What do You think about The Member Of The Wedding (2004)?
Yes, a gem! Why I found it amazing and thus worth five stars is explained below in the partial review.I will only add here a bit about the book's setting: Georgia, 1944-45. You see the world through the eyes of 12 year old Frankie, or F. Jasmine Addams. SHE, not I, will explain to you why she appropriated this name. Not only do you see the emotional turmoil of a preteen but you also get the racial tensions in the South and the tension created by the War. We know it is 1944 from the simple line that "Patton is driving the Germans out of France". One line and so much is said. No long discourses on history.Do you remember when you were caught between being a child and an adult and belonging nowhere? Alone....and the world is a scary place.The narration is fantastic; it is read slowly, with feeling, and it is easy to follow. Wonderful Southern dialect.***********************************After part two of three OR after three fourths of a 6 hour audiobook: Lend me your ear for a moment please. I consider myself pretty hard to please. For this reason I tend to prefer non-fiction because then I tell myself I will at least learn something if the writing disappoints, if the story fails. But the most stupendous books are those of fiction where the writers create a marvelous gem all from NOTHING. They create a tale from assorted words and how they string them together, their imagination and their ability to capture human emotions that we all share. So when I run into astoundingly beautiful writing, and by that I do not mean "pretty" but rather writing that speaks to us all, that has the ability to to pull us out of our own existence and allows us to share common experiences and emotions, now that is something else. THAT is what Carson McCullers does in this book. Fantastic writing. Do you remember your preteens, when you didn't feel comfortable in your own skin, when the whole world changed over night and all was frightening? Physical changes and emotional changes that throw you off balance. Do you really remember that period in your life? Here it is again captured in writing. Don't read this. Listen to it narrated by Susan Sarandon. Stunning performance. Don't miss this book. Yep, I have read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. This is even better!
—Chrissie
Carson McCuller's The Member of the Wedding is my unrequited love story in my stable of hos: those lyrically intimate classical works I've read that stayed with me because they were confiders of sorts, someones I could go to and find some sort of explanation inside, a relating that was more than good enough of itself. (And I get my belt when they don't put out for me.) (I don't wanna say cathartic because this book isn't like that. It's often uncomfortably painful in the don't-wanna-be-reminded-of-that-wasn't-I-reading-to-forget-that-in-the-first-place way.) I collected them, books like Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, and held them in reserve when it got to be too much. A lot of my frames of reference in experience are heavily tied into these stories. Yeah, I was angsty at times (coughs). I'm really still doing that confusion thing (ahem), and what I read tomorrow could end up sticking with me for the rest of my days. Still, I've yet to read anything else that quite stands out to me as much when I think about unrequited love. Not the love you can sustain on your own, but the emptiness inside that needs another half to become whole. Frankie is worried about herself because there's that part missing she doesn't even know how to fill. Young Frankie is the girl throwing all of her hopes onto one thing, although the chance of it working out well are none (why would her brother and his new wife take her with them after their wedding? Doesn't she know only babies and cute puppies get adopted? Doesn't matter, it could stand in for any impossible dream). I could relate to that feeling of constantly doing the wrong thing, constantly looking in the wrong places. I can't forget about her desperation. It wasn't do what you gotta do bravery, but last chances sickness. I love Carson McCullers for capturing so well that raw feeling of clinging to make believe. The especially hard times when the weight of it becomes too much. The moments in life when the usual getting by is no longer enough... I read this for the first time when I was fourteen and then again in 2007. Both times it provoked strong feelings in me.P.s. I heart Bernice. I'd have loved to have had those kitchen conversations with her. Because of her this is not a useless feel-bad book but a helps over the rough times book. Like a great conversation when all you'd had was droning voices.
—Mariel
Frankie Addams is one of those rare fictional characters who has entered my soul and wedged her way into a little corner where she will remain forever. The dialog in this small novel rings so true I can hear it still. It is no small feat to get inside the head of a 12 year old girl and let us feel the fear and confusion on the cusp of entering into the strange world of adulthood. We are also allowed into the head of Berenice, the black housekeeper who is Frankie's confidant and champion, and in a lesser way, into the loneliness of her widowed father. The novel takes place over 3 days in August before her brother's wedding. Most of it takes place in the kitchen, with Frankie ranting about her life and making plans to escape. It never occurs to her that her brother and new wife might not want her to go along on their honeymoon........Frankie grows up a lot in 3 days, and we get to accompany her on her journey of discovering things about herself. And somehow we know that she'll be okay. Because underneath it all, she's smart and brave and loving and resilient. Because that's what it takes.
—Diane Barnes
