"We were the Mulvaneys, remember us?... For a long time you envied us, then you pitied us." These lines from the opening of Joyce Carol Oates magnificent story of family, family lost and family found, sum up the novel wonderfully. I feel like this novel deserves more than the meager review I can give, it needs a paper or thesis, there's so many subtexts and issues dealt with and it packs such an emotional wallop, bordering on maudlin at times but thankfully never crossing over into Sparks territory. Corinne the matriarch of the Mulvaney clan is an antique lover, supposed dealer but she can seldom part with her finds, she especially loves clocks. Every room of High Point Farm, where the Mulvaneys lived was filled with clocks, no two keeping the same time much like the members of the family themselves, each marching along to his/her on tick-tick-tick. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it but the fact that the only clock that was know to have the 'right' time was the one Michael Sr.'s, the father of the tribe, friends had giving him. Michel Sr.'s self-made life depended so much on how he felt society saw him and that turned out to be one of his biggest faults and one of the biggest drivers of the conflict in this story. I don't want to give too much away because I really hope others will read this book so let me gingerly out line it for you. This great, picturesque all-American family (Michael Sr., Corinne, Micheal Jr., Patrick, Marianne, Judd and a host of dogs, cats and horses) live on a great, picturesque all-American farm (High Point Farm) in upstate New York. The family seems blessed and lucky hence the narrator (Judd, the youngest Mulvaney) saying you may have envied us, until something terrible happens to one of the family members and the family begins to fall apart (and then you pitied us). One of the underlying messages of the book is that our lives are not entirely our own, our decisions, our actions affect everyone that loves us. In fact you could say that the burden of love is caring about what happens to others. When something terrible happens to a member of this close-knit family it has a jarring effect on all members of the family. The terrible thing that happens though isn't even really the time and life redefining moment, merely the event that starts it, the real tragedy is a decision to try and save the family that just rips it apart. You just feel like screaming at the characters- "No! No! No! Don't do it, how can you?" I think one of Oates' greatest achievements in this book is making you care so much for the characters, early on you fall in love with Corinne and the farm (the farm is as much a character in the book as the people) and when things start falling apart Oates pulls away from Corinne and the farm, their always in the back ground but others now take center stage. That pulling back has an emotional impact on the story, you love Corinne yet your mad at her and that relegating her to the back ground for awhile emphasizes and compounds those feeling. Like I said this book is masterfully written. Each of the characters lives take different twists and turns as none are willing or able to really cope with what happened, not for a while any way. A lesson you can take away from this book is that life changing events, even terrible, horrendous, unfair events, events that leave families filled with impotent rage can lead to good things. It reminds me of the bible verse- All things work together for good for those that love the lord- but in a less celestial way - all things work together for good for those that will continue to live.
No comments:
Post a Comment