This morning I was working my way through Gail Godwin's Unfinished Desires. Working my way through.
It's a dense book, but I've never been opposed to that. It incorporates multiple points of view, multiple storytelling sounds. It centers on one particular year—1951—at Mount St. Gabriel's, an all-girls school, but it weaves across time and through repercussions as that year is recollected in an elderly nun's purposefully dry, "official" memoirs. The cast of characters is rather gigantic, and the tangents are so multitudinous that I found myself setting the book down and wondering how the author (a three-time National Book Award finalist) managed to keep track of them all. Perhaps I also wondered how we readers are expected to, as well, and whether or not there'll be sufficient pay-off in the end.
But what is stopping me more, is the sound, in this novel, of the young teens about whom it is mostly about. "Well, unlike Tildy, I never needed to have just one special 'best friend' I could tell everything to," one 16 year old says. "Probably Mama has filled that role for me. We're still girls together, giggling in the darkroom about how interchangeable most boys are." This 16 year old has a sister who is 14. The sister often sounds like this: "We can entertain ourselves. Chloe is a very interesting person to be with, and she finds me interesting."
A long time ago, when I was a frequent reviewer for the Baltimore Sun, Michael Pakenham, the editor, cautioned me against having an opinion about a book until I had in fact finished reading it. I didn't pronounce mid-course opinions then, and I'm not pronouncing an opinion here, but I am describing one reader's experience. I will continue to work my way through, for many readers have enjoyed this book, and sometimes stories just need time to unfold. I'm 130 pages in, and I've got 263 pages to go.
Those girls certainly don’t sound like normal teenagers. I’ll be curious to hear if your impression changes by the end of the book. I usually get a good sense of a novel in the first 100 pages.
Last fall I discovered your delightful blog via Cynthia@Oasis Writing Link. I love your “iced in” photo below.
On the topic of ice and novels, I’d like to interview you and review Undercover for my Blogger Book Review Club. I’d need 2 author photos and short answers to 5 questions via email by the end of February. You can reach me on
my website.
oh yes, those 'interchangeable boys'! ;-)
Awkward dialogue often turns me off, but I can usually get past it if the story is pulling me forward. Will be curious to hear your thoughts when you reach the end.
Oh dear. That would put me off.
Oh, tell us your impressions after you finish it! It'll be interesting to see how it changes or stays the same.