This is my first book of 2014, a year in which I hope to read more than every Fancy Nancy or Stephanie Plum out there.
I mean, I'll still read those other books, but I kinda hope I read some stuff that resembles "real" literature, too.
First, a caveat: I feel the need to be spiritually pure for as long as possible this year, and, sadly, that means being honest in my reviews. Not that I usually lie, because I don't, but that sometimes I will say mean things. I will try not to be mean for mean's sake (unless I feel like the book deserves it) and I will make no personal attacks against the writer.
Unless some garbled up piece of fanfic gets mainstream popularity again.
Did I already break my book resolution?
I say this because I'm not really sure how I feel about this book at all. And, considering I've read it and thought about it for a while now, isn't probably a good thing.
You need to understand: I get satire. I teach AP Lit to brilliant 12th graders. Or, I used to in a semi-former life (I'm on sabbatical). I'm not so rusty that it eludes me. This doesn't feel particularly like satire, unless Maria Semple is a mean girl who hates the Hollywood machine and Seattle housewives everywhere.
And I don't think she does. Or I hope she doesn't. Because feminism! Or something.
So, if she's not trying to make fun of reclusive geniuses everywhere or their aesthetically-minded, neurotic neighbors...I guess I'm not entirely certain what's the point.
There is a distinct black comedy vibe here; and, with comedy, an author runs the risk that what you think is funny does not mesh with what another person deems hilarious. It's actually even worse in literature because everything has to be amped up to eleven (one does not simply fall into a lake in books; one trips on one's overly long pants thus causing them to spontaneously rip up the side revealing one's undergarments as one spins wildly out of control culminating in a ceremonious drenching in a local waterhole that happens to be populated by nuns and schoolchildren). If the reader is not on the same wavelength, comedy, sometimes, reads as "What the fuck?!" and that's not good for anyone.
I didn't know much about this book before I borrowed it from the library. I knew that it had an almost four star rating and that my aunt was sort of iffy on it while my cousin recommended it violently. Those were all pretty good indications I'd like this one well enough. The premise seemed a bit...dramatic...to me "reclusive architect disappears and brilliant teenaged daughter tries to find her".
Let's just say, nothing particularly screamed "COMEDY!" to me. And so imagine my surprise when that was what I was faced with.
This, obviously, worked against the novel for me. It was until about 100 pages in when I turned to my unsuspecting husband and said, "Huh. I think this is supposed to be funny." Which was better than thirty pages before when I told him I just didn't get the point.
There's a lot going on in this one that is beyond the absurd: genius parents, art vs. science. social anxiety, stilted creativity, boarding school, Antarctica, lawsuits, interventions, TEDtalks, affairs, the Russian mafia, a house-destroying mudslide, unplanned pregnancies, drug rehabilitation wilderness camp, and an uncle named Van.
This is a world where people act erratically and cash seems limitless. It's also a world where forgiveness and disappearance walk hand in hand, apparently.
I get the overwhelming greater message about creativity and being who you are and acceptance and love. I do. And, once I stopped trying so hard, it was much more fun to get lost in the crazy escapades of Bernadette and her kin. But no one here was particularly likable. First, Bernadette, who is our shining star, is batshit crazy. And, yeah, I know that genius and insanity are often a subtle dance held barely in check by creative outlet and the right combination of medication, but that's not what is happening here. I sympathized with her abhorrence for social interaction and nothing there seemed wildly out of sync with my preferred reality (which is probably saying something very telling about me). Obviously I'm way higher functioning than Bernadette ever was but it was not the off-putting part to me. Her reliance on the internet drone was weird, particularly that, for a genius, she was so quick to give away highly sensitive information like social security and bank account numbers.
There is no way the Russian mob would have waited that long to take all of her cash.
And I get why she leaves. The end sort of worked for me on that level. But she's not ever really approachable in scope. She feels, way too often, like the victim. A self-centered, highly neurotic, quirky, artistic victim that her husband indulges, her neighbor hates, and her daughter reveres.
And Bee was one of those precocious book children that reads as impossible. And then her dad called her a little bitch and I got indignant until she agreed he was right.
Plus, what the hell was up with the Josh Groban thing?
I'm sure we were meant to laugh at Bee, while she weeps and tries to turn herself into the reincarnation of Jesus while listening to Christmas carols and sporting a bandanna advertising The Hangover, but I just couldn't do it.
I'm not into that level of absurdity.
And this is before I get into Elgin, Soo-Lin, and Audrey.
Nobody seemed happy here. And maybe nobody really is. Was that the point? We are all weird locally-sourced architectural designs and when we fail it is because we designed ourselves to do so? Because damn that's bleak. But that's sort of what the first 2/3 of the book felt like to me. Like I was that damn house on the hill, just waiting for the bulldozers to come.
Then we went to Antartica and the tone shifted and we were light as blue ice and restored with hope and reunion.
And that just confused me more.
"Bernadette" is an interesting, if not at times upsetting, read. There are genuinely funny moments here, but, too often, absurd and cruel ones.
3.5 stars - an inauspicious start to a new year.
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