Review: That Hand Rocks the Cradle

Flowers in the Attic
Virginia Andrews
HarperCollins
2012 Edition
978-000-792787-6

Shall they clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou?- Isaiah 45:9

In referencing this Bible scripture, you'd think Flowers in the Attic would be a wholesome tale of spiritual maturity. But if you've read the book or seen the film adaptations, you know that isn't true. Or is it? While the story is anything but wholesome, it follows the trials and maturation of the four Dollangager children reeling from a family bombshell that they will never recover from, a truth that will ultimately determine who they become.

In 1957 Pennsylvania, the Dollangangers are the typical well-to-do white family living in suburban bliss. Cathy, the story's narrator, is in love with her parents and three siblings. But all that changes when her father dies in a car accident. Now Corrine, the mother, and four children are left in a financial bind. She reveals to her children a shameful family secret: she and her late husband were actually uncle and niece. She moves her children back to her childhood home, Foxworth Hall,in Virginia. There she hopes to regain her father's love and be written back into his will after he banished her for committing incest with his younger brother. There, Corrine and the children live under the extremist conservative Christianity the Foxworth family prides themselves on, especially Corrine's mother, Olivia. She is the ultimate villain in gray. That is until Corrine herself begins to lose sight of her children with her return to riches and luxury. The two women seem to unknowingly work together to bring about the demise of the four Dollaganger children, faciliting the forbidden. The Foxworth family drama continues to unravels as the four children are locked in the attic for nearly three years, suffering loss and dignity while grappling with the emotions that come with evolving as a person and a sexual being.

Definitely melodramatic, this tale spins with ardent abandon at moments covering the minutia of a given day with what could be akin to a Southern drawl. But even with an outrageous storyline and sometimes unrealistic dialogue for pre-teens, the personal evolution of the characters is relatable. Questions of identity, gender politics, and one's own relationship to his or her maturing sexuality read true. The structure was succinct and the characterization strong. Flowers in the Attic will take you on a wild ride of emotions and probably leave you somewhat disturbed. But if you're looking for a family drama like no other, pick up this Virginia Andrews classic. Continue with the Dollanganger saga if you'd like. I will....

Join me on July 8th for the next installment, Petals in the Wind. I can't wait to share with you!

Ruminations: That Hand Rocks the Cradle

No, this is not a commentary on Rebecca De Mornay's turn as a psychopathic nanny in the 90s classic The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. (That would make a good book though.) But her turn in a patently female role as well as watching the film Wonder Woman got me to thinking about the beginnings of gender roles in society. From whence do they come?

In reading Flowers in the Attic, I automatically assumed I would want to discuss sibling relationships, particularly (spoiler alert!) incest. But as I continued reading, I kept wondering about the origins of gender role expectations. The two eldest siblings Christopher (14) and Cathy (12) have to manage their younger siblings' and their own lives as they live in their grandparents' attic. That's a heavy weight to bear at a stage when their gendered identity development is even more encumbered by their biological evolution. They can't just be kid siblings anymore; they have to be mother and father. That grated at me as these two had slipped into traditional parental roles. Although they did share the responsibilities of rearing their twin siblings, Cathy represents the softness of a burgeoning motherhood and limited agency in development, while Christopher is the protector and keeper of knowledge, forever "manslaining" everything as if Cathy can't possibly know what she is talking about. It could be sibling tension, or it could spell out the future for the both of them: Christopher can enjoy his white male privilege while Cathy will have to juggle becoming a top ballerina and rocking the cradle.

But then I had this thought: without their parents' consistent presence, did Cathy and Christopher learn enough to fulfill the socially prescribed expectations of man and woman? Or could their inherent biological traits dictate what roles they would effortlessly fall into? While gender as a social construction has become an accepted idea, I have yet to hear commentary on how our biological makeup works for or against us in a society of pre-subscribed identities. Am I supposed to be a mother just because I have a uterus? Is a man not supposed to be a stay-at-home-dad because of his physical strength? Is a woman not supposed to lead a tech company because she's nurturing?  Are men supposed to cheat just because they higher sex drives? So, how much have we not only let nature dictate nurture, but how much have we let this relationship determine what roles we take and the roles we expect others to fulfill?

I think a larger question is what is our relationship to our biological sex and gender identities? Do we know what they are? More importantly, where does our humanity lie outside of our gender and sexuality?

While I don't advocate smoking, I think you should let this one sit in your proverbial pipe.

Come back on June 25th for the review of this twisted Dollanganger family drama!

Review: Is Time Ever Enough?

There Will Be Time
Poul Anderson
176 pp.
Signet 1973
ISBN 0-451-15412-6

"What was the good of time travel, ever?

These are the words of Jack Havig, the main character of Poul Anderson's sci-fi classic There Will Time.  It's a sweeping adventure packed with thought provoking commentary on the value of time and the complexity of the human experience.

The story begins with Havig's recounting his life as told by his longtime confident and physician, Dr. Robert Anderson. As the story unfolds from Havig's first disappearing act as a baby ("He vanished. In midair..." his mother exclaims) to his travels to the future and witnessing his father's untimely death, Havig travels up and down time building a mass of experiences, skills, wealth, and even fallling in love. Then one experience changes his life forever: a chance meeting with fellow time travelers. Havig becomes engulfed in the society of the Maurai, a group of intergenerational and international travelers working to build a new civilization under the leadership of Caleb Wallis, a racist classist who justifies his thievery and subjugation of non-time travelers (whom he calls "commoners"). When a mission is set in motion that Havig does not agree with, his disappearance through time costs him greatly. Searching through time for Wallis and all involved, Havig plots his vengeance with the help of his friend and lover, Leonce.

There Will Be Time is a great story about the value of learning from our pasts and preparing for our futures. Although the pacing was uneven, the intrigue of time travel is consistently powerful, oftentimes reading like a scene from a popular sci-fi film like Star Wars. Light on adventure and heavy on ruminations that were sometimes unnecessary, the narrative is still a fun summer reader that will keep you reeling.

Join me June 11 for my ruminations on the next selection: Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews. Can't wait to hear what you think.

Ruminations: Is Time Ever Enough?

Imagine that we had time at our disposal. We could do whatever we want with it. Travel forwards or backwards. We could glimpse our respective futures and prepare for the best and/or worst. Sounds convenient, right?

But what if time was a curse, something we could never prepare for? I contemplated this while reading Poul Anderson's There Will be Time. Having so much access to history and the future is almost charming. Intriguing. We can simultaneously know the past and the future. The only question is, does this truly make us wiser? Can we really learn from a time past or an upper future if we can never change what happened or what will? While it would add to our knowledge base, what would it really add to us as people?

It makes me consider the plight of the vampire: destined to live forever with no real power to change the world. Living long enough to see the earth die and replenish itself, witnessing the rise and fall of revolutions, or watching human loved ones expire. The idea of living forever inherently seduces us with invinciblity. But how invincible could we truly be with a back track and up track of time that will never change in the way that we want it to, need it to. Do we learn from it? Are we bound by it?

Time is open opportunity for experiences of whatever kind. The only thing we can do is make the best of it. But with a world that isn't begging for our comfort, perspective, or our approval, can time ever really be enough for us or will we always want more?

You tell me.

Come back on Saturday, May 27 for the review. I look forward to hearing from you!

Review: Hell Hath No Fury

The Divine Comedy: Inferno

Dante Alighieri

295 pp.

Modern Library Edition  1996

ISBN 0-679-60209-7

If hell is anything like Dante’s Inferno, I definitely don’t want to go. I don’t want to burn for all eternity anyway, but in this allegory and tale of immorality, hell is a cyclical walk down too long a fiery road.

In this classic and well-loved poem, Dante finds he’s gone from the “straight way” of salvation and into the throws of human worldliness. With this straying comes an awakening of his wrong and his desire to get back on the path of righteousness. As his journey begins, he ruminates on his falling away and is joined by the Roman poet Virgil. The poet guides Dante through a series of nine circles of hell, each populated with its own ghastly hordes. The two meet a host of damned souls from sinners who have committed “minor” offenses like lukewarm stances on good and evil to those devoured by their sins such as fraud and hypocrisy. Each circle is broken into several smaller circles with descriptions structured through cantos, making for long journey from the darkness to the light.

While Inferno boasts some powerful imagery (e.g. the High Priest Ciaphas is crucified lying down so others can walk all over him, symbolizing the weight of universal sin as well as a representation of Christ’s crucifixion) and is a stand out commentary about maintaining spiritual salvation while living in a an immoral world, I drowned in the construction of the text. I remembered why I didn’t care for Beowulf. Poetry in this long form makes for trudging and gaps for lapses in attention. I read the Modern Library Edition with over 290 pages worth of text and annotations. I’m not sure if that makes any difference. I attempted to read as much as I could between the poem and the annotations, but found myself floundering in the rhythm. That made it difficult to visualize the ever damning environment; it was at times overwhelming to digest. The premise is amazing. The questions it raises are poignant. The packaging was its downfall for me. Maybe I’ll read it in another format or from another edition. Maybe my review will change. Or maybe not. Either way, here’s to staying on the straight and narrow and avoiding the fiery pit.

Share your thoughts below. (There’s nothing like the exchange of ideas.) Keep in touch and join me Saturday, May 13 for ruminations on Poul Anderson’s 1972 classic, There Will Be Time. I can’t wait to share with you!

Ruminations: Hell Hath No Fury

Nothing makes you think about hell like Dante's Inferno. Or at least humanity's relationship to it depending upon one's beliefs.

The thing that struck me the most about the story wasn't so much the differing levels of hell as much as the juxtaposition of human experience (knowledge) and the place of the spiritual being. They're always at odds. Dante begins his journey stating he "went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood." Dante has taken the route of worldliness and has found himself in a state of darkness. For all you religious, particularly biblical scholars out there, the worst place to be is in a state of darkness and far from God. Apparently, this is where Dante found his fictional self. This straying led to hell.

While I'm definitely not here to present a commentary on the Holy Scriptures or any specific religious beliefs, I do think there's value in understanding human reason, the spiritual experience, and how they may benefit from each other. Although this is not meant to be a review (you'll have to wait for the next post!), the one thing that struck me as particularly unbearable was the idea that knowledge, or at least a heavy reliance on it, leads to damnation. And there is the balancing act. How do we maintain a grip on the rapid and varying streams of knowledge while also developing some kind of spiritual health. Makes me think of the Scripture concerning serving God and money: you will love one and hate the other. In this way, a person has to make up his or her mind about what matters to them most. But does it have to be that way? Can we be both learned of the world and of the spirit? Do we really have to chose? Can we love them both? Don't we need the both of them? Can't they inform each other?

I guess we'll have to figure that out for ourselves.

Rumination and Review: It's Getting Hot in Here...

The Fever

Megan Abbott

303 pp., Little, Brown and Company

First Edition 2014, $26

ISBN 5978-0-316-23105-3

“The first time, you can’t believe how much it hurts.”

This is the first line in Megan Abbott’s book The Fever. Upon reading this, I immediately thought about the big elephant in the room our culture promotes and profits from, yet doesn’t know how to have a “healthy” conversation about: sex. Better yet, teen sex. The line is actually about an HPV vaccination that all female students of Dryden High are required to get. And as the story continues, sex and vaccination were only two of the many complications affecting the Nash family and a small community in Anywhere, U.S.A.

Deenie is the classic smart chick and harbors muddled feelings about her relationships with her friends, particularly Lise. After Lise falls ill with a mysterious condition and later into a coma, Deenie is struck with grief, but also mired in her on survivor’s guilt as other female classmates and  friends exhibit symptoms similar to Lise’s (twitching, etc). There can be only one explanation: it’s a contagion from the vaccination. Panic therefore ensues. Meanwhile, Deenie’s brother Eli is a star hockey player who is questioning his thoughts about girls and his role in the hysteria as he is believed to have had a sexual liaison with Lise. Tom, their father and well-liked chemistry teacher,  is still reeling from his divorce and struggles to keep up with the madness as the community nearly implodes with terror. But this isn’t even the half of it. Truths about the relationships from girls to boys to girls to girls unravel as secrets come out like cats out of bags.

The book centers around mass hysteria as it pertains to adolescent female sexuality. And while including a “girl magnet” brother who contemplates what it really means to be said magnet and a father coming to grips with being single and how to protect his daughter, the understanding of female sexuality is largely examined while the males get away with being predictable. In that case, everyone’s a stereotype. The beautiful girl is “sexy”, the boys want her, and boys will most certainly be boys. While that is largely true in our culture, I don’t think Abbott is glorifying or legitimizing it. I think she’s holding a magnifying glass to how society shapes female sexuality from adolescence into adulthood and the weight of adhering to that standard. The burden of “appropriate” or “safe” sex/sexuality falls on the female. Think back to the early 90s MTV ads about condom use. Every last one of them was a call for the woman to require the man to have prophylactics. Not one of these commercials insisted that the guy already come prepared. (It’s only been in the last year that I’ve heard a radio ad with a comedian actually calling men out for not being proactive in condom use.) From the HPV vaccine, to Lise’s trist with another student, to Eli’s escapade with a female classmate (or rather the classmate’s escapade with Eli, which Tom never questions after he sees the girl leaving his son’s room), to Deenie’s own dealings with another male student (which she feels guilty about), to Tom’s cheating ex-wife, sexual girls/women are all on display and potentially target practice for society at large.

We all know (at least I hope we do) that boys and girls are taught different things about sex and sexuality. Boys are taught  to sow their wild oats while girls are taught to either wait until they get married, but if you require your boyfriend to wait then he’ll cheat, but if you have sex with him then your virginity is in tatters and you’ll have sexual issues when you get married because you're supposed to want to get married and if you don’t then something’s wrong with you. Not to mention the names women and girls are called if they engage in the same kind of and number of sexual gymnastics as their male counterparts. While Abbott isn’t trying to offer an explanation or solution, it is refreshing to see an author present such a well-fleshed out space for what is a complex issue. The girls/women themselves don’t seem to know what to do with their desire. Deenie and Eli’s mother doesn’t know how to communicate with them because of her infidelity, Deenie regrets having sex with a classmate and even thinks the cause of the singularly female illness is because of sexual desire. This all begs the question of what “the fever” actually is. Is it female sexual desire or the furor surrounding it? The cause of the illnessremains under wraps up until the last thirty or so pages. When you come to the realization of what it is, you’ll either find it clever or disappointing. You’ll have to decide. In the meantime, you’ll be taken on quite a well-plotted ride that doesn’t beg you to turn the page, but requires it of you. While the ending falls a little flat and I think the story would have been better told from Deenie and Eli’s point of view sans Tom, I couldn’t escape the murkiness of adolescence that was all too familiar. It seems we never actually graduate from high school and don’t really know how to talk about, think about, or actually have sex. And therein lies the crux: sexuality at any age is a little understood thing. It’s the fever we can never heal from.

If you've read or are currently reading this book, please add your ruminations in the comment section below. I don't want this to be a book club of one! Also, come back on April 15 to join the conversation about the next title: Dante' Aligheri's Inferno. I can't wait to hear what you think!