The Darling by Russell Banks -- My first introduction to Russell Banks was an afternoon in the car, driving toward New Orleans and listening to This American Life on National Public Radio. I'd chanced upon it while changing stations between towns and happened to catch it at the very beginning of Banks's reading of Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story about a narcissistic man's affair with a homely woman. It was good-- the kind of story where you hear lines and think, "Wow. I wish I'd written that." It stayed with me for a long time. But there was something "off" about it. And I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Until I read The Darling.
The Darling is the story of Hannah Musgrave, a 59-year-old woman who owns a farm in the Adirondacks and whose life remains a mystery to everyone around her. Through her narrative, Hannah tells us about how she had been a priviledged child of the '60's and a member of the violent radical Weather Underground, who fled the United States and began life anew as the wife of a mid-level bureaucrat in the African country of Liberia.
It is the story of her life as a wife to her African husband, a mother to her three African children and caretaker of a number of chimpanzees in an American pharmaceutical research facility in Liberia, and her betrayal of virtually everyone who loved her -- her parents, her friends, her children, her husband, her chimpanzees -- against the backdrop of the turbulent '60s and the political upheaval surrounding Liberia's civil war.
I had a difficult time reading this book, mainly because the main character was so unsympathetic. Frankly, if I hadn't been stuck at my daughter's school for three hours, I might've put it down and not finished it.
Oddly enough, I got the impression that Banks wanted us to feel sympathy for Hannah. Banks did a wonderful job in his portrayal of Hannah's mother, whose clueless narcissism helped explain Hannah's own self-centered nature. But it failed to excuse it, and I got the feeling after finishing the novel that he hadn't quite fleshed Hannah out completely, even though she seemed aware that she was selfish and was not able to feel the proper emotions a wife; friend; daughter; and, particularly, mother; should feel.
He never quite completely developed the character, and it occurs to me that this is what bothered me about Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story. Perhaps it's intentional. Narcissists aren't fully developed characters. They are, instead, two-dimensional creatures incapable of the full range of real human emotions and empathy. If that's the case, he succeeded brilliantly.
The only real emotional attachment Hannah makes throughout the story is for the chimpanzees in her care, and I never could quite figure out why. The background story of Liberia's history is fascinating, and there is real tension in the plot.
I have read stories by Banks, however, that are simply wonderful. Rule of the Bone was brilliant, and I recommend it to all. I also recommend Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story. It's a fine piece of writing that left me mulling over it for weeks after I heard it. To hear it read by Banks, himself, on This American Life, go to: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1059
www.bambooks.biz
The Darling is the story of Hannah Musgrave, a 59-year-old woman who owns a farm in the Adirondacks and whose life remains a mystery to everyone around her. Through her narrative, Hannah tells us about how she had been a priviledged child of the '60's and a member of the violent radical Weather Underground, who fled the United States and began life anew as the wife of a mid-level bureaucrat in the African country of Liberia.
It is the story of her life as a wife to her African husband, a mother to her three African children and caretaker of a number of chimpanzees in an American pharmaceutical research facility in Liberia, and her betrayal of virtually everyone who loved her -- her parents, her friends, her children, her husband, her chimpanzees -- against the backdrop of the turbulent '60s and the political upheaval surrounding Liberia's civil war.
I had a difficult time reading this book, mainly because the main character was so unsympathetic. Frankly, if I hadn't been stuck at my daughter's school for three hours, I might've put it down and not finished it.
Oddly enough, I got the impression that Banks wanted us to feel sympathy for Hannah. Banks did a wonderful job in his portrayal of Hannah's mother, whose clueless narcissism helped explain Hannah's own self-centered nature. But it failed to excuse it, and I got the feeling after finishing the novel that he hadn't quite fleshed Hannah out completely, even though she seemed aware that she was selfish and was not able to feel the proper emotions a wife; friend; daughter; and, particularly, mother; should feel.
He never quite completely developed the character, and it occurs to me that this is what bothered me about Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story. Perhaps it's intentional. Narcissists aren't fully developed characters. They are, instead, two-dimensional creatures incapable of the full range of real human emotions and empathy. If that's the case, he succeeded brilliantly.
The only real emotional attachment Hannah makes throughout the story is for the chimpanzees in her care, and I never could quite figure out why. The background story of Liberia's history is fascinating, and there is real tension in the plot.
I have read stories by Banks, however, that are simply wonderful. Rule of the Bone was brilliant, and I recommend it to all. I also recommend Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story. It's a fine piece of writing that left me mulling over it for weeks after I heard it. To hear it read by Banks, himself, on This American Life, go to: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1059
www.bambooks.biz
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