Reviews

At Paradise Gate by Jane Smiley

mepresley's review

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A true novel of character, At Paradise Gate gives us the perspective of 72-year-old Anna.  Anna is a fully realized, complex character. We also meet her husband, Ike; her three children, Helen, Claire, and Susanna; and her granddaughter, Christine. The entire book is set within Anna's home and takes place within a 24-hour time period. It reminded me very much of Mrs. Dalloway, with the focus on one day in the life of a woman whose existence has been defined by her role as wife and mother--on domestic tasks.
 

"[S]he also recognized that this pet fantasy of Ike's, that he had not given her what she wanted and deserved, was a sentimental and determined rearrangement of what he knew to be her character. While she enjoyed as much as anything the knitting of sweaters and the slip-covering of chairs, the redesigning of old clothes and the stashing away of tomatoes, potatoes, and squash from the garden, Ike hated it. To him, handmade was always homemade, while to her homemade was something you knew everything about, a contribution you made to your own history" (65). 

"She remembered how she came down the stairs first thing each morning, the way she glanced around the room with a smile and even, sometimes, spread her hands a little, as if embracing her domain. Surely she hadn't shouldered him into this little room? It was he who had gotten sick, he who preferred his sickness to be private. She remembered her sense of spreading out, like a person suddenly alone in a big bed, and cringed. Her pleasure, in retrospect, seemed too ready, too greedy....She thought again of that sunny moment when she stepped off the last riser, when the living room blossomed in her eye, her little knickknacks and projects set out, neat and sparking like round dew drops. Of course, Ike's things had been everywhere for years, golf clubs on the couch, tennis racket on the kitchen table, hats, sweaters, dirty socks on the steps, on the dining room table, on the floor of her room" (98). 

"He saw dinner as the food he had a right to enjoy after a hard day at work. She saw it as a theater of activity. She had persisted ridiculously, it seemed looking back, but every single time, from the first curse to the last, she had caught her breath in anger, thinking he was going to doom her to a life of meat loaf....She imagined, or remembered, her own hands. competent and fatly satisfied, measuring and leveling off, stirring, pouring" (99-100). 

"I have worked hard and been happy, thought Anna. With my hands I have made something every day. Wasn't that good? Did she have to repent because happiness came easily to her, because in the midst of anything, however perilous, a color, a shape, a harmony, or a fragrance was enough, because activity itself was enough?" (186-7). 

Whereas in Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa is putting the finishing touches on her party for the evening, in At Paradise Gate, Anna is caring for her dying husband. (Plus, a sub-plot about Christine's potential

divorce and abortion.

) Both novels are also very much turned inwards, into thought, reflection, memory. Anna recalls her childhood, especially her mother, whom she sees reflected in her oldest daughter--a certain pilgrim spirit. She thinks about her time spent on a ranch with Ike and his brother at the start of their marriage, the only close friend she ever had, the women who were sweet on Ike, the move to Iowa, her children when they were younger, Ike's anger and violence--the way it dimmed over time as he aged. Anna considers over and over again whether she is doing her duty as Ike's caretaker, turning her resentment this way and that in her mind.

You can see in this novel the seeds of Smiley's more sustained & sprawling portrait of family life in her Last Hundred Years trilogy (Some Luck, Early Warning, Golden Age). 

pidgevorg's review

3.0

So my first thought was "meh..." Then it occurred to me that it would be so much better as a play, with half of the POV character's mental rambling cut out, and the scenes and people she reminisces about drifting in and out like ghosts. The set and clothes would be minimal, and the "ghost" memories would be more elaborately dressed and detailed. And better lit. Then I imagined the stage evenly divided into his and her bedrooms, with Anna in her bedroom, mesmerized by the "ghost" scenes acted out in front of her, while her dying husband calls and calls for her next door, more and more worried... Then I thought, but what about the dog? How would you have the dog onstage? But then I realized that obviously the dog could just be noises offstage--not even dog noises, just bumps, crashes, scratching, etc, only the characters assume it's the dog. Or they can crane their necks and "see" it somewhere off to the side and yell at it, but the audience can't see it, it's just these creepy sounds on the periphery.
So anyway, I totally psyched myself up for this minimalist/surrealist/spooky-awesome play. And then I came down to earth and had to read 100 more pages of the actual book. Which is none of the above. Sigh. Why do I do this to myself? I don't even watch theater... But you know what, I'll just pretend like this was all Jane Smiley's intention all along. To inspire an average novel-reading pleb like me to greater appreciation of theater...

dommdy's review

4.0

I’m in my 60s and interested in reading about older people and their reflections on life and death. This novel’s themes fit perfectly for my current pursuit.