7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Be prepared for a lecture, January 15, 2007
This review is from: In the Name of Friendship: A Novel (Classic Feminist Writers) (Hardcover)
I really wanted to like Ms. French's new novel. Having never read any of her previous works but always wanting to, I looked forward to discovering her work and what makes her such a feminist icon.
In the Name of Friendship does have an intriguing, if not entirely original basic premise: four women at varying stages of life live and love in upper-class New England. Three are creatives: Emily is a composer/musician, Jenny is an artist, and Alicia is a historian and writer. Maddy is a wildly successful real estate agent. All but Emily are married to successful, if emotionally damaged men.
French's voice is unique and intelligent, but unfortunately, the narrative -- including the dialogue -- reads as if it's ONLY her voice we're hearing. It was very difficult sometimes to distinguish among the four women, for although they each lead different lives and have different backgrounds, they sounded remarkably similar to each other. Occasional lapses in editing doesn't help either, as at one point or two, a sentence is attributed to the wrong person, thereby adding to the confusion. Nearly all the women, but especially the two older women of the group -- Maddy and Emily -- speak in entire paragraphs, not infrequently lapsing into what threatens to be a lecture on the history of the women's movement and the injustices perpetrated on women in general and these two matriarchs in particular. This is where you hear the author's voice all too clearly and loudly, where the characters themselves disappear and seem to be taken over by French the college professor with a few axes to grind.
The men fare no better. The commentary at the end of the book by Stephanie Genty recalls that French's first novel The Women's Room received criticism for its one-dimensional portrayal of the male characters. While French does try to remedy that by introducing more complex backstories and personalities for the men in this novel, she only partially succeeds. While the women come across as wise, self-aware, intelligent creatures who have earned their grace and maturity from long years of sacrifice, experience, maternal insight, and having to carry the burden of womanhood, the men on the other hand appear to be little more than caricatures of the American male: gruff, lacking in self-awareness, boorish, smart but insensitive, and incapable of evolving without the help and compassion only the women in their lives can give them. It's an insulting portrayal, lacking the richness of character the author endows the women. It doesn't help that French appears to care so little for the male characters, drawing them so haphazardly, that she even gives a few of them almost identical names: two are named Steven, another two are named Charles (with the minor difference being that one is nicknamed Charley), and another two are named Billy.
But even casting criticism of the men aside, the women -- the central characters, and around whom everyone else evolves -- are disappointing in the end. The final chapter is too neatly and quickly wrapped up, as if the author couldn't quite figure out how to end it and so decided to just resolve everyone's stories with a few quick sentences. While I understand and respect French's desire to write about the passing of wisdom from one generation of women to another, it's too heavy-handed here, her characters being a little too literal in that generational transfer of wisdom, as they sit around the kitchen table, hands wrapped around the inevitable steaming cup of tea or coffee, and tell each other overly long, detailed stories about the discrimination and injustice inflicted upon them. The stories permeate the narrative, even those of the younger women, and I have to wonder if French is attempting to address the members of feminism's third wave, those who are weary of hearing about how the 1st and 2nd wave generation suffered so much, who want to move beyond the hurt of the past and create a different future.
Genty's commentary ends with a note indicating that the first publication of the book was actually by a Dutch publisher, as it was initially unable to find a publisher in the U.S. Genty makes the assumption that the lack of sympathetic publishers and women editors familiar with French's work, as well as a "repressive political climate" is to blame. However, my theory is that the didactic nature of her book, its rambling, sometimes confusing narrative, and the shallowness of many of the characters simply didn't appeal to most publishers.
There is still much to learn from this book, of course, and I don't want to discourage French fans from reading it. There's much to think about and digest, not just about the continuing relevance of the women's movement and its impact on individual lives, but also about how men themselves are victimized by the traditional ideas of masculinity and manhood in Western society. These ideas would make for some very insightful novels. Unfortunately, In the Name of Friendship hammers them home a little too hard, a little too much like Women's-Studies-101-Required-Reading.
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