~ Where’d You Go, Bernadette. By Maria Semple. ~
The preamble to this novel identifies the protagonist.
The first annoying thing is when I ask Dad what he thinks happened to Mom, he always says, “What’s most important is for you to understand it’s not your fault.” […]
Mom disappears into thin air two days before Christmas without telling me?
A teenager, presumably. The next chapter is her school report, which is almost ridiculously glowing, containing such evaluations as:
I envy the teachers who get to meet Bee for the first time, and to discover for themselves what a lovely young woman she is.
Over a few more chapters, the reader will deduce that the novel is in the form of a collection of documents, put together by Bernadette’s daughter Bee after Bernadette disappears. Many chapters are in the form of emails: between their neighbour Audrey and her friend Soo-Lin at Microsoft, or between Bernadette and her ‘virtual assistant’ Manjula in India. There are also police reports, school PTA announcements, and magazine article, and letters from Bernadette. They are very consciously Lively! Fun! Quirky!
As in the school report above, every person in Bee’s family is remarkable. Her father Elgin is a brilliant computer engineer who leads a cutting-edge Microsoft project. Bernadette is a brilliant architect who won a MacArthur grant, although this was based on a single building that was destroyed soon after its completion. And Bee herself is, yes, brilliant, but also kind, funny, original, confident, a leader, and an accomplished flutist.
This is satire, but the characters are delineated in unimaginative cliches that represent a type rather than a distinct person. Elgin, the Microsoft genius, eats granola, takes public transport and is often barefoot. Bee’s wealthy private school is quite predictably full of competitive parents and over-the-top PTA behaviour, and this novel’s rendition adds nothing to the trope. Bernadette, the reclusive iconoclastic genius, is biting towards the homeless of Seattle and looks down on pretty much everyone.
[Bernadette:] To Canadians, everyone is equal. Joni Mitchell is interchangeable with a secretary at open-mic night. Anyone who stayed [in Canada] would b flattened under an avalanche of equality. The thing Canadians don’t understand is that some people are extraordinary and should be treated as such.
Supercilious characters can be fun, but this snottiness does not compute: Bernadette is also supposed to be a mass of insecurity. And the self-righteousness and self-absorption of all the main characters makes it hard for the reader to empathize with them. Yet there are sections which entice the reader towards emotional investment: Bernadette’s agoraphobia and insecurity, Bee’s heart defect and surgeries, Bernadette’s tears when she visits the children’s hospital. And then a few pages later, Bernadette comes out with another unpleasant comment that destroys the mood. It’s difficult to understand what the author is aiming for.
Here’s a sample of the writing:
[Bernadette:] Parking in Seattle is an eight-step process. Step one, find a place to park (gooood luuuck!). Step two, back into the angled parking space (who ever innovated that should be sentenced to the chokey). Step three, find a ticket dispenser that isn’t menacingly encircled by a stinky mosaic of beggars/bums/junkies/runaways. This requires step four, crossing the street. Oh, plus you’ve forgotten your umbrella (there goes your hair, which you stopped worrying about towards the end of the last century, so that’s a freebie).
See what I mean about inconsistency? Bernadette even noticing that she doesn’t have an umbrella? And if she had really stopped worrying about her hair, why would she even mention it? This is the author speaking, not Bernadette.
After reading the novel, I discovered that the author is a TV screenplay writer, and that explains a lot. The characters are put into all kinds of zany situations: a mudslide during a preschool trip, an attempt to get illegal drugs but only to avoid seasickness … all the way through to an escape in the Antarctic. These events would make for lots of slapstick humour in a TV serial. The fairly prosaic writing is buried under situational comedy and a variety of formats (email, letters, news articles … ).
This novel about an unconventional family is occasionally interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying because the author tries so hard to be eccentric, but the writing is largely conventional.
You judged this book so harshly, Susan! I loved this book. I thought the satire was very funny, and the characters delightful. I liked the movie, too!
Oh no, sorry! Perhaps I read it on a grumpy day. I did like Bee, but Bernadette’s snotty attitude to everyone else bothered me to the point where I found it hard to be sympathetic. Tell me more about what you liked, and what the movie was like!
Loved the review! I have not read the book, but now I read your review, I know why I was turned off everytime I browsed it on shelves. The writing is just too flippant for me, too wannabe. I liked in your review how you made the distinction between the author’s voice and the character’s voice and how sometimes they inconsistently merged. Great inclusion of quotes, so illustrative of the novel, gives me such a flavour of it – that texture of writing, the style and tone, leave me wanting to pull away with mild distaste. I actually might not have minded cliched characters, but not being able to invoke emotional investment from the reader, is a serious authorial lack. Am glad for your reviews which introduce me to such good books, and also glad for your reviews which warn me to steer clear of those I would have lost patience with and not much enjoyed.