a book presents itself
as a fundamental gift of uncertainties
Books are fundamentally gifts of radical uncertainty. The blurb on the back of the book might give you a hint of what it is about, but this does not give any indication in what direction a book might unfold, if there is even any unfoldment.
Sometimes, I buy books purely based on the author's name. A long time ago, I watched a series on TV called The Leftovers, which was based on the novel by the author Tom Perrotta. Since then, I always wanted to buy that book, but I only found two other novels by Perrotta, and in this case the novel titled The Abstinence Teacher.
Funny enough, I did not even read the blurb, I just saw the author and I bought the book.
So, this book presented itself as fundamentally uncertain to me. I just read it without even turning to the blurb. And I can now, with rather certainty, say that nothing much happened in this novel. It was such an interesting reading experience, but nothing grew or unfolded besides some minor tension that remained unresolved in the end...
But first:
WARNING: This review contains spoilers. If you want to read the novel and you do not want spoilers, do not read on.
When we read a book, we open our being to be changed. The novel is a fundamental uncertainty until you read it, and finish it. (Yes, the novel and its unfoldment might stew or ferment in your head, and you might read the novel again, but you will never read it for the first time.)
But in this novel by Perrotta, nothing much happens. We begin with the main character, the abstinence teacher who finds herself in a predicament: she is a sex-ed teacher who teaches liberal politics, but now a fundamentalist Christian society has taken over the curriculum and she needs to teach total abstinence. But beyond these very timely issues (the book was written in 2007 but it is arguably more important today than then) nothing really happens in the novel.
There is no real danger to or for the characters. There is no drama, no arguments, nothing of the effect that one might think would unfold.
The novel ends open-ended, where I expected there to be some tension, some confrontation and dramatic encounters.
The book merely unfolds in a synchronic way where the teacher needs to teach a different curriculum, she disagrees, she cannot sleep with a first love, and she wants to sleep with the ex-drug addict now Christian married man, but she never does.
We are also given the perspective of this latter character, the ex-drug addict now married Christian. But this move of giving his perspective is strange, as there is tension with his desire to also sleep with the abstinence teacher (classic movie material) but this never happens. It ends with this character symbolically leaving his wife, but we are never told if he will sleep with the teacher.
As readers, we can never be part of the writing process. And we as readers, need to keep an open mind for the story to unfold in any direction (or no direction at all). But this leaves one vulnerable, open to disappointment.
And this was what happened with this novel. It was beautifully written, adding thus to the disappointment, but I left the novel with a feeling of being robbed. I invested the time, and I wanted stuff to happen, for there to be weight to the story. But in the end, it felt like I was privileged to look into ordinary people's lives. There was no weight to the story, no consequences for acting in certain ways, and I felt frustrated as a reader of the directions the author took.
When we as readers invest so much time into reading a book, I think, we want some weight added to decisions made. For example, the abstinence teacher gets into some trouble for being resistant to the change in curriculum, but this ends in her being asked to teach another module. We as the readers are never taken into this weighty situation, we are never allowed to go along with the abstinence teacher's feelings.
The story ends with no real weight, and it feels like the "live stream merely ended" on a TV series.
I guess not all readers demand such weighty topics and books. That is why some authors win the Nobel Prize and not others. This was a quick read with no real commitment.
But it could have been so much more, so many unresolved tension still remains. And we were not allowed to feel with the characters.
In the end, we did not write the book, so we cannot ask of it to be something it was not.
***
I hope that you are reading some heavy classics with the easy reads.
For now, happy reading and keep well.
All of the musings and writings are my own. The opinions are also my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.