Customer Reviews

In the Name of Friendship: A Novel (Classic Feminist Writers)

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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.

The main characters are relatable. The story is one of women supporting one another across generations. It's a history lesson. It's a dose of hard reality. It's a celebration of progress. It's recognition of the difficulty of being a woman and trying to find a balance between independence and dependence, work and family, passion and practicality. In the end, it's hope for the future.

I am not a prude about sexual content in a novel, but it would be nice to get to know the characters first. I quit this book after the first five pages because the author plunged immediately into the characters' rather explicit conversation about sexual encounters they had had. It was a real turn off for me.

This novel was my first exposure to the work of Marilyn French. Yes, there is not really a semblance of plot. Yes, the dialogue at times sounds as if it is all being spoken by the same person. Yes, there are dead spots. But read with patience (and also with the sense that, in a way, this is not a "realistic" novel.)

Read it for the ideas. For the descriptions (which get better, more pungent, as the novel progresses). For the way each woman parses the institution of marriage.

For instance, I had never considered before what a lot of lying women sometimes have to do to set their partners at their ease. Or, as French puts it, to make them "tractable." French poses the question: Weren't our mothers or grandmothers (who may have been more prone to lying to keep harmony at home) then guilty of a form of theft? French tells the story of a woman being taught the principles of the Koran. The Prophet tells the woman "You shall not steal." The woman responds that her husband "is a stingy man. I only stole provisions from him." The Prophet replies: "That is not theft." That was not theft. That was marriage to a stingy man. (This exchange takes place on p. 199. The entire novel is 382 pages)

Another passage has one of the characters, a composer named Emily, ruminating on the sex lives of great (male) composers like Tchaikowsky, Brahms, and Ravel: "So strange, Emily thought . . . that the composers who wrote the most seductive music, the music of eros, lush and rhythmic and sexy as hell, were men who never had sex . . . " BWAH HA HAAA! The passage gets better. It's on pp. 206-207.

I read Ms French in the seventies and was hoping for growth. I see none in this overly long re-hashing of the feminist movement. Very disappointing.

This book fulfills all my requirements for a great novel: I loved the characters, their stories helped me understand my own, I wanted to read more about them, I was never bored, the writing is fluid, French's ideas grow wonderfully out of "The Women's Room," but here are more mature, as are several of her new characters. I have run a book group for 15 years, and this is the book we will be reading for July. In addition, I teach college English and will heartily recommend this page-turner to my students. I couldn't put it down!

The author of The Women's Room proves why she is the foremost feminist writer today about how women relate and interact