'The Virgin Suicides' is one of those critically-acclaimed books that, after you read it, you stand back and say "Huh?" And then start beating yourself up for not being intellectual enough or perceptive enough to winkle out the deep and profound meaning, the extended metaphors, and the classical allegory of the novel.
Either that, or the emperor has no clothes.
Eugenides' debut novel, apparently set in the 70s (as determined by the pop songs and teen fashions being referenced), traces the story of five sisters in one family who all kill themselves over a one-year period of time. That's not a spoiler, as it's referenced fairly early on while the novel's structure is being set up. The story is told in flashback from the viewpoint of several young men (their exact number and specific identities are never clarified) who were hormone-laden contemporaries of the Lisbon sisters and lusted for them in various ways during the last year of their lives.
One could, I suppose, expound upon the fact that the interior lives and ultimate motivations of the girls are never shown from the girls' viewpoints. Perhaps this is intended to reflect the notion that women exist only to reflect the ideas of men, or that adolescents are routinely destroyed by the expectations of the adult world. Or maybe that modern families have become so insular that a community no longer sees, or is expected to step in (so much for "it takes a village") when one nuclear family begins to implode.
One could pretend that the metaphor of the gradual disintegration of the Lisbon home is a brilliant and original way to represent the disintegration of the family and their intertwined manifestations of obsession and madness, except that it's neither brilliant nor original. Most of the metaphors, in fact -- the brief lifespan of the fish-flies whose annual cycle of emergence and death bracket the year-long span of the story, the slow dying of the stately elm trees whose beauty and dignity enhanced the neighborhood -- are labored and obvious.
Or one could simply throw up one's hands and move on to a more satisfying read, where characters develop, interact, and advance the basic plot as they reveal themselves and their relationships. Because one will find none of those qualities in this book.
Either that, or the emperor has no clothes.
Eugenides' debut novel, apparently set in the 70s (as determined by the pop songs and teen fashions being referenced), traces the story of five sisters in one family who all kill themselves over a one-year period of time. That's not a spoiler, as it's referenced fairly early on while the novel's structure is being set up. The story is told in flashback from the viewpoint of several young men (their exact number and specific identities are never clarified) who were hormone-laden contemporaries of the Lisbon sisters and lusted for them in various ways during the last year of their lives.
One could, I suppose, expound upon the fact that the interior lives and ultimate motivations of the girls are never shown from the girls' viewpoints. Perhaps this is intended to reflect the notion that women exist only to reflect the ideas of men, or that adolescents are routinely destroyed by the expectations of the adult world. Or maybe that modern families have become so insular that a community no longer sees, or is expected to step in (so much for "it takes a village") when one nuclear family begins to implode.
One could pretend that the metaphor of the gradual disintegration of the Lisbon home is a brilliant and original way to represent the disintegration of the family and their intertwined manifestations of obsession and madness, except that it's neither brilliant nor original. Most of the metaphors, in fact -- the brief lifespan of the fish-flies whose annual cycle of emergence and death bracket the year-long span of the story, the slow dying of the stately elm trees whose beauty and dignity enhanced the neighborhood -- are labored and obvious.
Or one could simply throw up one's hands and move on to a more satisfying read, where characters develop, interact, and advance the basic plot as they reveal themselves and their relationships. Because one will find none of those qualities in this book.
