4: Fidelity (1915)
Welp, it finally happened: I found one I didn't really like.
I'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what I didn't care for in Fidelity. Maybe it's just that I really wanted it to be a Marilynne Robinson book instead - you know, Midwest, dying fathers, people who have made mistakes, plot consisting of "walking into a room and then walking out again regretfully"... and if Marilynne Robinson had written it I'd be red eyed and emotionally destroyed right now.
I also didn't care much for the style, it's very "tell don't show". I found the prose pretty undistinguished (until the very end, there's a bit about sheep that broke my heart.) I can't really account for my deep "eh" entirely, though. I mean, it wasn't a bad book, I finished it and I'm not mad at it, but I expect to love these little gray books and I just didn't love this one.
Fidelity is an oddball of a Persephone book so far; it's American. And, like, not the good part of America. (Sorry, Iowa. You'll always have Captain Kirk.) And it's very American. It's about a woman, Ruth, who eleven years ago ran away with a married man and has now returned to her hometown on the eve of her father's death. A few people remain friends with her, but most of the town's society is unkind.
And see, that's one place I have issues. I get that obviously we're supposed to sympathize with Ruth as a full and complete person who's been through a lot, but are we also supposed to act like fucking around on your wife is NBD? The book gives Deane, a town doctor and old friend of Ruth, an impassioned argument against one of the matrons most firmly against the fallen woman, but I can't say that I entirely agree with it. Look, it sounds all nice and high minded to go on about how society is just a construct of people, but that's very happily ignoring the fact that this dude Stuart (who, notably, doesn't get a lot of ink from his perspective) cheated on his wife with a woman much younger than him and then ran away with her in the middle of the night. Oh but their marriage was really over years ago! Really, was it because she was an incredible bitch? (Implied.) Maybe she was in a persistent vegetative state? Oh, it was because he had had an affair several years ago.
Oh.
But that bitch won't divorce him and he can't force her to, that's just inhuman of her! Well, society didn't let you just dump your wife when you found a new model because it's not like, in 1900, she could go out and get another goddamned job. Does that apply here? No, his wife is wealthy and Stuart and Ruth aremoisture farmers on Tattoine struggling Colorado ranchers. But if "society" just went around allowing exceptions, everybody would think they were an exception and the people who need this sort of protection wouldn't get it!
You shouldn't treat a woman who has committed this kind of social crime (and, mind you, actual crime) like dogshit because you shouldn't treat anybody like dogshit. When your old friend comes back into town because her father is dying, you should go take her a casserole and tell her how sorry you are for her loss. But NO it isn't fine and dandy to go taking off with somebody else's husband, and NO as long as you're still "taking off with somebody else's husband" people do have a right to judge you for it, because it's a shitty thing that YOU DID.
Oh, I'm so sorry that you can't keep good help because of it. Maybe that's also because your not-husband is kind of a fucking asshole, by the way.
Here you've got two people who made a mistake. But they haven't done anything at all to rectify it - they haven't even really apologized to the people they hurt as far as I can tell. It isn't something that happened to them, it's an action they deliberately took. And this book tries to tell me that a) oh it was because they were overcome with love, and b) well, that's just an arbitrary rule of "society". What, you mean a vow? That's not an arbitrary rule, that's a promise you made!
Ugh, I didn't realize how pissed off I was about that.
On Ruth, Low Woman: Very convenient that this person who is supposed to make us question the way our social compact works is so very special. You don't see Emma Slatterly stomping up out of that train from Colorado. Oh no, it's Miss Luminous, Miss More Alive Than Everybody Else.
On Stuart, Low Man: <fart noise>
On Deane, Family Doctor: Everybody needs a ride or die homie like Deane. I got friends but I don't know that I got that kind of friends.
Ruth: So I need you to abort this fetus for me and then I need you to help me cover up my affair with a married man. If anybody asks, no matter what, I was with you. Oh and then I'm going to need a ride to the train station.
Deane: Uh, you do realize it's, like, 1900 and we live in East Buttfuck, Iowa, right?
Ruth: Did I stutter?
On Louise, Wronged Frigid Bitch: Resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die, yes, but it's not like she doesn't have a point. Maybe let it go before the decade mark though; I mean, frankly that asshole did her a favor.
On Annie, Wise Poor Person: Goals. Let me read a book about this woman; the lady busting her ass selling vegetables out of a cart to send her kids to school, who also is very clear in 1915 that mothering is not the be all and end all of life and that a mother also matters as a person and should act like she does. And she reads. She also has a shitty husband and she and Deane should run off together.
On Amy, Deane's Shitty Wife: Next time marry a grownup, bro. Hey, I know, don't grant her a divorce - that'll teach her!
So I know it looks like I didn't like this book because I didn't agree with it, but that isn't really the whole picture. If it had been written in a different style I may have loved it. I didn't like it and I didn't agree with it. 2/5 - other people may adore it, I thought it was fine but nothing at all special and also we live in a goddamned society. You can tell I didn't like it because I gave it three stars on Goodreads. I really need to do something about my star inflation practices.
Thanks to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for this interlibrary loan. I apologize for not putting up any content in awhile; I lost the book for a couple weeks and almost had a heart attack. You don't want to know what some academic libraries charge for lost interlibrary loans. (It's okay, though. That's just one of those society rules, man.)
I'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what I didn't care for in Fidelity. Maybe it's just that I really wanted it to be a Marilynne Robinson book instead - you know, Midwest, dying fathers, people who have made mistakes, plot consisting of "walking into a room and then walking out again regretfully"... and if Marilynne Robinson had written it I'd be red eyed and emotionally destroyed right now.
I also didn't care much for the style, it's very "tell don't show". I found the prose pretty undistinguished (until the very end, there's a bit about sheep that broke my heart.) I can't really account for my deep "eh" entirely, though. I mean, it wasn't a bad book, I finished it and I'm not mad at it, but I expect to love these little gray books and I just didn't love this one.
Fidelity is an oddball of a Persephone book so far; it's American. And, like, not the good part of America. (Sorry, Iowa. You'll always have Captain Kirk.) And it's very American. It's about a woman, Ruth, who eleven years ago ran away with a married man and has now returned to her hometown on the eve of her father's death. A few people remain friends with her, but most of the town's society is unkind.
And see, that's one place I have issues. I get that obviously we're supposed to sympathize with Ruth as a full and complete person who's been through a lot, but are we also supposed to act like fucking around on your wife is NBD? The book gives Deane, a town doctor and old friend of Ruth, an impassioned argument against one of the matrons most firmly against the fallen woman, but I can't say that I entirely agree with it. Look, it sounds all nice and high minded to go on about how society is just a construct of people, but that's very happily ignoring the fact that this dude Stuart (who, notably, doesn't get a lot of ink from his perspective) cheated on his wife with a woman much younger than him and then ran away with her in the middle of the night. Oh but their marriage was really over years ago! Really, was it because she was an incredible bitch? (Implied.) Maybe she was in a persistent vegetative state? Oh, it was because he had had an affair several years ago.
Oh.
But that bitch won't divorce him and he can't force her to, that's just inhuman of her! Well, society didn't let you just dump your wife when you found a new model because it's not like, in 1900, she could go out and get another goddamned job. Does that apply here? No, his wife is wealthy and Stuart and Ruth are
You shouldn't treat a woman who has committed this kind of social crime (and, mind you, actual crime) like dogshit because you shouldn't treat anybody like dogshit. When your old friend comes back into town because her father is dying, you should go take her a casserole and tell her how sorry you are for her loss. But NO it isn't fine and dandy to go taking off with somebody else's husband, and NO as long as you're still "taking off with somebody else's husband" people do have a right to judge you for it, because it's a shitty thing that YOU DID.
Oh, I'm so sorry that you can't keep good help because of it. Maybe that's also because your not-husband is kind of a fucking asshole, by the way.
Here you've got two people who made a mistake. But they haven't done anything at all to rectify it - they haven't even really apologized to the people they hurt as far as I can tell. It isn't something that happened to them, it's an action they deliberately took. And this book tries to tell me that a) oh it was because they were overcome with love, and b) well, that's just an arbitrary rule of "society". What, you mean a vow? That's not an arbitrary rule, that's a promise you made!
Ugh, I didn't realize how pissed off I was about that.
On Ruth, Low Woman: Very convenient that this person who is supposed to make us question the way our social compact works is so very special. You don't see Emma Slatterly stomping up out of that train from Colorado. Oh no, it's Miss Luminous, Miss More Alive Than Everybody Else.
On Stuart, Low Man: <fart noise>
On Deane, Family Doctor: Everybody needs a ride or die homie like Deane. I got friends but I don't know that I got that kind of friends.
Ruth: So I need you to abort this fetus for me and then I need you to help me cover up my affair with a married man. If anybody asks, no matter what, I was with you. Oh and then I'm going to need a ride to the train station.
Deane: Uh, you do realize it's, like, 1900 and we live in East Buttfuck, Iowa, right?
Ruth: Did I stutter?
On Louise, Wronged Frigid Bitch: Resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die, yes, but it's not like she doesn't have a point. Maybe let it go before the decade mark though; I mean, frankly that asshole did her a favor.
On Annie, Wise Poor Person: Goals. Let me read a book about this woman; the lady busting her ass selling vegetables out of a cart to send her kids to school, who also is very clear in 1915 that mothering is not the be all and end all of life and that a mother also matters as a person and should act like she does. And she reads. She also has a shitty husband and she and Deane should run off together.
On Amy, Deane's Shitty Wife: Next time marry a grownup, bro. Hey, I know, don't grant her a divorce - that'll teach her!
So I know it looks like I didn't like this book because I didn't agree with it, but that isn't really the whole picture. If it had been written in a different style I may have loved it. I didn't like it and I didn't agree with it. 2/5 - other people may adore it, I thought it was fine but nothing at all special and also we live in a goddamned society. You can tell I didn't like it because I gave it three stars on Goodreads. I really need to do something about my star inflation practices.
Thanks to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for this interlibrary loan. I apologize for not putting up any content in awhile; I lost the book for a couple weeks and almost had a heart attack. You don't want to know what some academic libraries charge for lost interlibrary loans. (It's okay, though. That's just one of those society rules, man.)
Amazon links are referral links.
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