Commonwealth
Ann Patchett, 2016
I
finished this book in hopes that there was going to be some payoff at the end
for the long slog it was. But I am still
mystified at the heaps of praise it has received – “exquisite” (NYT), “a
transporting experience” (LA Times), and on and on. What is there that has captivated this A-list
of critics, other than the inevitability of praise for someone who has won all
the accolades this writer has? Book
reviewers seem to have the same herd mentality that we associate with Wall
Street and silicon valley and fashion week.
Because
what it is, is simply a long saga exploring different states of
siblinghood. Two couples that divorce,
remarry, remarry again, as seen through the eyes of their children from their
first marriages, over the course of their lives. Threading it, to provide some suspense, is
the death of one of the teenage sons under circumstances that are hinted to be transgressive
and shocking but in the end are finally revealed to be comparatively pedestrian,
if still sad and unfortunate. Where are
the “keen insights”, the “minimalism” that the esteemed critics see? I am bemused.
The
main sibling characters mostly failed to arouse my sympathy – and worse, the
two girls whose pov is taken (Jeannette and Franny) are almost
indistinguishable in their voices. As is
often the case in novels like these, it’s the men who are the worst, either selfish
(Bert, the philandering father), blind (Fix, the cuckolded father), addicted (Albie,
the confused son), hopelessly angry (Cal, who drugs Albie), or manipulative
bastards (Leo, the famous older writer who Franny falls for).
The
women can be catty or overwhelmed, but not fundamentally flawed or
malicious. And in that sense, I suspect
that is why the novel itself is weak. It
subconsciously guides us to take the side of the women, and in doing so loses
the power that comes to a narrative from villains and flawed heroes – since these
are actually located in the other gender.
The
characters that did intrigue me were in fact some of the side roles: Bonnie, the
easily drunk, good-looking sister overshadowed by her movie-star beautiful sister
Beverly; the priest who dances with her at the christening party in the opening
chapter; Jeannette’s Guinean husband and baby; Franny’s Indian husband and
kids. Unfortunately, these are merely
cardboard characters, quickly sketched and equally quickly discarded. In fact the characterizations of Jeannette’s
and Franny’s husband skate close to being convenient, multi-culti tokens designed
to make the narrative feel contemporary and the wives seem liberally open-minded
and “interesting”.
The
actual storyboarding is technically skillful.
A complex set of family relationships is sketched with interleaving and nested
flashbacks and flash-forwards. It doesn’t
always work – until the end I had difficulty keeping straight which kids
belonged to which parent, and the last chapter, somewhat irrelevantly, brings
in still more siblings out of the blue – but generally it is quite
accomplished. The suspense of the
teenage son’s death is dosed out with great finesse, Perhaps that is what the reviewers were
responding to. But, for all the technique,
and all the finesse, there seems to be nothing substantial at the core. Inadvertently, that may be the real message, the
emptiness at the center of fragmented, confusing, modern American lives.
2*
Nov 2017
Nov 2017
