Longing and belonging: Life and death in the suburbs

Last night’s gathering of The Artist’s Bookshelf finished off our summer season nicely with a spirited discussion of THE VIRGIN SUICIDES by Jeffery Eugenides. Though everyone in attendance generally praised the book for its unique narrative style, interesting use of language, and anthropological acumen in dissecting that peculiar social phenomenon known as suburbia, we broke down into two distinct camps when it came to dissecting the verisimilitudinal* essence of the story.Camp #1, which tended to be dominated by young women who had read the book more than once (some as many as four times) and identified strongly with one or more of the suicidal Lisbon sisters, interpreted the story as a poetic and hauntingly beautiful account of the girls’ shared tragedy.

Camp #2, which tended to be dominated by slightly older white guys like myself, who perhaps identified more strongly with the boys/men narrating the story, took it more as a contemporary fable of the neighborhood, a suburban myth that had grown and evolved over time to attain the status of folklore.

Of course, as moderator, I remained entirely neutral and impartial throughout the discussion and resisted the temptation to add further fuel to the fire by suggesting that perhaps those dual interpretations were precisely what the author had in mind all along.

Earlier in the evening we enjoyed a thought-provoking tour of the Cameron Jamie exhibit conducted by our buddy Ray. The parallels between the exhibit and the novel are striking. Beyond fascination with/abhorrence of the suburbs, both artists seem to exploit the spiritual emptiness and social hollowness of its cultural landscape.

In an interview Mr. Eugenides stated, “ If I were an emotion, I would be longing. That is a kind of human emotion that’s very clear to me, and very strong from an early age, as perhaps it is in everyone… VIRGIN SUICIDES is almost one long longing.”

NEXT UP:

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Can’t wait!

*My computer tells me this isn’t actually a word, but I like it anyway.