I'm torn between the option to approach my new book blog as a place to brush up on my critical-theoretical-analytical skills and practice good writing techniques as I always coach my students to do, or the option to use my new book blog to write pure reading responses. While my brain wants to keep it academic, the truth of my life right now is that I am a work-at-home mom to a beautiful nearly-nine-month-old baby boy who demands so much time and attention that I don't really have more time for this blog than I can spare to jot a few lines in response to the books I manage to squeeze in to naptimes and after bedtime. In fact, I'm trying to keep him entertained in his high chair while I write this and he has just let me know that "ignoring baby" time is up. So hopefully I'll be back to finish my reading response to The Member of the Wedding, which I finished about fifteen minutes ago, just as naptime was coming to its cheery conclusion.
next day...
Baby is down for a nap, so I'll try to finish this post and then do what I should really be doing, which is grading papers. I have always wanted to read The Member of the Wedding because it was on my high school reading list when I was a junior. I picked it up at the library a couple of weeks ago when I couldn't find some of the young adult books I had on my list to read during the Dewey 24-hour readathon, which I wanted to do even though I did not have a blog at the time. The story is sort of a cross between To Kill a Mockingbird and the movie My Girl. It is about a 12-year-old girl named Frankie whose mother died giving birth to her and who has been raised by her father who has no idea how to raise a daughter. She is very precocious and scheming and entertains herself by writing "shows" that she forces her 6-year-old (boy) cousin to enact under the arbor in her backyard. This novel takes place over about a 48-hour period from the time she finds out her brother, on leave from the war, is getting married to the evening after the wedding.
Before finding out her brother is getting married, Frankie is lost and lonely, her best friend having just moved out of state and the other girls in town having formed a club and not invited her. The moment she finds out about the wedding, she attaches all of her adolescent emotions and imaginations to the wedding; she convinces herself that she is a third member of the wedding, and repeats to herself of her brother and his fiance, "They are the we of me." This idea of "we" is further discussed: "Yesterday, and all the twelve years of her life, she had only been Frankie. She was an I person who had to walk around and do things by herself. All other people had a we to claim, all other except her. When Berenice said we, she meant Honey and Big Mama, her lodge, or her church. The we of her father was the store. All members of clubs have a we to belong to and talk about." So for 48 blissful hours Frankie thinks she finally has her we -her brother and future sister-in-law. In the end, of course, they go on their honeymoon and she is not invited.
I can't say that I loved this book. Carson McCullers is known for her writing style, and it is lyrical, lilting, and enjoyable to read. The problem I had was that I could not relate to Frankie. She is very selfish and odd in a way that puts me off. The largest section of the book is a recounting of her escapades in town on the day before the wedding when she goes shopping for a new dress. She goes up to strangers and tells them that she is going to be part of the wedding and go on the honeymoon and never come back to this town. This was so odd and unnatural to me (that a 12-year-old would be telling perfect strangers this and believing it herself) that I could not relate to it. Also, not to give anything away, but as I discussed earlier the whole thing Frankie is looking for is a we to belong to, and there are two people who embrace and love her as we but she does not want them. In the end, something terrible happens, but the last line says that "with an instant shock of happiness, she heard the ringing of the bell" telling her that her new friend, the one who finally makes her part of a we is here to play. I was just really sad that she never recognized the other people who wanted her to be part of their we.
I love to make note of lovely lines, things I wish I could write, and I found this gem in The Member of the Wedding: "It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see. The world was too far away, and there was no way any more that she could be included."
I think this would be a fun book to read for a book club, because I would love to hear other perspectives on Frankie: I would love for somebody to give me a reason to love her.
You know, I was thinking back to K's first year and a half and I think I only read two books--Jane Eyre and Middlemarch. Then around 18 months, even if she was playing happily, if I so much as picked up a book, she freaked. I think book blogging would have been very therapeutic for me, though.
ReplyDeleteWell, if this book is like My Girl, will I bawl like I did during the movie?
Middlemarch took the first year, right? :)
ReplyDeleteThe book is a lot like My Girl, except the tragedy doesn't happen in the story; you only hear about it afterwards, and I at least was more bugged by Frankie's lack of reaction than sad and crying. But then I don't remember bawling at My Girl the way you did, either. :)