We Came Along with a Hammer

Diablevert: So, Years of Grace. For a book where nothing happens a lot happens, you know? Do you remember the name of Jane’s friend, ol’ what’s her face? Who marries the guy Jane has the hots for?

Dreadfulpenny: The rumpled bluestocking? Agnes. It’s in my notes. I jotted some stuff down because I knew my time with the book was limited — I didn’t quite finish. The last part I got to was when Jane’s eldest daughter had her twins.

Diablevert: Let me fill you in — a few years after having her kids, her oldest hooks up with her best friend’s husband, the son of Jane’s mildly skanky friend with the curls, the two couples divorce, and Jane’s daughter marries the new guy. Also, all three of Jane’s kids unexpectedly inherit a big chunk of change from their grandfather, and each uses it to finally take off and do whatever their little heart desires. For the oldest, that means marrying her lover, and him rejoining the foreign service (they get divorced and married in Paris, his new post). For the son, he moves to Boston, buys a townhouse, and commits to some serious antiquing. For the younger daughter, she buys, with her “friend” a farm where they raise dogs and an apartment in the city where they hang out in silk pajama with playwrights and interior designers, if you get my meaning.

Dreadfulpenny: Awesome. How does Jane feel about all that? Does the artist first love ever reappear a la So Big?

Diablevert: Ah. Well, when they go to Paris for the daughter’s wedding, he shows, and Jane ends up going to see him at his studio, alone. Where he basically tells her that he’s not in love with his wife anymore, and hey, at least that didn’t happen to them, because it likely would have, people get old and bored with each other, god I’m French and cynical.

Dreadfulpenny: And they make wild passionate monkey love?

Diablevert: Not so much.

Dreadfulpenny: Damn. (I didn’t think so.)

Diablevert: Yeah. So what was your impression of this book?

Dreadfulpenny: A resounding meh. I actually found the beginning extremely readable (you compared it in an email to a young adult novel, and that’s pretty spot-on), but then it seemed like a poor quality Xerox of some other Pulitzer winner…. maybe Early Autumn?

Diablevert: Your unexpected affection for Early Autumn is a form of Stockholm syndrome.

Dreadfulpenny: At this point, it’s not so much affection for it as a striking similarity. (And I feel I’ve been beaten up for my rankings quite enough already.) I don’t really LOVE that book or anything, like I wouldn’t MARRY IT marry it…I just thought it was marginally better than some other ones.

Diablevert: Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a big meanie

Dreadfulpenny: No, it’s fair. But, there’s just no accounting for taste.

Seriously, though, look at the parallels: the American aristocratic family, the tension between the boring husband and the dashing lov-ah…Throw in a dash of So Big and you kind of have Years of Grace. It seems like the Pulitzer committee was getting pretty incestuous at this point, choosing books more for their similarities to previous winners than for their own individual merit.

Diablevert: I guess. I dunno, Years of Grace was just so mild. In So Big, Selena at least is taking some real risks, making some unconventional choices. You feel with her. And in Early Autumn, the man character comes close, at least, to breaking away.

Dreadfulpenny: Yes, Jane always makes the “correct” choice.

Diablevert: Exactly, so I think at some point, I was just like, nope. I don’t believe you, you’re never going to be stupid and impetuous. And so there’s nothing to root for, to bite your nails over.

Dreadfulpenny: Your life will be like an etiquette manual. It made it a hard book to get worked up over. It wasn’t BAD, per se (the prose was serviceable, the characters weren’t complete cardboard cutouts). I had hopes for the French boyfriend and the allure of college life. After that, it was hard to care any more.

Diablevert: So did I, and then when she gives those up without a whimper….I think it was the letter did me in.

Dreadfulpenny: The spiteful letter to Andre? Yeah, that was the worst.

Diablevert: I had a big soft spot for Andre. The relationship of his parents was the most idyllic in the book.

Dreadfulpenny: So true. He was pretty charming, with his smutty French books and courtship by set design.

Diablevert: And I was like, can you not see, girl? He will value you as a person and encourage and benefit from all your poetic sensibilities!

Dreadfulpenny: And you can ride bicycles built for two!

Diablevert: Right. And then he sends one letter, like “I still care for you deeply but I have this huge career opportunity and I can’t pass it up, but I still want to see you.” And she’s all, “What? You’re not willing to drop everything for love, right now? Fuck off, then! I’m-a marry this boring douchebag, he licks my boots! Plus he might die!”

And then…here’s the thing. If the marriage had changed her – this is the Anna Karenina set up, pretty much – if she’d done it and been like, “no. this is not enough for me,” if she could at least have been seriously tempted to chuck it all over, then I might have had some investment in the book. But instead even when that middle-aged bored patch crops up, you never think she’s really gonna ditch it all

Dreadfulpenny: Maybe that’s a fairly authentic response for a fit of pique though? I mean, it’s totally unsatisfactory from a narrative standpoint, but Jane was always fairly conventional and self-involved.

Diablevert: Oh, totally! That’s the thing, that’s why it’s so meh, as you said – it’s not like I don’t believe this. This all seems totally authentic and well-described and clear and sensible. It’s just like, yes, indeed, very realistic, but why should I want to read about it? You know? And part of me feels like that can’t be it, exactly. Because I think it should be possible to write about characters who lead ordinary lives and make it interesting.

Dreadfulpenny: I’m trying to think of a good example of that.

Diablevert: I really resist believing that there has to be soap opera, melodrama, for a story to work, like you have to have scandalous behavior in order to be interesting.

Dreadfulpenny: Well, the characters or narration could be super-witty, like in Austen? Or, y’know, there could be dragons or robots.

Diablevert: Heh. Or Zombies. But even Austen, now I think about it — I was actually re-reading her recently – she’s got a lot of scandal. Lydia elopes with a scoundrel she’s too dumb to see has no intention of marrying her, Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility turns mysteriously douchebag, there’s a secret engagement in that one, as well….

Dreadfulpenny: Not necessarily in a book like Persuasion (which is actually my favorite Austen).

Diablevert: That’s the one I haven’t read. Well, that and I mislaid my copy of Northanger Abby halfway through.

Dreadfulpenny: Persuasion is a pretty gentle book… minor scandal and misunderstandings, but essentially just about nice people. Anyway, I agree with you… but a richer internal life enlivens any book, and would have helped in Years of Grace. Otherwise, it’s just a James Herriot book without the animals, or a cozy cat mystery without the murder.

Diablevert: I guess. I dunno, I guess the thing I didn’t feel was lacking was internal life – Jane’s a very reflective character, and I felt like her observations could be quite subtle

Dreadfulpenny: Hmmm. I suppose. I guess her consistently conventional actions left me the impression that she was shallow.

Diablevert: well, what about her take on her friend’s mom, the chick who has the affair with the hot guy who later marries her mildly-skanky-only-in-a-Victorian-context friend?

Dreadfulpenny: Oh, you mean the lady who married Burt Lancaster (I couldn’t get over the name)?

Diablevert: Not the one who actually marries him, the chick who’s having the affair with him whom he ditches in order to get married, and then she kills herself.

Dreadfulpenny: Yep, the scandalous mom. I remember that she loved her and was protective towards her, but I thought that was more of a “ooh, shiny! pretty! free!” reaction.

Diablevert: I dunno – could you explain what you mean more by shiny, pretty, free?

Dreadfulpenny: I thought she had a bit of a childish infatuation with the mom… like preferring your friend’s prettier, more fun parents to your own dull ones. (Especially since Jane’s mom was so painfully correct.) And that she was in love with her brashness and freedom, but not in a way that she ever would have emulated.

Diablevert: Dido, in other words.

Dreadfulpenny: I suppose.

Diablevert: Well, I just mean that early on in the book she and Agnes have a couple conversations where they kind of moon over the romantic end of Dido… you’re saying you think her sympathy for the real woman is just as shallow and teenager-ish. I dunno, I was giving her more credit but weighing it in my mind I can easily see your interpretation.

Dreadfulpenny: I think the thing that makes me see Jane ultimately as shallow is the admission when she’s at Bryn Mawr that she could study and search for a job and push the boundaries of womanhood… or she could get married and let someone take care of her, because who really wants to work anyway?

Diablevert: Mmmm.

Dreadfulpenny: After that, I had a lot less patience for the character.

Diablevert: I see. Yeah, she does bail on that pretty easy-peasy. Although I don’t think that bothered me as much as you; she’s never portrayed as a woman of great ambition, just of moderate sensibility.

Dreadfulpenny: I just saw her both as a person who wanted to avoid any sort of conflict with another human being or someone who was a little on the lazy side. One of those traits I could empathize with, but both were too much for me. Again, I still think her views were totally in keeping with the time. I just vastly preferred Agnes.

Diablevert: Well, who wouldn’t? She’s portrayed as such a sad character, in a way.

Dreadfulpenny: Jane?

Diablevert: Agnes.

Dreadfulpenny: Agnes was a pretty tragic figure in the book…. she’s totally punished for her ambition and intelligence. Oh, and for being kinda plain and frazzled-looking all the time.

Diablevert: Her husband treats her mean.

Dreadfulpenny: I really felt like Barnes was trying to say to Agnes, “Well, dear, if you just conditioned your hair and used some toner, your husband wouldn’t have left you and you’d find a nice job as a typist.”

Diablevert: I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I’m not sure why

Dreadfulpenny: Well, I thought she was pretty beat-up on. I don’t remember Jane having much remorse about the affair, and it seemed that she always had a slightly condescending attitude towards Agnes.

Diablevert: Yeah, I can see that. Although I’d hardly call it and affair.

Dreadfulpenny: Didn’t they make out in the garden until dawn? Am I totally misremembering that?

Diablevert: that’s Early Autumn, dude.

Dreadfulpenny: Oh, wait, maybe they just held each other tenderly and talked about what it would be like to have an affair?

Diablevert: In this one he kisses her like, once and she gives him the boot.

Dreadfulpenny: Oh, yeah. Damn. Sorry. Anyway, no one got any, which has pretty much been the basic plot line since Age of Innocence (where at least there was all kinds of clutching in over heated rooms).

Diablevert: Stupid fucking “wholesome” requirement

Dreadfulpenny: I mean, I don’t need there to be hot action in every book I read… but once in a decade would be nice. It is part of the human condition after all. Anyway… my mind is clearly degenerating.

Diablevert: Did you have anything else in your notes about this one? Lesbians? Horse farms? Exaggerated parallelisms? Actually, on that last point – I do find it a bit weird how she goes to the trouble of setting up each of Jane’s kids as a near-perfect foil for one of the older generation, and has them make different choice…which then pretty much work out okay for them.

Dreadfulpenny: I probably can’t comment on that since I didn’t read the end. In fact, by the point where I stopped, I had trouble keeping the kids straight. All I remember is the icky feeling that they were somehow all marrying cousins.

Diablevert: That makes sense. Anything else bug you about it?

Dreadfulpenny: Nah. It was a pretty blah book. Not painful to read, but not meritorious either.

This entry was posted on December 3, 2009 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Margaret Ayer Barnes, Years of Grace with tags adultery, bluestockings, Bryn Mawr, Chicago, romantic comedies, Victorian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.