A review by mo0ma
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
This book felt suffocating, like I was enveloped in the narrative, which is contributed to by the setting and various descriptions of the area in which it takes place. The descriptive writing is excellent—.
I didn’t like how voyeuristic it felt, but I think voyeurism was in some sense the purpose of the author, and I’ve come to realise that I’ve been just as voyeuristic as the characters by having read the book at all. Still, upon reflection, I realise that I didn’t really have much of a choice in this regard. The voyeurism of the narrating boys was a perspective pushed onto me, and it gave me no opportunity nor many resources to understand and appreciate the characters that I actually wanted to—the Lisbon girls. Even the ending focuses on the reflections the boys have about themselves; the Lisbon girls, although staged in the centre, have been staged artificially, illuminated in the light of the boys’ fantasies, romanticisation, and introspection. The girls become tools for the boys to understand themselves, empty shells for the boys to fill with their own conjecture and wonder, rather than full beings.
Perhaps this irony and/or this dynamic is actually a tool to criticise the boys, and the other characters—neighbours, acquaintances, medical professionals—in the book who are not sympathetic to the Lisbon girls but rather eager to deconstruct and discuss them. If that is the case, then I think it would be a very good narrative, and I have thus given the author the benefit of the doubt in my rating (which would be higher if I could be sure it was what the author intended to do).
Spoiler
I liked how the symbol of the solar system can be interpreted to reflect how the suburb and its people seemed to orbit around the events of the Lisbon’s house and tragediesI didn’t like how voyeuristic it felt, but I think voyeurism was in some sense the purpose of the author, and I’ve come to realise that I’ve been just as voyeuristic as the characters by having read the book at all. Still, upon reflection, I realise that I didn’t really have much of a choice in this regard. The voyeurism of the narrating boys was a perspective pushed onto me, and it gave me no opportunity nor many resources to understand and appreciate the characters that I actually wanted to—the Lisbon girls. Even the ending focuses on the reflections the boys have about themselves; the Lisbon girls, although staged in the centre, have been staged artificially, illuminated in the light of the boys’ fantasies, romanticisation, and introspection. The girls become tools for the boys to understand themselves, empty shells for the boys to fill with their own conjecture and wonder, rather than full beings.
Perhaps this irony and/or this dynamic is actually a tool to criticise the boys, and the other characters—neighbours, acquaintances, medical professionals—in the book who are not sympathetic to the Lisbon girls but rather eager to deconstruct and discuss them. If that is the case, then I think it would be a very good narrative, and I have thus given the author the benefit of the doubt in my rating (which would be higher if I could be sure it was what the author intended to do).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Mental illness, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, and Suicide attempt