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Read Little Children (2005)

Little Children (2005)

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Author
Rating
3.59 of 5 Votes: 3
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ISBN
0312315732 (ISBN13: 9780312315733)
Language
English
Publisher
st. martin's griffin

Little Children (2005) - Plot & Excerpts

Due stelle e mezzo.Sono un po’ delusa. Dopo aver letto ”Intrigo scolastico” credevo di aver capito quali fossero i punti forti di questo autore: l’arguzia, l’ironia, la caratterizzazione precisa dei personaggi, la sua capacità di dipingere realisticamente eppure con fantasia e trovate originali gli ambienti e le situazioni della vita quotidiana. Ovvero, io credevo di ritrovare tutto questo anche in ”Bravi bambini”, anche perché è il libro di Perrotta del quale di solito si parla di più. Inoltre, gli ingredienti c’erano tutti, se si considera che l’intento era quello di effettuare uno studio di carattere prendendo in considerazione il mondo dell’età adulta con tutte le sue piccole tragedie quotidiane: la responsabilità di crescere dei figli, la cieca ostinazione con la quale ci si convince che le proprie scelte siano in assoluto le migliori, la costante insoddisfazione che porta a relazioni extra-coniugali e via dicendo. Anche i personaggi di questo romanzo sembravano promettere il meglio: Todd, ex campione di football, il figaccione del college, avvocato mancato, casalingo e babbo a tempo pieno che passa le sue serate ad osservare le evoluzioni di un gruppo di giovani skateboarder piuttosto che prepararsi per l’esame che finalmente, dopo due fallimenti, potrebbe riuscire a superare per diventare avvocato; Sarah, disoccupata e mamma a tempo pieno, ex appassionata di studi di genere ed ex femminista, moglie di un uomo che sniffa mutandine ordinate online; Ronnie, molestatore di bambini che vive ancora con la madre e che viene tormentato da un giovane poliziotto in pensione con alle spalle l’omicidio di un ragazzino di colore; Marie Ann, la classica madre perfetterrima che non sbaglia un colpo e non manca mai all’appuntamento settimanale del martedì sera alle nove quando si espleta nel suo letto l’adempimento del dovere coniugale che sembra, in realtà, interessarle di meno, quando insomma fa l’amore col marito. Il problema di questo romanzo è che tutto è troppo superficiale, direi persino banale, infarcito non dico di luoghi comuni ma nemmeno di trovate originali. Uno si aspetta una narrazione effervescente, anche perché i libri di Perrotta si divorano, sono piacevolmente leggeri e si leggono a meraviglia, però questa caratteristica in questo caso non basta, non mi basta che il romanzo sia scorrevole. Dalle carte che l’autore aveva messo in tavola io mi aspettavo che fosse anche discretamente divertente, arguto, persino profondo. E invece Perrotta mi mette lì al massimo qualche battutina che puzzava di vecchio già una decina di anni fa; i personaggi compiono le loro azioni e punto. Pensano, ma non trasmettono. Della serie: che se io devo leggere un libro solo per scoprire gli sviluppi della trama qualcosa non va. È stato come guardare Desperate Housewives quando Lynette ingaggia la battaglia contro il pedofilo che si è trasferito nel suo quartiere; o come quando Rex Van de Kamp tradisce Bree facendosi camminare sulla schiena con dei tacchi a spillo dalla casalinga prostituta; oppure come quando Lynette e altre madri si schierano contro la madre perfetterrima che per la recita annuale dei bambini vuole cambiare il finale di Cappuccetto Rosso perché uccidere il lupo è una cosa sbagliata. Mica ho niente in contrario a Desperate Housewives, anzi mi piace parecchio (sono anche pronta ad essere insultata per questo). Però se voglio quel tipo di intrattenimento, quel tipo di racconto americano, so che lo troverò lì, in quella serie, con le sue trame prevedibili e con nessuno studio di carattere. So che non dovrei trovarlo nei libri di Perrotta. E mi ci arrabbio un sacco.

If you have seen the movie adaptation of this book starring Kate Winslet, which is very good, it follows the book pretty closely until the very end. "Is That All There Is?" – Peggy LeeThis is a satire about traditional suburban life in mainstream America. Almost everyone seems to be living the idyllic American dream. Two of the characters, Todd (married to Kathy) and Sarah (married to Richard) feel shackled, disillusioned and unfulfilled by the constraints and trappings of their conventional suburban life. There’s got to be something better than this, right? In high school Todd was a popular football star. He’s in his mid-thirties now but still incredibly handsome and fit. Todd feels emasculated, powerless and insignificant in his matronly role as a stay-at-home dad. Todd has never held a job and has become complacent in his role as a mother figure. His wife Kathy resents his lack of ambition, is tired of being the family breadwinner and would prefer to be a traditional stay at home mom.Sara dropped out of graduate school to enter a marriage with a financially secure but unattractive older man to escape a life in a monotonous office job. Her husband has developed an unhealthy obsession with an Internet porn star. Sara feels trapped in her loveless marriage and in her role as a stay-at-home mom to their 3-yr-old daughter. To get through her mind-numbing days, Sara constantly tells herself: "think like an anthropologist. I'm a researcher studying the behavior of boring suburban women. I am not a boring suburban woman myself."Todd’s wife, Kathy, and his lover, Sara, are interesting contrast. Kathy is drop dead gorgeous with the flawless appearance of a professional model. She has a fascinating career as a successful filmmaker of documentaries but she really wants to stay home and raise children. In contrast, Sarah is frumpy, squat and plain with frizzy hair. She is a stay-at home mom married to a man she loathes. Sara longs for the seemingly glamorous career, physical beauty and husband that Kathy has. Each woman covets the life that the other woman is living. There is a section in this book called “Madam Bovary”. Sara joins a neighborhood book club and they read Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (1857). Madam Bovary and Little Children have some parallel themes: infidelity, unrealistic expectations of life and love, how traditional feminine roles in society are undervalued and belittled and how we are all ultimately responsible for the choices we make in life. During the book club discussion Sara’s adversary, Mary Ann, an extremely conservative woman, slams Madam Bovary for being a “slut”. Sarah defends the character, calling her a feminist and praising her efforts to struggle against the constraints society as heroic. She says: “Madame Bovary’s problem wasn’t that she committed adultery,” Sarah declared, in a voice full of calm certainty. “It was she committed adultery with losers. She never found a partner worthy of her heroic passion.” Hummmmmmm. lol! There is also a seedy subplot about a convicted pedophile who moves into the neighborhood. His appearance sets the already nervous parents into hyper-overprotection overdrive. I think the presence of this sordid character might be a device to highlight the point that there is behavior far more heinous than infidelity. Some reviewers have expressed sympathy for this character, personally I found him repellant and creepy.

What do You think about Little Children (2005)?

I'm beginning to notice a pattern: I started reading The Abstinence Teacher on a flight, and was so absorbed that I spent the entire next day at home, finishing the bulk of it in one day - which is SO unusual for me (I usually take weeks to finish even the easiest books). About the same thing happened with this one - covering about 80 pages on slow subways, I finished it on the following day home sick from work - staying up late to get through the last, terrifyingly suspenseful pages. No wonder this was made into a movie.Shockingly, I really loved this book, even though the characters never ceased to revolt me. You've got a couple adulterers, a child molester, his depressed mother who is waiting to die, a bunch of gross football players, numerous unhappy wives and husbands, internet porn, the whole deal. Conclusion: suburbia is CREEPY. Everyone is miserable, and these poor three- and four- year olds are disturbingly innocent witnesses to their parents' unraveling. Perotta paints a bleak picture. However bleak and SCARY (nothing more bone chilling to me than a young child's disappearance), Perotta's exposition of plot and character are way up to snuff.After I finished, once I calmed my heart rate and assured myself that the doors and windows were locked, I experience a very similar train of thought as after finishing The Abstinence Teacher. How urgent/present is Perotta's moral imperative? It is obvious that homeboy is critical of religion, and the institution of marriage - though his exact criticism is unclear to me. Most of his characters are divorced, in the middle of a divorce, on the brink of divorce, experiencing a longing for past "glory days" or repeatedly going over "what would/could have been." If I had to guess, his "message" is not a moral imperative but rather a quiet call to investigate the accepted wisdom on how a middle class life progresses. Or maybe he just thinks that people's lives are interesting and sad and wants to write a good story.
—Julia

Man, I have a difficult time with this book (especially in light of recently seeing the movie). Perrotta uses his usual awkward grace in developing awkward characters, and created a novel more complete and thoughtful than any of his previous ones. He still has some of the same problems as in his earlier novels (the random addition of a secondary or tertiary character's perspective for just one brief segment, for convenience in the plot, is as annoying here as it is in Election), but I felt like was making a story more than the sum of its parts. However, I'm always just a little creeped out by a message that he seems to be pushing by the end (I've read it a coupla times now, so obviously something charms me), that a lot of your satisfaction depends on your attractiveness and there's really not much you can do about that, 'tleast in the suburban East Coast communities he's portraying here. It may be true, I wouldn't know, but it's an unsettling thing to keep from a good novel.
—Gemma

I don't usually read a book after seeing the movie, but there were a few memorable lines in the movie that I was hoping originated in the book. An interesting story about the choices you make in your daily life, combating the terror of normality that hits once you have become an adult, and the consequences of both."What was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another? Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they'd actually made some sort of choice."
—Jenny (Reading Envy)

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