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100 books, #9: The Woman in the Wall
Jul. 31st, 2012 01:58 pmPatrice Kindl has a new book out! Keeping the Castle: A Tale of Romance, Riches, and Real Estate, which the blurb describes as "I Capture the Castle meets Pride and Prejudice," which basically means it's going to be the Best Book Ever.
At least, I hope so. I've often been disappointed by Kindl's books: they're always fun, but often ultimately unsatisfying. I keep reading them because I adored the first book of hers that I read, The Woman in the Wall, and always hope that the white lightning will strike again.
The Woman in the Wall does pretty much what it says on the tin: it's about a terribly shy girl who is so mortified by the prospect of attending school that she builds a network of secret passageways and rooms in the walls of her family's Victorian mansion, and lives in them for years.
My friend Emma lent this book to me years ago, and her mere description of it so enchanted me that I all but shooed her out the door so I could start reading. The book, with its cozy, slightly formal narration, vivid characters, and dream-like ambiance, did not disappoint.
In my room I almost felt that I had become a part of the house. I could hear its heartbeat, the rumble of its pipes, the creak of its timbers. Sometimes and overwhelming love for the house would well up inside of me so that I wanted to cry. It loved me too, I could tell. We were necessary to each other; I protected it against the ravages of time and creeping dry-rot, and it sheltered me and gave me strength.
I loved it because it was strong, but I also loved it because it was blind and mute and deaf. It had no eyes to see me or ears to hear me or tongue to scold me. It did not judge me, it only held me close in its arms and rocked me gently to sleep through the long silent nights.
There's a strong whiff of magical realism about The Woman in the Wall. Nothing technically magic happens, but the book keeps blithely positing implausible things: an unaided seven-year-old building secret passageways; her family failing to notice that said secret passageways are slowly gobbling up the house; the fact that Anna disappears into the walls for seven years and her mother makes no concerted effort to get her out.
And one simply accepts them, because clearly in this little corner of the cosmos, that's simply how the world works.
What The Woman in the Wall taught me is that logic is a limited lens through which to read books. There are certain books in which the rationality of the plot or the setting are important. A murder mystery shouldn't have plot holes so wide you could drive a truck through them, and a fantasy novel that purports to make serious points about real-world politics has to have a political system that makes sense.
But there are also books where complaining about the lack of this kind of rational realism is completely missing the point. The point is the ambiance, the feel of the story: the world works on a kind of dream or fairy-tale logic, and as long as the characters' psychology is - not rational, because people are rarely rational - but plausible, or understandable, then the story can be completely satisfying despite plot holes the size of aircraft carriers.
And The Woman in the Wall is just such a book. If you want to read a lovely, cozy story about houses, and the comfortableness of inanimate things - and slowly embracing the messiness of human relationships, through Anna's budding epistolary romance (epistolary! Who can say no to that?) and her friendship with her sister - then this is the perfect book for it.
At least, I hope so. I've often been disappointed by Kindl's books: they're always fun, but often ultimately unsatisfying. I keep reading them because I adored the first book of hers that I read, The Woman in the Wall, and always hope that the white lightning will strike again.
The Woman in the Wall does pretty much what it says on the tin: it's about a terribly shy girl who is so mortified by the prospect of attending school that she builds a network of secret passageways and rooms in the walls of her family's Victorian mansion, and lives in them for years.
My friend Emma lent this book to me years ago, and her mere description of it so enchanted me that I all but shooed her out the door so I could start reading. The book, with its cozy, slightly formal narration, vivid characters, and dream-like ambiance, did not disappoint.
In my room I almost felt that I had become a part of the house. I could hear its heartbeat, the rumble of its pipes, the creak of its timbers. Sometimes and overwhelming love for the house would well up inside of me so that I wanted to cry. It loved me too, I could tell. We were necessary to each other; I protected it against the ravages of time and creeping dry-rot, and it sheltered me and gave me strength.
I loved it because it was strong, but I also loved it because it was blind and mute and deaf. It had no eyes to see me or ears to hear me or tongue to scold me. It did not judge me, it only held me close in its arms and rocked me gently to sleep through the long silent nights.
There's a strong whiff of magical realism about The Woman in the Wall. Nothing technically magic happens, but the book keeps blithely positing implausible things: an unaided seven-year-old building secret passageways; her family failing to notice that said secret passageways are slowly gobbling up the house; the fact that Anna disappears into the walls for seven years and her mother makes no concerted effort to get her out.
And one simply accepts them, because clearly in this little corner of the cosmos, that's simply how the world works.
What The Woman in the Wall taught me is that logic is a limited lens through which to read books. There are certain books in which the rationality of the plot or the setting are important. A murder mystery shouldn't have plot holes so wide you could drive a truck through them, and a fantasy novel that purports to make serious points about real-world politics has to have a political system that makes sense.
But there are also books where complaining about the lack of this kind of rational realism is completely missing the point. The point is the ambiance, the feel of the story: the world works on a kind of dream or fairy-tale logic, and as long as the characters' psychology is - not rational, because people are rarely rational - but plausible, or understandable, then the story can be completely satisfying despite plot holes the size of aircraft carriers.
And The Woman in the Wall is just such a book. If you want to read a lovely, cozy story about houses, and the comfortableness of inanimate things - and slowly embracing the messiness of human relationships, through Anna's budding epistolary romance (epistolary! Who can say no to that?) and her friendship with her sister - then this is the perfect book for it.
