9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An engaging read with a crisp plot & believeable characters, February 20, 2005
Honore de Balzac wrote, "A mother who is really a mother is never free." It is true that the maternal bond may be one of the strongest forces in the universe. A mother's heart is always with her child, even when --- or perhaps especially when --- that child is far away. And a grown child is no exception. So what happens in a mother's heart and mind when she learns that her child is far away and in danger? What if the danger is self-inflicted?
These questions take center stage in Mary Gordon's latest novel, PEARL. Single mother Maria Meyers is celebrating a quiet Christmas in New York when she finds out that her twenty-year-old daughter Pearl, who is attending school in Ireland, has chained herself to the American Embassy in Dublin and has not eaten for six weeks. Pearl has written a statement saying that her death by starvation is meant to mark the death of a young man who recently has been killed. Even more than that, Pearl's actions are meant to witness the "will to harm" she finds in humanity.
Maria is unaware of Pearl's connection to the boy and is confused and saddened to learn that Pearl feels in some way responsible for his death. She feels helpless and alone knowing that her daughter is so far away and in so much pain. On the flight to Dublin, Maria tries to remain calm but is struggling to keep her feelings in check as she rushes to rescue Pearl. Also making the painful journey to help Pearl is Joseph Kasperman, who Maria grew up with and who Pearl has trusted and loved all her life. As the two travel to Dublin, readers learn all about their complicated relationship, Pearl's childhood, and the events that drove her to desperate measures.
Gordon's prose is amazing; heartfelt and honest but not sappy, and emotional without being overwrought. There are so many themes present in the book: family relationships, the struggle for political and civil freedom, individual responsibility, and the question of human nature. Still, the story is never muddled; Gordon does a commendable job of keeping the plot crisp, the characters true and believable, and the reader interested. It is only with Joseph's thread of the story that the novel drags ever so slightly.
Pearl's suicide attempt is about politics but it is mostly about witnessing --- not just the life and death of one individual who has died senselessly, but also the lives and deaths of so many who have, and do, all the time. It is also about Pearl trying to find a voice and identity in what feels to her like a chaotic and troubled world. Because she doesn't think that her voice is loud enough or strong enough to make a difference, she believes that her body will make a bigger statement.
Her act of sacrifice forces Maria and Joseph to assess their lives and their relationship to each other and to Pearl as they reach out to try and save her from a burden they do not understand.
Maria is a fierce character; she's protective of her daughter yet blind to her daughter's real needs. In her Gordon has created an interesting, not always likeable but quite understandable, character. Pearl is very compelling and Gordon writes her story with sympathy, thoughtfulness and wisdom. Gordon's narrative style is quite unique --- an omniscient and personal, unnamed narrator who shares with readers a concern for the characters.
In the end, neither Pearl, who had wanted to be, nor Maria, who had hoped never to be, are free from each other and their complicated, realistically portrayed relationship. The final chapter, almost hidden in the hardback edition, finds them together, trying to heal and understand each other. Gordon writes, "We will hope for the best."
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
I didn't, but some will need toothpicks..., September 15, 2006
This review is from: Pearl (Paperback)
My feelings about the novel vary. There are aspects of it that I truly enjoyed, and aspects that I found weighty or hmmm... slow.
"Slow" is a death-knell of a word, in book reviews, so I want to qualify my use of the word here, because truly, Pearl is a book well worth reading, but one should maybe know a few things ahead of time.
Like, for instance, that the first few pages are a bit misleadingly promising.
By that I mean that they contain more real action in them than is to be found in the next 200! Admittedly, the book [I think] really gets the reader involved in its end pages, but these parenthetical highpoints bracket an immense amount of musings upon family, religion, and politics. A lot of nostalgic montage. Stuff that may call for toothpicks to hold open the eyes of some readers.
Secondly, the author has employed an all-knowing [God-like], yet totally unknown [to the reader] in the final analysis, narrator. In some ways it seems disappointing that we are never really shown who is telling the story. At one point, the narrator pops out from behind his or her curtain, and says, "Think of me this way: midwife, present at the birth. Or perhaps this: godfather, present at the christening."
Well... I don't know. I think I would like to know which it is!
Maybe for some, this would be OK. But for me, I found myself unduly preoccupied with wanting to know who this narrator is.
Deconstructionist DeconSHMUCKtionist!
But thirdly, and positively now, I am a reader that enjoys good [detailed, onion-peeling] character development, and I think we have that here, in this book.
Here's the gist of the story itself.
A New York Christmas night [not dark and stormy, that we know of...] the year, 1998. Maria Meyers returns from a party to find a phone message from the State Department, advising her to contact them. She learns that her 20 year old daughter Pearl, studying language at a university in Ireland, has brought herself to the brink of death by starvation and then chained herself to the flagpole of the U.S. Embassy. Motive currently unknown.
Maria is appropriately horrified. This is out of character for Pearl. A mother's worst news! "She packs her bag." [p.9].
Then she calls Joseph, an old family friend in Rome who thinks of Pearl as a daughter, and the two of them set off immediately for Dublin from their separate locations.
"Do you think she'll die?" Maria asks.
"No, I don't think she will die," he says. "You won't let her."
The thing is, Maria herself is someone who is well-acquainted with protest, with activism. Sort of a flower-child of the `60's, she marched and demonstrated and ranted as did so many others of that generation, in the turbulent days of Vietnam, Kent State, and the assassination of JFK.
Now her own daughter is staging this protest... willing to lay down her life in a cause that Maria does not understand.
The bulk of the book explores why Pearl is doing what she is doing... and we learn along with Maria [actually, long before Maria, thanks to our narrator who is way ahead of the airplanes] the cause of Pearl's angst with life. She is sacrificing her life to "bear witness" to the death of a young boy, an event for which she feels partially responsible, as well as to make a political statement for the peace process in Ireland.
Martyrs, hunger-strikers, suicide bombers, terrorists. These deliberate self-orchestrations of death are something we are all familiar with. Like, if you own a TV, you are familiar with it. And so the novel raises [I think] a lot of important issues, and asks profound questions of its readers, and of its characters.
Is there anything truly worth dying for?
Is there anything worth living for?
Is it always desirable to live?
The strength of this novel [for me] is found in the portrayal of the changes wrought within Maria, Joseph and Pearl as they grapple with these universal questions. At one point, it is put this way: "Why is it that it's life we want?" [p.341].
I found it compelling. Rich in its philosophical musings. I will always choose this, if the option is the BANG-SMASH-POW of pointless plot. I guess it's my inner-Dostoyevsky, coming up for air!
Mary Gordon is successful at making me believe that for some people, the conclusion "Life is worth living" is not easily arrived at!
Recommended by Bookpuddle with a rating of 3 puddles out of a possible 5, and with the proviso that you remember that I am Dostoyevsky reincarnate!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
