Customer Reviews

Playing House: A Novel

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Playing House by Fredrica Wagman

synopsis:

A probing descent into madness that will fascinate the same audience that appreciated I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." This nationally bestselling story of one woman's struggle with the lasting effects of a childhood sexual relationship with her brother shocked American readers; it remains a literary work of enduring quality and value. In his foreword Philip Roth writes, "The traumatized child; the institutionalized wife; the haunting desire; the ghastly business of getting through the day - what is striking about Wagman's treatment of these contemporary motifs is the voice of longing in which the heroine shamelessly confesses to the incestuous need that is at once her undoing and her only hope."

I was very nervous that I agreed to review this book, and it sat around for awhile before I picked it up and started reading it. And it hit me right from the beginning, testing my comfort level. The unnamed narrator frankly recreates the events of her childhood. Her brother was cruel, he would torture animals and hurt his sister, But still she loved him and the sexual relationship became consensual, one that she craved even after he left, into her adulthood and through her marriage and life.

But I was moved by this book, fascinated, though repulsed at times. The writing is very powerful, as the narrator recalls events from the past, woven among present realities. It is not a lengthy novel, 160 pages, but involves such a myriad of emotions, that I felt drained when I finished it. Wagman was able to create a powerful story about a taboo subject that in another person's hand may have seemed to have been done only for its shock value.

This is a novel worth reading, one that will definitely create discussion and discomfort, but that one will never forget.

This book was really confusing to me. I usually like to put into my own words what the book is about before I go on to say my feelings about it. I can't do that with this book. The only thing I can tell you is that this book disturbed me a great deal. I've read so many books in my short life, but I've never been as disturbed as I was while reading this one.

This book was written the same way as a previous book that I reviewed by Wagman, The Lie, which was kind of annoying. While the words flow together very easily, and make for a quick read, there is hardly any punctuation at all. I guess it works out well though, because the main character is completely insane. The way that this book is written really makes the main character, the narrator, seem even more insane. I literally had to stop reading this a few times and turn on the TV because I needed some sanity. This is saying a lot, because normally I don't go near a television.

I have read books in the past that feature incest, and while that is by far one of the worst things I have ever read about, this book made it even worse. I used to read a lot of V.C. Andrews' novels, and more often than not her books feature some kind of incest. Most of the time the characters in her books are usually being raped, or don't realize that they are sleeping with someone that is blood related. It was different here, and I think that's why I cringed at every turn of the page. This was consensual incest, and I could't wrap my mind around why someone would do something like that, or even write about it.

I can honestly say that I was going to finish this book, but I just couldn't. At the mere mention of beastiality toward the middle of the novel, I closed it. I couldn't bring myself to read any further. I'm sorry that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I did Wagman's previous novel, but my stomach just couldn't handle what it was being served.

I wouldn't recommend this book to a lot of people. If your against incestual relations, beastiality, or high sexual content. I would also highly recommend that religious people not pick up this book, as there is quite a lot of conversation toward a priest where the narrator continuously confesses her sins, and there are many.

My English Literature 101 professor once explained that "happy ending" novels rarely qualify as literature because after the story's conclusion there is little to discuss. Think about it for a moment. Would readers still ponder Gone with the Wind if Scarlett had bagged her man? Would To Kill a Mockingbird be as powerful if Boo Radley had received a fair trial? Would The Great Gatsby be a "Great American Novel" if Gatsby had spent his golden years with Daisy? With some exceptions I believe my professor's point was well taken.

By this measure, Playing House by Frederica Wagman is great literature. When I finished this novel I was dying to talk about it with someone: the symbolism; the characters; the repetitious writing style; and the subject matter. Playing House's subject matter - sibling incest - shatters cultural taboos and is not for readers with certain sensibilities. The unnamed narrator is both a victim and a willing participant in the incestuous relationship that thrived in her dysfunctional family unit. As she admits, "I never had a brother, I had a lover. I never knew what the word `brother' could mean, what the word `sister' could mean, what the word `mother' could mean - it was all meaningless to me, all except what it felt like being with him, that was the only meaning."

On a stylistic level Playing House is highly symbolic: the Swan that the narrator clings to; the color yellow which is used to describe everything from light, to grass, to hair, and dress; and the smoke that destroys the narrator's sister and threatens to claim the narrator. A typical illustrative passage is this one: "A yellow-white aloneness hung around the glass birds and the dancing swans in crystal cages behind the gilt lattice doors, there was no conversation except my mother talking to herself about how no one was good enough for us except each other, her poison, her inbred murder, her disaster, while she grinned and posed and wet her lips and saw herself reflected, poor soul, poor little mother, poor wreck in a yellow satin dressing gown with threadbare cuffs and elbows, with yellow eyes that didn't see, that could only stop where the noise was coming from."

Playing House is the perfect novel for thoughtful discussions!

To be honest, I had not heard of this novel by Fredrica Wagman. I had run across it on a few sites since it is the 35th anniversary of it's original release and it seemed so compelling, I decided to embark on the reading journey. I must say, it is truly a....disturbing book? This may be a harsh word but it is how I felt as I was reading it and for quite a while after I finished. The unnamed main character was involved in a incestuous relationship with her brother from a young age. This did not start out consensual but her longing for the closeness she experiences with her brother haunts her through her adult life. Her brother is unscrupulous and just plain mean, her father was basically non-existent and her mother seemed to have knowledge of the horrific activities. The book is written in first-person from the girl's point-of-view as she is an adult. It is a disjointed, jarring, surreal look at her thoughts as she tries to come to terms with her past through speaking with members of the clergy, doctors, psychiatrists and her husband (The Turtle). The effects of her youth haunt every relationship and aspect of her life.

This is not a book with a tidy happy ending. It is dark, sometimes humorous, with a couple of scenes I had to close my eyes and skip over. I am by no means a squeamish sort - but the imagery in certain sections crossed my lines. I may be wrong, but I believe this was the author's intention. There is not a silver lining when it comes to the subject matter and Ms. Wagman treated it as such. It is a deep look into a deeply shattered psyche.

Following is a short excerpt from Playing House: A Novel taken from Ms. Wagman's website. Playing House: A Novel

Can't concentrate. My mind is wandering over him crouched on top of me, over his shoulders to a summer day again, always back to then when a room was filled with sun gold, when the walls were white, when the window glass as crystal clear and there was sunshine always dancing on the floor. Heavy brown silk rugs made a border all around the bed where he pinned me there and said that if I told he'd beat me with the branches of the tree and I never told, no matter what he did I never told, he was my brother.

Sibling incest is forbidden because "impressionable children" having "passionate unions so all-encompassing and exclusive" will cause "life after the age of twelve [to]...be a frenzy of nostalgia for those who have known the bliss of such transgression." So says Phillip Roth in the Foreword of Playing House. Originally released in 1973, this tale of a woman's insanity brought on by consensual incest as a child is both gripping and chilling. Written in the first person, the traumatized woman takes the reader on a trip through her disjointed mind and her less than ideal life.

The narrator in the story never names herself or the people in her life. Instead, she refers to everyone by either their relationship to her or what they represent in her life. The story begins with the narrator puzzling over her husband, "the Turtle," and yearning for the incestual relationship she had with her brother as a child. Through the many depictions of the narrator's mental instability it is revealed that life (and sex) has taken on a surreal quality since her last taboo encounter, all brought on by the normal and abnormal feelings she has for her brother. Her timelessness fugue state allows the reader to not just understand her insanity but to experience it.

Fredrica Wagman presents a mesmerizing account in Playing House that is timeless enough to warrant its rerelease 35 years after it first shocked and awed the nation. So compelling are the narrator's desires that the reader finds his/herself almost hoping that she and her brother finally do achieve their "house by the sea."