Too Many Snakes
Feb. 13th, 2008 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselNov 2007
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt - Bloomsbury, 2002
* * * *
This is another American family drama featuring basically unsympathetic characters, but unlike The Corrections I thought that this one was pretty good. Quite why it appealed when the other didn’t I’m not sure - Tartt has an exceptionally vivid style which perhaps makes the characters easier to envision and therefore easier to engage with, if not care about. This is just as well, because plot-wise and stylistically the book is another attempt at genre-melding that doesn’t quite come off.
It is set in an unnamed town in the American deep south and begins with an arresting opening describing the ill-fated Mothers Day on which Robin, the nine year old eldest son of Caroline and Dix Cleve, is found murdered. As the action shifts to twelve years later, we learn of the dreadful effects of this event on the family; Caroline has drifted into an anti-depressant haze, Dix has gone to live with a mistress in a neighbouring state, and Robin’s two younger sisters Allison and Harriet have respectively become a dreamy adolescent and a bookish and socially awkward twelve year old, who substitute as parental figures their four maiden aunts Edie, Tatty, Libby and Adelaide and their family maid Ida Rhew.
It is Harriet on whom the story chiefly focuses as she becomes obsessed with exposing the murderer of her brother and enlists her only friend Hely to help. Her investigations lead her to an unpleasant family of rednecks whose chief occupation is brewing up crystal meth, and the escalating tension between them and Harriet triggers a series of grotesque events that drive the story to its rather annoying ending.
In essence the book is a cross between a young adult murder mystery and a Southern Gothic family drama, and Tartt never really succeeds in resolving the contradictory pacing, characterisation and plotting expectations that these genres engender in the reader. The use of pre-adolescent main characters was a brave decision and is largely successful, but there is some inconsistency in Harriet’s character caused by her having to be intelligent and resourceful in the young adult sections but still an innocent child in the family story (Hely is slightly better, although his unrequited passion for Harriet seemed a little extreme for a twelve year old). Similarly the story is written at the slow, reflective pace of a southern drama, which sits uneasily with the adventure content and makes certain sections seem to drag. But perhaps the biggest problem is that of mystery. Southern Gothic relies for its effect on ambiguity and ambivalence, whereas whodunnits require clarity and resolution. Tartt’s attempts to square this particular circle are, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful.
Nonetheless I admire this book for attempting something new and for the vividness and general excellence of the writing. Though the latter does lead to one other problem I had with it. Snakes feature prominently in the story and they are described so effectively that I was reading with distracting cold shudders running up and down my spine. Fellow ophidiophobes, beware.
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt - Bloomsbury, 2002
* * * *
This is another American family drama featuring basically unsympathetic characters, but unlike The Corrections I thought that this one was pretty good. Quite why it appealed when the other didn’t I’m not sure - Tartt has an exceptionally vivid style which perhaps makes the characters easier to envision and therefore easier to engage with, if not care about. This is just as well, because plot-wise and stylistically the book is another attempt at genre-melding that doesn’t quite come off.
It is set in an unnamed town in the American deep south and begins with an arresting opening describing the ill-fated Mothers Day on which Robin, the nine year old eldest son of Caroline and Dix Cleve, is found murdered. As the action shifts to twelve years later, we learn of the dreadful effects of this event on the family; Caroline has drifted into an anti-depressant haze, Dix has gone to live with a mistress in a neighbouring state, and Robin’s two younger sisters Allison and Harriet have respectively become a dreamy adolescent and a bookish and socially awkward twelve year old, who substitute as parental figures their four maiden aunts Edie, Tatty, Libby and Adelaide and their family maid Ida Rhew.
It is Harriet on whom the story chiefly focuses as she becomes obsessed with exposing the murderer of her brother and enlists her only friend Hely to help. Her investigations lead her to an unpleasant family of rednecks whose chief occupation is brewing up crystal meth, and the escalating tension between them and Harriet triggers a series of grotesque events that drive the story to its rather annoying ending.
In essence the book is a cross between a young adult murder mystery and a Southern Gothic family drama, and Tartt never really succeeds in resolving the contradictory pacing, characterisation and plotting expectations that these genres engender in the reader. The use of pre-adolescent main characters was a brave decision and is largely successful, but there is some inconsistency in Harriet’s character caused by her having to be intelligent and resourceful in the young adult sections but still an innocent child in the family story (Hely is slightly better, although his unrequited passion for Harriet seemed a little extreme for a twelve year old). Similarly the story is written at the slow, reflective pace of a southern drama, which sits uneasily with the adventure content and makes certain sections seem to drag. But perhaps the biggest problem is that of mystery. Southern Gothic relies for its effect on ambiguity and ambivalence, whereas whodunnits require clarity and resolution. Tartt’s attempts to square this particular circle are, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful.
Nonetheless I admire this book for attempting something new and for the vividness and general excellence of the writing. Though the latter does lead to one other problem I had with it. Snakes feature prominently in the story and they are described so effectively that I was reading with distracting cold shudders running up and down my spine. Fellow ophidiophobes, beware.