Book review: AHAB'S WIFE, by Sena Jeter Naslund

The Ahab of AHAB'S WIFE is, of course, Captain Ahab of Moby Dick--a book that I have never read. Though assured that I could appreciate AHAB'S WIFE just fine without reading Moby Dick, I did find that AHAB'S WIFE lacked context without Moby Dick to flesh it out, much like The Hours lacked context without the backdrop of Mrs. Dalloway.

This isn't to say that AHAB'S WIFE doesn't stand alone as a novel--it does--but merely that a book about another book, if one hasn't read the first book before reading the second, seems a little off. I've never cared for the whole "book about an obscure character in a classic book" thing much, because it strikes me as somewhat pretentious, as if the second author is accusing the first of leaving something out of the original story. I understand that this isn't always the case, and that some really imaginative books have come from this technique, but I just tend not to like it. I say, if you're writing a story, write your own story. Come up with something new, don't just give us a "fresh" view of a "classic" story.

(The one exception to this, I think, are reinterpretations of Biblical stories. I really love those, because they make me look at the original story in a whole new way, regardless of how many times I've read and reread the story.)

When it was all said and done, I think I did like AHAB'S WIFE. It was a struggle at times, because, for all its lively moments, the book plods along at about the pace you'd expect from a book about a sea captain's wife--waiting and waiting and writing about stuff. The middle two-hundred pages sucked me right in because things actually happened, but the beginning and end took some muscle to get through. To be honest, I didn't care much for Naslund's writing. It was good, sure, but it wasn't my cup of tea, and it took a long time to get used to, though eventually I did and was able to move on in spite of the overly (self-consciously) deep musings she stuck in all over the place.

So, the only problems I had with AHAB'S WIFE were purely personal preferences. Some people would be totally justified in really liking it, and though I ultimately liked it, I can't say I'd recommend it to you.

RATING: 3

Book Review: A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN, by Virginia Woolf

How is it possible that I made it through an entire English program, emerging with a degree and everything, without ever reading Virginia Woolf? And how, despite the several Women's Lit classes under my belt, did I miss A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN?

This skinny, brilliant book needs to be read, again and again, by anybody (man, woman or otherwise) who reads, writes, thinks, or imagines themselves intelligent. I honestly had no idea that Woolf was so articulate, so well-read, so...oh, such an author, and having finished ROOM, I'm now off to by anything ever written by or about her.

I read the book much too fast, and I know there's nothing for it but to come back to it again later. Woolf packs so much insight into her study of women & fiction (I repeat: everybody should read this book. It's not the feminist propaganda it's been made out to be, or I didn't think so, at least) that I don't think I could possibly understand it all, not yet. ROOM is one of those books to be read again every few years (like The Catcher in the Rye), because each year will lend a bit more color to my reading, and each reading, some different different bit of knowledge will step forward and show itself in a new brilliant light.

The conversational tone that Woolf takes (ROOM was originally given as a lecture, if I'm not mistaken) lends the book a very casual feel, as though Woolf were merely thinking out loud--in a much more articulate voice than I ever use when I'm rambling. Perhaps this is only a device she employs to put readers at ease as she explores her somewhat controversial subject, but, for whatever reason she chose, this tone enabled ROOM to come across as more a collection of musings, than as a manifesto.

But by "musings" do I in no way mean to imply that Woolf just jotted down some fluffy, inoffensive thoughts on "Women", and some on "Fiction", and left it at that. Oh, no.

There is something beautifully assertive, and not in the least bit timid, about her writing, no matter how casual she sounds. Her points ring perfectly, without ever resorting to anger or indignation--in fact, Woolf warns against the stain discontent can leave upon otherwise flawless writing:

Now, in the passages I have quoted from Jane Eyre [the scene in which Jane sits up on the roof, and gazes out over the fields, lamenting her confined life], it is clear that anger was tampering with the integrity of Charlotte Bronte the novelist. She left her story, to which her entire devotion was due, to attend to some personal grievance. She remembered that she had been starved of her proper due of experience--she had been made to stagnate in a parsonage mending stockings when she wanted to wander free over the world. Her imagination swerved, and we felt it swerve.

--p. 73

Woolf upholds this wonderfully in her own writing (which, as I've said, in my experience so far only contains this book), never swerving, never allowing herself to be diverted by bitterness or frustration, however bitter or frustrated she may have felt while writing A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN--because it would be difficult for any woman to study the condition of women throughout history without feeling at least a little angry.

The book is simply brilliant. Now I must go find Mrs. Dalloway (I keep saying that, don't I? I ought to just do it).

RATING: 5

Book Review: THE HOURS, by Michael Cunningham

THE HOURS follows one day in the life of three women: Clarissa Vaughn, a modern day writer planning a party for a renowned but terminally ill friend; Laura Brown, a housewife in the 1950s, who reads Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway in between planning her husband's birthday dinner and taking care of her 3-year-old son; and Virgina Woolf, as she writes Mrs. Dalloway.

I was partial to Laura--the day that Cunningham describes shows a shift in her personality, a subtle shift that makes way for the more dramatic days to follow. The character developement is subdued, but very powerful, and is paralleled by Virginia Woolf's writing of Mrs. Dalloway--as Woolf assigns a particular trait or circumstance to her character, Clarissa Dalloway, that trait begins to emerge in Cunningham's characters, almost as if Woolf is shaping their lives herself (which, indirectly, she does).

The perspective changes from one woman to the next with each chapter, and Cunningham binds the scenes with repeated images--yellow roses, the act of buying flowers, the planning of parties--though each image shows up in markedly different circumstances. The whole book is very lovely, I think, and the continued references to Mrs. Dalloway add an interesting echo to the braided plotlines. However, I haven't read Mrs. Dalloway. I suppose I'll have to, now.

RATING: 3