On Audrey Niffenegger’s ‘Her Fearful Symmetry’
“I finished that book last night,” I say to MindReader.
“Oh yes?” he says.
“Yeah it was really weird…”
“Mmm,” he says, chopping parsnips.
“Like, it was not of a genre at all. Like she crammed together several different genres and left all of the unpacking to the reader. I feel like I have lots of thinking to do.”
MindReader gives me a Look. One which says, we are very different.
I lean against the counter. “Plus she was writing consciously within a tradition. She set it in Highgate Cemetry so she was following those before her – you know, Dickens – but in doing so she made you expect a ghost story and then she wrote something more approximating to a weird kind of dark rom com!”
MindReader stops chopping. “I’m sorry, I have NO idea what you’re talking about.”
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The September 2009 issue of Chicago Magazine had an article on Niffnegger and this book. You’d probably find it interesting! Among its tidbits: “The concept was to write a 19th-century novel for the 21st century…I wanted to deal with all the tropes of the 19th-century novel: doubling, mistaken identity, mistaken parentage, and spirits. I got to write it exactly as I wanted…”
Wow, even I’m lost and you usually keep me up to speed.
better or not as good as Time Travellers Wife?
I get the same response from cyclist boyfriend when I talk at him about Latin / Greek grammar. Was it accompanied by a completely disparing look that says ‘you’re so weird’?
Meg – why thank you. V interesting.
Tarsi – better luck next time!
Rachel – hmm, worse. It was weighted weirdly so the last 1/4 of the book was very engrossing and I wanted to read it all the time but only because there was a kind of situation that seemed unresolvable, not because I was in love with the characters like I was with Henry and Claire. To be fair the TTW is one of my favourite ever books so she would do well to top it. She is though very good at creative a kind of resigned sad ending. That was what was common to both: you knew from about half way in this wasn’t going to end well and that feeling of forboding is quite addictive in her books. It’s worth a read.
Wizzywoo – mostly yes, but I think most of what I say is met with similar reactions!!
BG
I just finished this last week. I agree that it was kind of odd. I kept wanting to know what happened, but then I just thought it was ridiculous at the end. Not even close to Time Traveler’s Wife. They’re making a movie of that but I don’t think I’ll see it because it can’t be as good as the book!