A review and a challenge

The Awakening by Kate Chopin was the book club's choice for June. As luck would have it, I had it already and it was in the 'to be re-read' pile of books that I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep or not. I don't know how I came to possess this 1972 edition but I had read it a few years back. Now that I read it for the second time, I'm not sure why I kept it.

The synopsis according to Amazon:
Edna Pontellier, the heroine of The Awakening, shocked readers in 1899 and the scandal created by the book haunted Kate Chopin for the rest of her life. The Awakening begins at a crisis point in twenty-eight year-old Edna Pontellier's life. Edna is a passionate and artistic woman who finds few acceptable outlets for her desires in her role as wife and mother of two sons living in conventional Creole society. Unlike the married women around her, whose sensuality seems to flow naturally into maternity, Edna finds herself wanting her own emotional and sexual identity. During one summer while her husband is out of town, her frustrations find an outlet in an affair with a younger man. Energized and filled with a desire to define her own life, she sends her children to the country and removes herself to a small house of her own: "Every step she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to 'feed upon the opinion' when her own soul had invited her." Her triumph is short-lived, however, destroyed by a society that has no place for a self-determined, unattached woman. Her story is a tragedy and one of many clarion calls in its day to examine the institution of marriage and woman's opportunities in an oppressive world. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Other than the hubbub it must've created when it was released, I disagree with nearly every word in this review and I picture the female that wrote it as wearing Birkenstocks and having unshaven legs. Nowhere in the book does it literally say that she had an affair with the young man whose parents owned this summer get away place that people came to and who seemed get his jollies from spotting lonely women every summer to befriend. If one wanted to read more than what was in the book, one could think that but for someone who just sticks to what is written, I believe nothing happened (but then I believe males and females can truly be just friends) other than he made her miss the early days of a relationship when everything is new and exciting and inspiring her to want to spread her wings from the typical female role of that era - she became more interested in painting and selling them so she could have her own money, she wasn't especially maternal and probably only had the two children because that's what they did back then. Because of these things, she transferred it onto to him and thought she was in love. The above review makes Edna into a role model of sorts and the comments people left proclaimed her a feminist and I believe that she is definitely not one, much as I think Hilary Clinton isn't a good female role model. To give away the ending to make my point (since I doubt the readers of this blog will actually read the book), she kills herself because the man that 'awakened' her chose not to be with her. How is that a good role model for girls or an example of feminism? I came away disliking this book as much as I dislike some Disney movies or the movie, Grease and the message that they give which is to ditch your family or change your ways and you'll nab the rebel/prince. My legs are shaved but yet I cringe when I think about young, formative girls watching these movies. Yes Ariel is a pretty redhead but she chose to have legs so she could live on land with a guy while leaving her finned family in the sea. Where are the Anastasia dolls? I loved the character in that Disney movie. Is she neglected because she's not a princess? Having a father that is a czar isn't as good as a king? Someone at Disney have a beef against Russians? But I digress...

The review at the Penguin books web page is a little less one-sided and a little more interesting: The Awakening shocked turn-of-the-century readers and reviewers with its treatment of sex and suicide. In a departure from literary convention, Kate Chopin failed to condemn her heroine's desire for an affair with the son of a Louisiana resort owner, whom she meets on vacation. The power of sensuality, the delusion of ecstatic love, and the solitude that accompanies the trappings of middle- and upper-class convention are themes of this now-classic novel.

The book was influenced by French writers ranging from Flaubert to Maupassant, and can be seen as a precursor of the impressionistic, mood-driven novels of Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes. Variously called "vulgar," "unhealthily introspective," and "morbid," the book was neglected for several decades, not least because it was written by a "regional" woman writer.

To summarize all of this into 6 words: I am not keeping the book.

********

Sage's entry last week regarding the Southern Reading Challenge of 2007 got me thinking and doing some research on authors from the south (I've been writing it with a lowercase 's'. Perhaps I should change my ways. I've seen people from down there use the uppercase...I'm sure the reason that they do so is still somehow connected to the Civil War) on the off chance that I wanted to play along. I've decided that I do but luckily I went to the original website yesterday where it was stated that the author had to be from the South AND the book had to be set in the South as well. Sage, being a guy, neglected to share that last part but thankfully, Southern writers must never leave their immediate area even in their imagination so my three chosen books still work. What are my three chosen ones? You'll have to wait a bit for that. After the violation that Sage had to go through under the name of 'good for your health', I'll give him some more healing time to return to his normal self when he can then razz me about my choices.