osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2013-10-27 10:13 am
osprey_archer) wrote2013-10-27 10:13 am
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Book Review: The Language of Flowers
Teach me to choose books for their titles. I finished Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s The Language of Flowers and ended up not liking it at all. Everyone in the narrative bends over backward to take care of Victoria, even as she pushes them all away. This is understandable up to a point, and God knows I can appreciate the wish fulfillment aspect of a narrative where everyone loves the main character so unconditionally they will put up with mountains of shit from her without ever getting mad -
- but at the same time, there is something to be said for conditional love, otherwise known as “having boundaries.” Victoria treats everyone in her life terribly, but no one ever gives up on her - except her social worker, who is a terrible person. Often, they don’t even seem to notice that Victoria has screwed them over.
For instance, early in the book, Victoria gets a job at Renata’s flower store. By the end of the book - using the contacts she made through Renata - Victoria has started her own flower store in the same neighborhood, which is so successful that she has a waiting list months long. She’s completely undercut Renata’s livelihood, providing flowers for weddings, but does Renata mind? Not at all! She’s totally willing to help when Victoria flakes out, which is all the time.
This is the other grating thing about Victoria’s successful flower business. It descends on her as if by magic, despite the fact that she puts little visible effort into it and abandons it repeatedly in the hands of a semi-competent assistant whenever she has an emotional crisis. Victoria is all, “No one cares about the way the arrangements look! They just want the meanings to be right!” Has she met the bridal industry? Of course they’re going to care about how their flowers look!
For all that Victoria starts the book homeless, The Language of Flowers seems weirdly disconnected from the realities of money. Renata pays Victoria hundreds of dollars for very little work, and routinely gives her extra just ‘cause, even though her flower business seems awfully marginal. When Victoria leaves her boyfriend Grant, she steals enough money to live on for months, but he doesn’t even bring it up when she shows up again.
And when Victoria (in flashback) wrecks her final foster placement by burning down her beloved foster mother’s vineyard, her only source of livelihood, the only thing her foster mother cares about is losing Victoria.
***
Now, if I lost a friend like Victoria, I might be glad she had finally gotten the hell out of my life, but no one in this book shares this view. They are all totally sad, but not sad enough to actually yell at her.
She walks out on her beloved boyfriend Grant without warning, hides from him for months, secretly has their child, abandons the child in his house with the stove on - in order to keep the place humidified, but still, what if the water in the pan ran out before he got back! What if he’s on vacation, Victoria?
And when, over a year after abandoning him, she shows up and is like, “You mad?” all he can say is “I should be.”
Yes, he bloody well should be! Why isn’t he? Because the book is carefully constructed so that no one ever yells at Victoria, that’s why.
For instance. Renata’s mother, a midwife, helps Victoria have the baby - at last minute notice and free of charge - and then checks up on her regularly after that, also free of charge. But once Victoria abandons the baby, Renata’s mother simply drops out of the book. If she ever interacted with Victoria again, she might say something mean like “If you were having so much trouble with the baby why didn’t you give me a telephone call? I was basically willing to adopt both of you to make this work!”
Victoria is surrounded by people who would drop everything to take care of her and her benighted young sprout. Don’t these people have any friends who actually treat them decently?
(Renata's mother would not, let us note, say something even meaner like “Did you abandon your baby to die by the highway?” Because everyone in Victoria’s life, despite Victoria’s reticence, always correctly divines her intentions. When she cuts all contact with her boyfriend, insists no one tell him she’s pregnant, and is so afraid of him finding her that she lives on the streets, no one even thinks Grant might be abusive; they just all know that this is because of Victoria’s issues.
Because Victoria knows he’s not abusive, and it clearly never occurred to Diffenbaugh that other people might make different assumptions based on incomplete information.)
Ironically, if the goal was to make Victoria seem sympathetic despite her selfishness, then this approach completely backfired. If the other characters had not been so eager to go out of their way to take care of Victoria - if they had sometimes gotten mad at her when she behaved in a ridiculous selfish manner - if the narrative hadn’t excused her every action - I would have liked her more.
Or perhaps liked is the wrong word? But I would have found her interesting, the way I find Eponine interesting, even lovable, despite the fact that some of her actions are pretty heinous.
As it is, there’s a strong sense in The Language of Flowers that Victoria is sinned against but never sinning - despite the manifold ways that her actions hurt other people, it’s all excused because the poor thing wasn’t loved enough as a child, and she never actually has to take responsibility for any of it.
Never mind that Grant and Victoria’s ex-foster mother Elizabeth weren’t loved enough as children either, and they somehow find it in their hearts to treat Victoria with the patience of saints.
I felt that if none of the other characters were going to get mad at her, then I had to do it for them.
- but at the same time, there is something to be said for conditional love, otherwise known as “having boundaries.” Victoria treats everyone in her life terribly, but no one ever gives up on her - except her social worker, who is a terrible person. Often, they don’t even seem to notice that Victoria has screwed them over.
For instance, early in the book, Victoria gets a job at Renata’s flower store. By the end of the book - using the contacts she made through Renata - Victoria has started her own flower store in the same neighborhood, which is so successful that she has a waiting list months long. She’s completely undercut Renata’s livelihood, providing flowers for weddings, but does Renata mind? Not at all! She’s totally willing to help when Victoria flakes out, which is all the time.
This is the other grating thing about Victoria’s successful flower business. It descends on her as if by magic, despite the fact that she puts little visible effort into it and abandons it repeatedly in the hands of a semi-competent assistant whenever she has an emotional crisis. Victoria is all, “No one cares about the way the arrangements look! They just want the meanings to be right!” Has she met the bridal industry? Of course they’re going to care about how their flowers look!
For all that Victoria starts the book homeless, The Language of Flowers seems weirdly disconnected from the realities of money. Renata pays Victoria hundreds of dollars for very little work, and routinely gives her extra just ‘cause, even though her flower business seems awfully marginal. When Victoria leaves her boyfriend Grant, she steals enough money to live on for months, but he doesn’t even bring it up when she shows up again.
And when Victoria (in flashback) wrecks her final foster placement by burning down her beloved foster mother’s vineyard, her only source of livelihood, the only thing her foster mother cares about is losing Victoria.
***
Now, if I lost a friend like Victoria, I might be glad she had finally gotten the hell out of my life, but no one in this book shares this view. They are all totally sad, but not sad enough to actually yell at her.
She walks out on her beloved boyfriend Grant without warning, hides from him for months, secretly has their child, abandons the child in his house with the stove on - in order to keep the place humidified, but still, what if the water in the pan ran out before he got back! What if he’s on vacation, Victoria?
And when, over a year after abandoning him, she shows up and is like, “You mad?” all he can say is “I should be.”
Yes, he bloody well should be! Why isn’t he? Because the book is carefully constructed so that no one ever yells at Victoria, that’s why.
For instance. Renata’s mother, a midwife, helps Victoria have the baby - at last minute notice and free of charge - and then checks up on her regularly after that, also free of charge. But once Victoria abandons the baby, Renata’s mother simply drops out of the book. If she ever interacted with Victoria again, she might say something mean like “If you were having so much trouble with the baby why didn’t you give me a telephone call? I was basically willing to adopt both of you to make this work!”
Victoria is surrounded by people who would drop everything to take care of her and her benighted young sprout. Don’t these people have any friends who actually treat them decently?
(Renata's mother would not, let us note, say something even meaner like “Did you abandon your baby to die by the highway?” Because everyone in Victoria’s life, despite Victoria’s reticence, always correctly divines her intentions. When she cuts all contact with her boyfriend, insists no one tell him she’s pregnant, and is so afraid of him finding her that she lives on the streets, no one even thinks Grant might be abusive; they just all know that this is because of Victoria’s issues.
Because Victoria knows he’s not abusive, and it clearly never occurred to Diffenbaugh that other people might make different assumptions based on incomplete information.)
Ironically, if the goal was to make Victoria seem sympathetic despite her selfishness, then this approach completely backfired. If the other characters had not been so eager to go out of their way to take care of Victoria - if they had sometimes gotten mad at her when she behaved in a ridiculous selfish manner - if the narrative hadn’t excused her every action - I would have liked her more.
Or perhaps liked is the wrong word? But I would have found her interesting, the way I find Eponine interesting, even lovable, despite the fact that some of her actions are pretty heinous.
As it is, there’s a strong sense in The Language of Flowers that Victoria is sinned against but never sinning - despite the manifold ways that her actions hurt other people, it’s all excused because the poor thing wasn’t loved enough as a child, and she never actually has to take responsibility for any of it.
Never mind that Grant and Victoria’s ex-foster mother Elizabeth weren’t loved enough as children either, and they somehow find it in their hearts to treat Victoria with the patience of saints.
I felt that if none of the other characters were going to get mad at her, then I had to do it for them.
no subject
And the naivité about real life--like not understanding the exigencies of the business her protag is theoretically in....
How disappointing!
no subject
The business part is particularly exasperating, because it's even less earned than the rest of it. Within weeks of starting her own business, she's so successful that she can send her former employer (who has been extremely nice to her) the customers that Victoria doesn't deign to take on to her massive waiting list.
And then Victoria gets snarky about the autumn brides, who aren't as wealthy as the summer brides and therefore demand value for their money rather than graciously leaving it all up to Victoria.
Good grief. I need to start reading something else to distract me from my depthless exasperation with this book.