Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin

Unfinished Desires: A Novel by Gail Godwin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Unfinished Desires is an excellent read by Gail Godwin, one of my favorite authors. The characters are wonderfully complex. The story takes place in Mount St. Gabriel's, a Catholic school for girls in western North Carolina. The setting is perfect for raising relationship issues to the forefront and for presenting interesting perspectives on faith.



Mother Suzanne Ravenel is the headmistress of the school. She is a strong leader who has provided her girls with a rich environment that is secure and also stimulating enough to offer a good education. But she is overbearing and suffers from the most common flaw in supervisors from all walks of life, she confuses loyalty to the headmistress with loyalty to the school. For example, Madeline Stratton, one of the most selfless and intelligent characters in the book, was not asked back to the school after something she said insulted Mother Ravenel. There are other, more important examples of this flaw of Ravenel's, but I don't want to put a spoiler in this review so I'll skip them.



I love the way Godwin handles faith in her writing. (Father Melancholy's Daughter and Evensong are great examples of this.) In Unfinished Desires she is covering the Catholic faith rather than the Anglican, but she does so with as much honesty and respect. I found the character of Chloe to be the most interesting in this area because her faith manifests itself in a manner that verges on insane. But at the same time it makes sense in the context of the beliefs of this group of people. Many of the nuns talk to God and God answers.



The other aspect of this book that I love is the way Godwin has centered her plot around small parts of school life that everyone can identify with. She's taken things like book reports and school plays and raised their importance through the points of view of the characters. She's also used those projects to cover issues such as learning disabilities in ways that add to the intensity of the book.



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Character development in fiction

The general definition of a tragic flaw is a flaw in character that causes the defeat of the hero in a tragedy. In my favorite books character flaws exist for all and don't always bring about their defeat.

I've been listening to an audio version of Gail Godwin's Unfinished Desires, so I'm thinking about character development. Godwin does an amazing job of creating people that readers can admire in one sense and find distasteful in another. That is one of the reasons why her books are among my favorites.

I heard a recent interview of Ann Patchett during which she disparaged the statement that many writers, myself included, often make about our characters writing our stories. Patchett said she is always in charge and I can understand her point. When I'm writing I put myself in the heads of my characters and try to feel what they're feeling. Then I let go. That's how my characters write my story, but it is still me. I think all people have the capacity to feel what the most glorious and the most heinous people feel, because we all experience greed and hatred as well as benevolence and love. Good writers can capture both positive and negative feelings and put them on paper in the form of the actions of their characters.

I've heard many writers say that there are only a limited amount of plots. Each time I hear someone make that statement the number seems to change, but the idea is the same. Character development could have the same description, because there are only a limited amount of emotions people can feel towards each other. I suppose writers could use transactional analysis (or some other relationship theory) to figure their characters out. But this generalization about either plotting or character development limits the importance of subtle differences. The best writers pull from an infinite amount of choices for their characters and their plots.

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


There may be a powerful ending in Jude the Obscure that I haven't reached yet because at this time I still have about 20% to go. But I've reached what was clearly a climax in the relationship of Jude and Sue and I've certainly read enough to talk about the book.



This novel was published in its entirety in 1895, although it ran as a magazine serial prior to that. According to Wikipedia, Thomas Hardy started working on it in 1887. The work does what I love fiction to do. It presents ideas that are thought provoking. Its ideas were controversial at the time it was released, but there are enough universal themes in the work to make it relevant for today's readers.



Jude is a young man living in Marygreen England in the late nineteenth century. He is living with his aunt and working in her bakery. He is an excellent student at a time when physical skills are more appreciated than scholarship. But he admires his teacher and longs to learn as much as possible with the goal of eventually becoming a member of the clergy.



Jude is seduced by a local woman who tricks him into marriage. Their union lasts a short time and the two go their separate ways. But Jude is now burdened with an attachment that interferes with his desire to marry Sue Bridehead, his cousin with whom he falls in love. The novel follows their relationship as they try to deal with the dictates of nineteenth century England.



The ideas in Jude the Obscure are critical of organized religion and of the institution of marriage as it was in the 1800's. But it is also a story about gossip and people who are not allowed to live their lives the way they've chosen because of the society around them. It's also about insecurity and overreaction, making the characters universally human.



One of the aspects of the book I found most interesting was the way the relationship of cousins was treated in that era. It seems much more complicated than I had realized. Jude and Sue were allowed to marry at that time and no one seemed to frown on that. But they could also be treated as if they were brother and sister, if they wanted to be. It seemed odd that in a time when there was so little acceptance of differences in lifestyles people were allowed to define their relationships with their cousins.



Hardy often tells the reader what his characters are thinking through their dialog rather than showing through their actions. At times that feels a bit stilted, but there are enough subtleties in the story to compensate for that. It's a good read and the Kindle version is free on Project Gutenberg.



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The sequel to Motherless Soul

Motherless Soul has been out a little more than a year and a half now. The reaction to the book has been great, so I'm working on a sequel. My goal is to have the first draft done by the end of this year. However, the first draft will require quite a bit of revising. The characters have done what they're supposed to do. They've taken over the story. I will have to go back and change some of the earlier chapters so the plot lines they picked out will work. I had a friend call this art of working beginning to end with lots of revisits along the way - “zig-zag” writing.

There are sections of the new novel that will take place in the nineteenth century. So, in addition to traditional means of research, I'm reading some literature for that era. I've read Middlemarch by George Eliot and Nana by Emile Zola and I'm about a third of the way through Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. I like what I pick up from books written during the historical era I'm covering because the authors are writing for the people of that time. They carefully describe the exceptional events, but assume the readers understand the day to day events. It takes a different kind of thought process to appreciate the classics.

The only character I'm bringing over from the first book is the hypnotist. He's moved on to a new project involving all new people. I don't want the second book to be too much like the first so I'm carefully including aspects that work out in a very different manner. I'm also using some ideas from people who enjoyed the first novel. I'm very encouraged by the way it is going, but it's far from done. No matter what happens the process is something I look forward to every day.

Nana by Emile Zola

Nana by Émile Zola

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Nana has one of the worst beginnings of any novel I've read recently, but I ended up liking it very much.



The story starts at a theater where a new production of The Blond Venus is having its opening night. Nana has the lead. She's an actress who has received a great deal of publicity, but has not been seen be the general public. Zola uses this situation to build suspense while presenting all of the book's minor characters. It's the all I have problems with. The opening chapter bounces around from one audience member to another so much it is difficult to keep the characters straight.



Nana can't sing and looks awkward on stage, but she's extremely beautiful. Since she appears nude in the show, her beauty is enough to carry her to a tremendous success. That's believable enough. We certainly have our share of modern actresses who become famous for their beauty rather than their talent.



But the success of the play isn't enough to carry the story for me. The audience moves on to a couple of society parties where they talk about Nana and gossip about each other. Again the point of view is still bouncing around so much I couldn't latch onto a single character enough to care what happens to any of them.



The story starts to take hold when Zola gets into Nana's head and to a theme of competition that runs throughout the novel. Nana competes with women in French society, with other actresses, and even with a streetwalker named Satin, whom she knows from her own time on the streets. But while Nana is competing for men, stage roles, and money to provide her with the most opulent surroundings, she is also the prize for the competing men in the book.



I was thoroughly caught up in the novel as it drew to an end, so when I finished it I went back and reread the beginning. As I suspected, the opening chapters were as enthralling as the latter ones once the characters were familiar to me.



This is the only book I've read by Emile Zola. I plan to try others.



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The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In honor of the billboards across America that are predicting today as “Judgment Day,” I've decided to review The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.



A great portion of this book takes place during a period of history that must have been considered to be the “End Times.” These were the years of the great plague or black death when 30 to 60% of the population of Europe died from disease. The Doomsday Book won the Hugo award in 1993.



Connie Willis is an author who loves to give her readers thoroughly researched facts. Although the book begins in 2054 and is about time travel, the sections that cover the middle ages are written with a great amount of detail and have a feel of accuracy that is remarkable. I checked on the dates mentioned and on some of the facts discussed (such as the three types of plague) and found Willis to be accurate. These details in a story that focuses on the humanity of its characters, provided an exciting way to learn about a period of history I don't know well.



Mr. Dunworthy has a paternal relationship with Kivrin, his student. It is his desire to protect her, along with a sense of guilt, that motivates him to help her at a time when she's stuck in the middle ages and no one else seems to care.



In the 1300's, Lady Eliwys has feelings for Gawyn, one of her servants. Her husband is away, but her mother-in-law, Imeyne, is living with them. The elder woman notices the relationship, creating tension between Eliwys and Imeyne. Eliwys is a person who responds to people and situations based on appearances. She does not like the local priest because he is not attractive and does not always follow ritual in the way she thinks is proper.



Meanwhile, in the twenty-first century, Dunworthy is dealing with Gilchrist, a department head in charge of the “drop” (the session to send Kivrin back in time). Gilchrist's only concern seems to be who gets credit and/or blame for the project. So in both timeframes Willis creates real, personal interactions that keep the human feel in her science fiction.



Another aspect of Connie Willis's writing that I admired in The Doomsday Book is her portrayal of children. These characters are as fully developed as the adults. At times they ignore the instructions they've been given, but Dunworthy and Kivrin come to love them anyway and so do the readers.



I plan to recommend The Doomsday Book to my book club. It may be a little longer than most of our choices, but it reads quickly and is always captivating. It should be an excellent book for a discussion.



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The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I had an interesting conversation recently with a resident of a retirement village where I held a reading and discussion of my book, Motherless Soul. She spoke of the memories of her youth and how those recollections became clearer as she aged. She called this fact a “gift.”



The Madonnas of Leningrad is about this “gift.” Marina, a woman suffering with dementia, is getting ready for a trip to her granddaughter's wedding. But Marina keeps slipping back and forth between her life in the present time and the life she led as a young woman during the World War II Siege of Leningrad.



Although I can understand the definition of these intense memories held by the woman I talked to at the retirement home, the life Marina slipped back to was far from pleasant. The Germans barricaded and bombed the city. During a cold, Russian winter, people were living in the shells of buildings without much to protect them from the environment. Marina was fortunate enough to live with her uncle in the basement of the Hermitage museum where she worked, but they suffered from the cold there as well. The German bombers targeted the warehouses with supplies for the city, so soon starvation was killing many more people than the bombs themselves.



Despite the horrors of dementia and war that are covered by this book, it is ultimately about beauty and that's what makes it such a wonderful story. The art in the Hermitage is removed from the walls of the museum. Some pieces are stored in the basement to protect them from the bombs, but most have been transported out of the city. Marina and Anya, an older friend who is also living in the Hermitage, form a pact to remember the art. They walk through the empty rooms of the museum, talking to each other about the work that once hung on the walls. They are worried that if it is forgotten it will never matter.



There are so many wonderful things going on in this book. It is the story of a love that persists through both war and old age. Marina waits for Dmitri as he fights against the German army, then, when they are older and living in America, Dmitri patiently waits for Marina as she slips in and out of her present life. It is also the story of the beauty of culture. Marina's love for art is great enough to pull her through the horrors of war.





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