Golden Grove--Francine Prose
I finished Goldengrove some days ago and wanted a little time to come to terms with my mixed feelings about it. There are times when I am too picky, too demanding, or too controlling. Please keep that in mind as you read the comments that follow.
A quick resume of the story-- a young girl, Nico, (about 13) loses her older sister, Margaret, to a drowning incident caused by a known heart condition. (This happens within the first 10 pages, so there are no spoilers here.) The story traces the attempts of the Nico, her family, and Margaret's boyfriend. Aaron, as they try to come to terms with this traumatic alteration of their lives.
To start with, the things about which I have no qualms whatsoever--the sheer beauty and power of the prose, the wonderful evocation of the warping of time that occurs when one is in an altered emotional state, the powerful oppression of layers of guilt, ambivalence, uncertainty, and self. All of these are powerful elements of a great novel that Ms. Prose has constructed for our delectation and delight. Her similes and metaphors are strong and occasionally act as the "comic relief" in the midst of the story. I have shared some of these in previous posts. Ms. Prose is at her strongest in describing these wayward currents that disorient us and threaten to destroy us even as they carry us along in life. In order not to provide too many spoilers, I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to find their own examples.
The story line is strong, and the characters are well-drawn and clear. The story moves along with the nightmarish dreaminess that accompanies real grief and the protracted recovery therefrom. It's hard to conceive of the fact that the story covers only a summer because there is about the prose and the method of telling an interminable duration. That is not to say that the story languishes, but that the intensity is such that time is telescoped in the way time is during any intense emotional involvement. In this case, it would be reverse telescoping in which a very short time seems to last and last with no hope of it ever fading away. The chronological sensation of utter loss.
Now, my quibbles. There is about the book a coyness and a narrator so unreliable as to be occasionally disconcerting. It is clear that the book is narrated as a retrospective, but there are moments of adult intrusion into the thoughts of this 13-year-old girl that are extremely disconcerting. In the 70's or 80's (a time period I infer from a reference to the parents as "aging hippies") was it common for 13-year-old girls to think of their Father's relationships with other women in terms of "affairs" when there has been no such activity present in the family or mentioned by anyone? Is that a piece of realism interjected by the adult voice that is trying to give presence to a feeling on the part of the youngster? There were other similar elements, bothersome to me even for a precocious child. And there was, at the last, a very disorienting revelation regarding career interests that has neither foundation nor basis in the observations or narration of the tale.
This coupled with a few odd language choices and a couple of other quibbles detracted enough from the book for me to rate it with only 4 stars. That said--it is a strong 4-star--powerful, well-wrought, and in the capture of emotions related to grief and loss it is dead-on accurate from my own experience. Dead-on accurate and transcendantly beautiful.
****--Highly Recommended.
A quick resume of the story-- a young girl, Nico, (about 13) loses her older sister, Margaret, to a drowning incident caused by a known heart condition. (This happens within the first 10 pages, so there are no spoilers here.) The story traces the attempts of the Nico, her family, and Margaret's boyfriend. Aaron, as they try to come to terms with this traumatic alteration of their lives.
To start with, the things about which I have no qualms whatsoever--the sheer beauty and power of the prose, the wonderful evocation of the warping of time that occurs when one is in an altered emotional state, the powerful oppression of layers of guilt, ambivalence, uncertainty, and self. All of these are powerful elements of a great novel that Ms. Prose has constructed for our delectation and delight. Her similes and metaphors are strong and occasionally act as the "comic relief" in the midst of the story. I have shared some of these in previous posts. Ms. Prose is at her strongest in describing these wayward currents that disorient us and threaten to destroy us even as they carry us along in life. In order not to provide too many spoilers, I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to find their own examples.
The story line is strong, and the characters are well-drawn and clear. The story moves along with the nightmarish dreaminess that accompanies real grief and the protracted recovery therefrom. It's hard to conceive of the fact that the story covers only a summer because there is about the prose and the method of telling an interminable duration. That is not to say that the story languishes, but that the intensity is such that time is telescoped in the way time is during any intense emotional involvement. In this case, it would be reverse telescoping in which a very short time seems to last and last with no hope of it ever fading away. The chronological sensation of utter loss.
Now, my quibbles. There is about the book a coyness and a narrator so unreliable as to be occasionally disconcerting. It is clear that the book is narrated as a retrospective, but there are moments of adult intrusion into the thoughts of this 13-year-old girl that are extremely disconcerting. In the 70's or 80's (a time period I infer from a reference to the parents as "aging hippies") was it common for 13-year-old girls to think of their Father's relationships with other women in terms of "affairs" when there has been no such activity present in the family or mentioned by anyone? Is that a piece of realism interjected by the adult voice that is trying to give presence to a feeling on the part of the youngster? There were other similar elements, bothersome to me even for a precocious child. And there was, at the last, a very disorienting revelation regarding career interests that has neither foundation nor basis in the observations or narration of the tale.
This coupled with a few odd language choices and a couple of other quibbles detracted enough from the book for me to rate it with only 4 stars. That said--it is a strong 4-star--powerful, well-wrought, and in the capture of emotions related to grief and loss it is dead-on accurate from my own experience. Dead-on accurate and transcendantly beautiful.
****--Highly Recommended.
Comments
Post a Comment