I started Tom Perrotta's Little Children last night. So far so good, like Election, it is loaded with amusing social observation. This book falls into a subset of the "American dream is a lie" category. The smaller set is the "suburbs=hell" category. My favorite book, to date, from that school is Revolutionary Road, which can be funny but is far more bleak than Perrotta's take. In both books, so far at least, the main characters grapple with their dissatisfaction with their lives, jobs and relationships. You can guess where that leads them. Both of these books make you question your life decisions. Are you making them for yourself and your loved ones or are societal norms driving your behavior? And how do you balance that? Or do you?
Since everyone reading this is in the 30-40 yr. old existential-questioning zone, I think both books have appeal. Book clubbers would like them both, as they are short and full of point of view. You could some away from each with a strong opinion, methinks. If you have lots of somber types they might like RR better.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Where you thought you were going, weren't never there
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7 comments:
I read Little Children last year and thought maybe I was missing something (as the reviews were quite laudatory) because I'm not married, a parent or live in the burbs. Not to say it's bad, just seemed...cliche? Maybe you'll have a different perspective on it. It reminded me of a cross between Desperate Housewives and American Beauty (to use non-literary references).
It also was one of those books that I wonder if the author was already thinking ahead to the movie version while writing it as it will be a very easy book to adapt to film and I'm sure has already been optioned.
I can certainly see missing something if you don't have kids or a spouse, as much of the humor derives from the situations facing married people with kids.
The burbs could be removed, at least partially. All this drama could take place in NE PDX for certes. Just move the park to Wilshire and have some action down at the New Seasons and you are gold.
Go read Revolutionary Road, it is more of a kick in the pants.
Did you like American Beauty? I liked it but I thought the Best... Movie... Ever... talk was a little too much.
w/r/t deine Frage, T Spot, perhaps norms are norms for good reason. If "do what thou wilt" were indeed the whole of the law, then the decisions you'd likely be making for yourself and your loved ones would be on the order of "hunt or gather?"
Precisely so braxton, but how are we to balance the expectations of society with the needs of individual? I don't stand with the anarchists or libertarians although they do have a point in that we often stand by norms merely because they are there, not because of any value they hold.
Hmm. Resolution of this issue may call for NBK's magic box. I would submit that just as norms vary across as well as within societies, they evolve over time. One engine that drives this evolution would be individual nonconformity - whether through expressions of artistic genius (like Joyce described in Portrait) or just-for-the-hell-of-it rebellion, like the first person to get a barbed-wire tat around their bicep . . . which, as reflected by the number of Maxxim-readers sporting them, has most assuredly attained normative status, at least within a subset of our society. As for the mechanics of the balancing itself? That strikes me as an iterative and interactive process: the individual decides the value and degree of the transgressive act or omission, and society (i.e. a collective of other individuals) decides the value and strength of the transgressed norm, and what the respone (either collective or individaul) will be. Thus, Lolita faces a brief, unsuccessful obscenity challenge in the court system (collective support of erstwhile norm/resistence to perceived transgressive behavior) and mebbe a few book burnings (individual supprt of erstwhile norm/resistence to perceived transgressive behavior), but Nabokov swings the balance his way and, through his art, shifts (advances?) the societal norm. Actual child molesters and statutory rapists, on the other hand, are shanked in prison and - one would hope - do not cause a rebalancing of norms despite their "needs" as individuals.
I think you are largely correct here Braxton and are expressing a generally progressive view of societal growth that is moderated by conservatism. I think this is healthy.
Your note that norms vary across societies raises the question of whether we can criticize other socities at all as our basic norms are different. I would say yes we can, in certain circumstances, as underneath societal norms there are basic truths that philosophers have dealt with over time. Some of our norms (don't rape, don't kill) reflect truths while others (mow your grass once a week) do not. When societies fail to hold up basic norms they should be criticized. When they are merely different, they should not.
And in truth what I meant in my original post but clearly did not articulate is that is interesting is the borderline stuff. We all know certain things are wrong and that certain rules are trivial and can be ignored. Books like Revolutionary Road are interesting because they look at problematic relationships, for example, and ask why people do things. Are they doing them because it is the right thing to do or because their peer group, parents etc demand it. And the question Brack raises is perhaps it is right to be constrained because of the social cost of aberrant behavior. Trying to figure out the right thing to do is what makes books like these interesting. To me at least.
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