Las Crónicas De La Señorita Hempel (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
Another victim of misguided marketing, although nobody will be crying for SLB, since the misguided marketing led to award nominations and many goodreads reviews. The problem can be easily summed up: Franzen's blurb describes this book--about, among other things, the uncomfortably erotic nature of teaching, divorce, the horrors of history and the difficulties of teaching it, the awfulness of puberty, the inhumane but unavoidable way we categorise each other, and the French diseases of the soul*--he describes *this* book as 'pure pleasure.' There are roughly two possible explanations for this. One is that Franzen, as a good GWAMA**, thinks anything written by a woman that is less than 600 pages long must, eo ipso, be entertainment rather than art. That seems unlikely. But it's entirely possible that it happened indirectly: that this book got assimilated to the canon of American Liberal Literature, to which great purgatory moderately well written, lightly entertaining books about Democrat party approved themes like education and gender go when they die. And since this book is not only about a woman, but by one, that's its obvious resting place. Except this is more intellectually challenging and rewarding than anything Franzen or the other GWAMAs of ALL has ever written. The episodic structure mimics the life of a teacher (one year at a time, each year succeeding the other in a weird change-but-no-change kind of way, until you realize that something incredibly strange has happened). Unlike most art about education, we see the teacher develop, rather than the students--indeed, (spoiler) she develops right out of being a teacher. The tediousness, hopelessness and outright fear of being an educator come through clearly: what right do we have to teach others? is this weirdly public life anything other than a performance? how does one balance the yearning to be loved with the need to be, often enough, hated? and how does anyone ever get to be an adult when the adults themselves are borderline failures? Add to all that the lightly written ruminations on history and authenticity (i.e., both constructed, but not for all that meaningless), and it becomes clear that the right comparison is that other apparently charming, but deeply disturbing novel of education and social history, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. *: see Heather Lelache in Ursula Le Guin's 'Lathe of Heaven'**: Great White American Male Author I really enjoyed this one. Related short stories about a young 7th grade teacher who became one because it was the easy thing to do, tries hard at times but at others just takes the shortcuts, and is attached to her students, sometimes oddly so, while hoping that she's had some kind of positive effect on them. At the same time, we see some of her past, her family, and her relationships with men and her colleagues. An unsure imperfect teacher with a real life and and real problems like the rest of us, trying to make it through with a hope that in the end we've somehow accomplished something worthwhile.Very well written. A pleasure to read.
What do You think about Las Crónicas De La Señorita Hempel (2011)?
Tried as I might, I could not get into this book at all. Ugh. Abandoned it 3/4 through.
—Saudi123
I love me a book of connected stories and this a Great one.
—yanira63
Weird. Scattered. Couldn't figure out the author's point.
—aim
