A., therefore has no incentive to provide me with complimentary samples sufficient to the extraordinary demand, I do find it necessary to purchase the complimentary samples in bulk. Hence my consulting fee, which might otherwise strike some as inflated.”

  “What’s the actual cash value of the eight sample packs?” Enid asked.

  “Being complimentary and strictly not for resale, they have no actual cash value, Eartha. If you’re asking what it costs me to provide this service to you free of charge, the answer is about eighty-eight dollars, U.S.”

  “Four dollars a pill!”

  “Correct. Full dosage for patients of ordinary sensitivity is thirty milligrams per day. In other words, one caplet. Four dollars a day to feel great: most cruisers consider it a bargain.”

  “And tell me, though, what it is? Ashram?”

  “Aslan. Named, I’m told, for a mythical creature in ancient mythology. Mithraism, sun-worshippers, and so forth. I’d be making it up if I told you any more. But my understanding is Asian was a great benign Lion.”

  Enid’s heart leaped in its cage. She took a SampLpak from the desk and examined the pills through the bubbles of hard plastic. Each tawny-gold caplet was scored twice for ease of splitting and emblazoned with a many-rayed sun—or was it the silhouetted head of a richly maned lion? ASLAN® Cruiser™ was the label.

  “What’s it do?” she said.

  “Absolutely nothing,” Hibbard replied, “if you are in perfect mental health. However, let’s face it, who is?”

  “Oh, and if you’re not?”

  “Aslan provides state-of-the-art factor regulation. The best medications now approved for American use are like two Marlboros and a rum-and-Coke, by comparison.”

  “It’s an antidepressant?”

  “Crude term. ‘Personality optimizer’ is the phrase I prefer.”

  “And ‘Cruiser’?”

  “Aslan optimizes in sixteen chemical dimensions,” Hibbard said patiently. “But guess what. Optimal for a person enjoying a luxury cruise isn’t optimal for a person functioning in the workplace. The chemical differences are pretty subtle, but if you’re capable of fine control, why not offer it? Besides Asian ‘Basic,’ Farmacopea sells eight custom blends. Asian ‘Ski,’ Asian ‘Hacker,’ Asian ‘Performance Ultra,’ Asian ‘Teen,’ Asian ‘Club Med,’ Asian ‘Golden Years,’ and I’m forgetting what? Asian ‘California.’ Very popular in Europe. The plan is to bring the number of blends up to twenty within two years. Asian ‘Exam Buster,’ Asian ‘Courtship,’ Asian ‘White Nights,’ Asian ‘Reader’s Challenge,’ Asian ‘Connoisseur Class,’ yada yada yada. American regulatory approval would accelerate the process, but I’m not holding my breath. If you’re asking what’s specific to ‘Cruiser’? Mainly that it switches your anxiety to the Off position. Turns that little dial right down to zero. Asian ‘Basic’ won’t do that, because to function day to day a moderate anxiety level is desirable. I’m on ‘Basic’ right now, for example, because I’m working.”

  “How—”

  “Less than one hour. That’s the glory of it. The action is effectively instantaneous. That’s compared with up to four weeks for some of the dinosaurs they’re still using Stateside. Go on Zoloft today and you’re lucky to feel better a week from Friday.”

  “No, but how do I refill the prescription at home?”

  Hibbard looked at his watch. “What part of the country are you from, Andie?”

  “The Midwest. St. Jude.”

  “OK. Your best bet’s going to be Mexican Aslan. Or, if you have friends vacationing in Argentina or Uruguay, you might work something out with them. Obviously, if you like the medication and you want total ease of access, Pleasurelines hopes you’ll take another cruise.”

  Enid pulled a scowl. Dr. Hibbard was very handsome and charismatic, and she liked the idea of a pill that would help her enjoy the cruise and take better care of Alfred, but the doctor seemed to her a trifle glib. Also, her name was Enid. E-N-I-D.

  “You’re really, really, really sure this will help me?” she said. “You’re really super certain this is the best thing for me?”

  “I ‘guarantee’ it,” Hibbard said with a wink.

  “What does ‘optimize’ mean, though?” Enid said.

  “You’ll feel emotionally more resilient,” Hibbard said. “More flexible, more confident, happier with yourself. Your anxiety and oversensitivity will disappear, as will any morbid concern about the opinion of others. Anything you’re ashamed of now—”

  “Yes,” Enid said. “Yes.”

  “‘If it comes up, I’ll talk about it; if not, why mention it?’ That will be your attitude. The vicious bipolarity of shame, that rapid cycling between confession and concealment—this is a complaint of yours?”

  “I think you understand me.”

  “Chemicals in your brain, Elaine. A strong urge to confess, a strong urge to conceal: What’s a strong urge? What else can it be but chemicals? What’s memory? A chemical change! Or maybe a structural change, but guess what. Structures are made of proteins! And what are proteins made of? Amines!”

  Enid had the dim worry that her church taught otherwise—something about Christ being both a hunk of flesh hanging from a cross and also the Son of God—but questions of doctrine had always seemed to her forbiddingly complex, and Reverend Anderson at their church had such a kindly face and often in his sermons told jokes or quoted New Yorker cartoons or secular writers such as John Updike, and he never did anything disturbing like telling the congregation that it was damned, which would have been absurd since everyone at the church was so friendly and nice, and then, too, Alfred had always pooh-poohed her faith and it was easier just to stop believing (if in fact she ever had believed) than to try to beat Alfred in a philosophical argument. Now Enid believed that when you were dead you were really dead, and Dr. Hibbard’s account of things was making sense to her.

  Nevertheless, being a tough shopper, she said: “I’m just a dumb old midwesterner, so, but changing your personality doesn’t sound right to me.” She made her face long and sour to be sure her disapproval wasn’t overlooked.

  “What’s wrong with change?” Hibbard said. “Are you happy with the way you feel right now?”

  “Well, no, but if I’m a different person after I take this pill, if I’m different, that can’t be right, and—”

  “Edwina, I’m completely sympathetic. We all have irrational attachments to the particular chemical coordinates of our character and temperament. It’s a version of the fear of death, right? I don’t know what it will be like not to be me anymore. But guess what. If ’I’m’ not around to tell the difference, then what do ‘I’ really care? Being dead’s only a problem if you know you’re dead, which you never do because you’re dead!”

  “But it sounds like the drug makes everybody the same.”

  “Uh-uh. Beep-beep. Wrong. Because guess what: two people can have the same personality and still be individuals. Two people with the same IQ can have completely different knowledge and memories. Right? Two very affectionate people can have completely different objects of affection. Two identically risk-averse indiv
iduals may be avoiding completely different risks. Maybe Asian does make us a little more alike, but guess what, Enid. We’re all still individuals.”

  The doctor unleashed an especially lovable smile, and Enid, who calculated that he was netting $62 per consultation, decided that she’d now received her money’s worth of his time and attention, and she did what she’d known she would do since she first laid eyes on the sunny, leonine caplets. She reached into her purse and from the Pleasurelines envelope that held her slot winnings she took a handful of cash and counted out $150.

  “All joy of the Lion,” Hibbard said with a wink as he slid the stack of SampLpaks across his desk. “Do you need a bag for that?”

  With a pounding heart Enid made her way to the bow of the “B” Deck. After the nightmare of the previous day and nights she again had a concrete thing to look forward to; and how sweet the optimism of the person carrying a newly scored drug that she believed would change her head; how universal the craving to escape the givens of the self. No exertion more strenuous than raising hand to mouth, no act more violent than swallowing, no religious feeling, no faith in anything more mystical than cause and effect was required to experience a pill’s transformative blessings. She couldn’t wait to take it. She treaded on air all the way to B11, where happily she saw no sign of Alfred. As if to acknowledge the illicit nature of her mission, she threw the dead bolt on the hall door. Further locked herself inside the bathroom. Raised her eyes to their reflected twins and, on a ceremonial impulse, returned their gaze as she hadn’t in months or maybe years. Pushed one golden Asian through the foil backing of its SampLpak. Placed it on her tongue and swallowed it with water.