Tag: mother-daughter relationship

Miller’s Valley, by Anna Quindlen

I have long liked Quindlen’s work, but this 2016 novel is a disappointment. It is about the Miller family, whose ancestors founded a Pennsylvania farm village named after them. The story is also about this village and its future, and is narrated by Mimi Miller, whom we first meet as a child in the 1960s. Unfortunately, her family appears to be an ordinary one, with its typical loyalties and typical disputes, typical silences and typical black sheep. And its members rarely impact one another or the world about them. Instead, they let things happen, from accidents to strokes, from being seduced to refusing to challenge others. And, above all, they never resist the major change the government plans to make in their lives.

The government has announced that the Pennsylvania valley where they live is to be flooded, that a dam is to be built for flood control, as well as to create both a new source of energy and a recreational area. The title suggests that the flooding of this farmland is to be the underlying theme that ties this novel together. But it does so only at the end. For most of the novel, this work is about the Miller family; and, as I said, this family, especially Mimi, mainly reacts to the events around them.

The structure of the novel follows Mimi, from her school days and school crushes, to a long affair and a desperate abortion, to a casual scholarship recommendation and the casual return of a lost love. She has to deal with her farmer father, Buddy, also the town handyman; her close-mouthed but wise mother, Miriam; her rebellious brother, Tommy; and her recluse aunt, Ruth. But while we learn a lot about this family, there is little conflict among them to draw the reader on.

In addition, there is a girl friend LaRhonda, who simply fades from Mimi’s life after high school. And there is also Winston Bally, who represents the government threat and is rather obnoxious; but he is eventually disposed of quite casually—and maybe ironically in the author’s mind. Perhaps Mimi’s mother is the most interesting character, because of her mysterious dislike of Ruth, but even more because she recognizes that her daughter must escape this town if she is to fulfill her potential.

In the foreground, meanwhile, Mimi is simply reacting to the people and the events around her, especially to her troubled brother Tommy. She herself does not strive to create her own future. It is the author who moves the reader on to the next stage in her life, rather than Mimi herself who does so. Such as not knowing her future, until a teacher sits her down and points to a scholarships to the University of Pennsylvania and then to its medical school. Such as delaying her career when her father suffers a stroke. Such as being pursued by the seductive Steve, and, later, tracked down by a man, Donald, who long ago faded from her life.

My reaction to this novel is opposite to my recent view of Prince Edward, by Dennis McFarland. There, I was very involved in narrator Ben’s family life (and note the similar structure of that family and this one). But I was not drawn into the local government’s resistance to desegregating its schools. Whereas, here, I was not at all interested in Mimi and her family, but was hoping there would be more involvement between her family and the government’s plans to flood their valley. One does wonder if the author deliberately made Mimi’a family so passive regarding the threatened flooding, intending it to reflect Mimi’s own passivity in her personal life. Or perhaps vice versa. In any event, passivity does not bring conflict; and that, for, me is the key to keeping a reader interested in a novel.

Quindlen does write an interesting ending, a poetic ending, a kind of summing up of these characters’ feelings about their land and their valley. I wish I had felt some of that emotion earlier, however, as the threat of the dam filled more and more of their future landscape. Yes, it is natural to feel helpless against the plans of the government, but that means there is no story, when no one is fighting the government’s decision. Instead, we have the passive Mimi, who mainly worries about, but does little to help, the rebellious Tommy. And he is fighting not the government but his own demons. Indeed, his story almost belongs to another novel.

There is also a tiny surprise toward the end. We learn why Ruth has been such a recluse. And it explains the actions of certain people in the family. But it has no broad repercussions on the life of Mimi or anyone else. Indeed, Mimi discovers the secret almost accidentally, and does not allow it to alter her opinions about anyone in her family. While the reader achieves a brief “aha” moment, and then moves on. It is merely the high point in a final chapter that rounds up these people’s lives, especially Mimi’s—a roundup that many authors think their work needs.

I should note that my response to this novel is completely opposite to that of Caroline Leavitt in the New York Times Book Review. She called the novel “mesmerizing,” and the characters “richly alive.” Which only goes to show how subjective book reviewing can be. Usually, I like novels in which a mature character narrates his or her youthful experiences, and how those experiences helped that person grow into maturity. But I did not find that here, as I have explained. Usually, I also enjoy reading fiction about a disappearing way of life. But I also did not experience that here. In part, because the threat was in the background for much of the book. As if the author was torn between two stories. One, about a family; and the other, about a change in their way of life. I simply think she did not sufficiently merge the two—although other critics have thought that she did.

This does not turn me away from future Quindlen novels, but I do hope she returns to family rivalries, family disputes, and stories of inner turmoil, rather than to sociologically significant subjects. Novels should be about people, and about their interaction with society, yes, but about what is happening in society only through their own personal stories. (May, 2017)

Purity, by Jonathan Franzen

This 2015 work is a confusing novel from a writer I have long admired. It is confusing because it moves back and forth among different characters and different time frames. It is a method authors often use today, chiefly to involve readers into figuring out what is going on and, not incidentally, to create suspense.

But I found myself asking too many questions. Who, for example, is the main character? Is it Pip (Purity), whom we encounter at the start of the novel. Is it Andreas Wolf, a German computer hacker whom we next meet in Berlin, and follow to Bolivia, where he is a WikiLeaks-type provocateur? Or is it Tom Aberant, an American journalist tied to Andreas by a crime and his investigative journalism web site, but who also endures a ten-year marriage to Anabel, a marriage of conflict that this reader also found difficult to endure.

Also, why do we meet Pip in the middle of her story? Why is her mother so afraid to tell her about her father? Why does Wolf entice Pip to come to Bolivia? What is the point of the disastrous marriage of Tom? What is the lasting connection between Tom and Andreas? Eventually, we do learn the answers to these question, but rather than work as teasers, these questions frustrated this reader, actually inhibiting his interest. As suggested, I am not a fan of presenting characters and their stories out of chronological sequence. What I wish is that the suspense come from the actions of the characters, and wondering what they will do next, not from wondering what the actions of the characters actually mean.

Franzen is obviously trying here to write a major novel of literature. A novel of generations. A novel of family hate and jealousy. A novel of relationships between parent and child. A psychological novel (the Killer who haunts Andreas). A novel of international scope and subterfuge. A novel of literary complexity and commercial surprise.

The ending, in particular, reflects that commercial aspect. Marriage partners reconnect, but there is no conclusive ending to their relationship. A love affair continues on also, but inconclusively. Perhaps the characters are intended to continue on in our minds, but one also wonder if they are being set up to continue in a sequel. Or is Franzen simply unable to imagine the future of these characters, once their basic drama has concluded?

The novel’s title. More than a name for Pip, it seems intended to be symbolic. There is a billion dollar inheritance being refused. Does that reflect a sense of purity? There is truth being hidden and being exposed. About a nuclear bomb, about a murder, about a paternity. Is hacking in the interest of truth, and is that for reasons of purity, as Andreas pretends it is? There is even a suicide that, for me, comes out of nowhere. Of course, it is Pip’s mother who named her, and she is living her own interpretation of a life of purity. But the title seems meant to go beyond that, and for me is a little forced as a result, as if the author wants to make sure we get his point.

As Colm Toibin suggests in his Times review, Pip seems for a long time seems to be a victim of circumstance and an innocent in the ways of the world—far from the qualities of a major character. Indeed, Toibin calls her “a damaged innocent in need of rescue and redemption.” But even when her central role is more clear, she remains for me a passive character, more a character used by the author to reveal the more significant actions of the other characters. This is again evident when the author uses her to build a final scene that goes nowhere.

Toibin accurately sums up this novel when he writes: “it dramatizes the uneasy and damaging relationships between parents and their offspring in white America, the strains within friendship, and the ways time and familiarity and human failings work at corroding a marriage.” Of course, this is very abstract, perhaps because a critic needs to avoid spoilers, but it accurately reflects the family relationships that are the concern of Franzen in many of his works

The long section of Tom and Anabel’s corroding marriage particularly aggravated me. Especially Anabel’s whiney one-upmanship, her insistence that she is always right. And Tom’s acceptance of her, because he loves her, and his refusal to free himself from her for ten years. Of course, we finally come to understand her, as we finally realize who she actually is, but it is a long slog, barely justified by Franzen’s revelation.

Many of the reviewers comment on the coincidences that appear in this novel. And at the same time, they praise the forward-moving plot. Of course, that forward movement depends often on the coincidences, which bring these characters together at key points and at other times help them understand the motives of others. Such as Andreas and Tom meeting in Berlin. Such as Pip working for Andreas and then for Tom. Such as Andreas and Tom ending up in the same profession, that of revealing secrets. Such as, on the other hand, Pip’s ignorance of who her father and mother really are, the premise of the entire novel. And, finally, such as Pip bringing people together at the end, but with inconclusive, unconvincing results.

I observed that family relationships have long been a concern of the author. And in telling his other stories, he would move among the family members and tell each story from different viewpoints. But there was unity, because he was always within that family. Here, however, he goes beyond that basic family. First, we are not even sure who the basic family is comprised of. And, second, he makes Andreas, an outsider, part of that family. And both these factors require him to move about in time as well as in geography, in order to tell us this complicated story. And they also require him to hold back on key information. In other words, his structure is at the service of the story he wishes to tell.

I shall continue my interest in Franzen, but I hope he discovers a simpler way next time to tell his story of family relationships. (July, 2016)