Debbie's Reviews > Commonwealth

3.88, who do I appreciate?

I’ve been putting off writing this review because I’ve been hoping that as time goes on, I’ll sit up and chirp instead of sit down and burp. But, alas, I am not chirping. The song is more or less forgotten, so I can’t in good conscience give this a wowsy 4 stars. It’s more like a 3.88, who do I appreciate, which I will round up to 4 because, well, ultimately I do appreciate Ann Patchett.

I’m messed up when it comes to this writer. I insanely loved State of Wonder (declaring it an all-time favorite) but absolutely hated Bel Canto. I read a couple of other books by her that I liked, but nothing came anywhere close to State of Wonder.

Then along came Commonwealth, and expectations were high. Of course I want everything she writes to do the same thing that State of Wonder did to me, but it’s a setup for failure when you want to re-create something that was perfect, like trying to find a pet that’s as perfect as the one you lost. This book just did not set fire to my soul. I wasn’t uttering a meh, mind you, but I wasn’t doing a jig either. It’s a good story, just not particularly memorable.

But hot diggety--only two items on my Complaint Board! The small complaint first: Too many players! It’s not a crime if I have to draw a family tree, but laziness made me try to keep all the characters straight without having to find paper and pen and start sketching. There are two sets of parents with 6 kids among them—2 from one family and 4 from another. See? Already it’s hard. They become step-sibs who spend long summers together. Remembering which kids belongs to which mom and dad was tough at times.

The bigger complaint: There's this weird distance that Patchett maintains, this formality. Maybe it’s just her tone, I don’t know. If I ever met her I'm pretty sure I’d say “how do you do” instead of “hi.” I sort of feel like I know the characters but I am also acutely aware they are far away in a story, not sitting next to me whispering their secrets into my ear. And damn, instead it is Patchett the storyteller sitting there beside me, her voice sometimes blocking out the voice of the characters, and forcing me to pay attention to her. I like it better when I get completely absorbed with the characters and forget there’s a puppet master pulling the strings.

There are a lot of good things. Patchett rolls up her sleeves and cooks up a believable and interesting story. She really is a master storyteller. She paints the picture in broad strokes. The dialogue is not particularly rich but I like her sentence structure, the way she dresses the story--atop some good bones.

Her plot is clever and sort of unusual (I found myself thinking, how did she come up with THAT secret), and it has the right amount of foreshadowing. And she doesn’t have any over-the-top drama or dialogue that would make it seem unrealistic. Her language is impeccable and she weaves scenes together beautifully, sometimes even while jumping back and forth between time periods.

I discovered something curious. Even though I’m all over it if there are too many mundane little things being described, Patchett for some reason can get away with it without sending me screaming for my Complaint Board. I’m thinking it’s her sophisticated language that makes the simple details sound acceptable. And she has a real talent for painting a vivid picture with an economy of words.

The book opens at a christening party for baby Franny, who is the main character of the story. It is there that the married Albert lustfully eyeballs Franny’s beautiful married mother, Beverly. By the next chapter or two, the story jumps to Albert and Beverly being a married couple (we don’t get the story of how the divorces went down). Patchett wins the prize for the weirdest man’s name ever—Beverly’s cuckolded husband is named Fix. Seriously. With the new family structures in place, we start getting to know all the children of the two divorces. The kids have a secret (oh how I love a good secret), and the repercussions of this secret are at the core of the story.

I loved the way Patchett described how the kids formed a tribe that was theirs alone. The tribe had the innocence of childhood, and the ties among the kids were touching and real. While their parents dealt with their own adult dramas, the kids were often left to themselves, a pack of little kids having adventures and doing things that the parents would freak out about if they knew. It made me think about how complicated and fascinating sibling dynamics are. I’m one of five kids; the story reminded me of how it felt to be around many siblings, and it sent me down memory lane.

Patchett really is good at developing characters. I liked the personalities that she gave each kid, especially, and the way they interacted was believable and intriguing. The book spans about 50 years; I was invested in seeing what kind of adults these kids grew into. And as other reviewers have mentioned, the adults could have come right out of the TV series Mad Men. Whereas the young kids were busy (mostly) having fun, the adults seemed incredibly sad and sometimes boozy. Franny’s story is the most developed. As an adult she has a relationship with an idol that will affect the entire family (hint: it has to do with the relationship between reality and art). And she is the main kid who cares for her ailing dad at the end.

Despite the fact that there was a tragedy, this was basically a tame family drama, well-done and realistic. But I always clamor for edge! Even though I’m a total chicken and won’t even put the tip of my toe over any edge, I sure like my fictional characters to be perched, fearless, and going for the plunge. For instance, wouldn’t it have been bizarre and juicy if two of the step-kids had gotten it on? Now THAT might have made me sit up and chirp! But that would be a whole ‘nother story for a whole ‘nother day…