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A review by karieh13
Private Life by Jane Smiley
3.0
“Private Life” is a rather muted story, set in a time frame that was anything but quiet. The story begins in 1883 and continues through 1942 – through the major wars and events of the United States. The muffled sense comes from the main character, Margaret, who lives through these events but is rarely a part of them.
“Margaret listened and made her own sympathetic sighs, but her memories of her father were dim, and entirely overlaid by the cacophony of subsequent events.”
Most of Margaret’s life is overlaid by the lives of others. She seems to be an observer of her life rather than an active participant. But the story is not lessened by this, because she, in her way, is a keen observer, although not always of that which might have the greatest impact on her.
“She didn’t have too much trouble, either, with Newton’s ideas about gravitation or his three laws of motion, except for the third one. Her life experience seemed to indicate that if you weren’t careful, often the reaction was stronger than the original action, not equal to it. Against Mr. Newton’s ‘equal and opposite reaction’, she suggested ‘sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.’”
Margaret’s reactions - to life, death, war, natural disaster – provide excellent detail but very little emotion. The reader sees very well what is happening around her as she moves from child, to woman, from her family into marriage…as she and the world move into the twentieth century. We see it, but we don’t feel what she feels. Until later in her life, when she starts to look back at all that has changed, and how little she has changed.
All throughout the book, there was a conflict between the passage of time and the reluctance for many of the main characters to acknowledge it. Not in regards to their age or their lives, but as it related to the world. From the late 1880’s to World War II – the world changed in so many ways that it seems impossible to count them all. And yet – the manners, the actions, the lives of Margaret and her husband Andrew, alter very little.
“And this feeling evolved into a more frightening one – she was herself, old, sixty-two, and her mind was so full of everything that she had seen and done and imagined that she didn’t know was to make of any of it, how to think, what to do, how to live.”
Margaret’s story is an interesting one…in the way most “everyman – caught up in the middle of extraordinary events” stories are. Hers are a set of eyes that gave me a fresh view into a fascinating part of our nation’s history. At the end of the book, I felt as if I still didn’t know very much about her, but did know a great deal about the characters around her. Which might have been true for Margaret herself.
“I do, said Margaret, I do remember it now that I’ve dared to think about it. There are so many things that I should have dared before this.”
“Margaret listened and made her own sympathetic sighs, but her memories of her father were dim, and entirely overlaid by the cacophony of subsequent events.”
Most of Margaret’s life is overlaid by the lives of others. She seems to be an observer of her life rather than an active participant. But the story is not lessened by this, because she, in her way, is a keen observer, although not always of that which might have the greatest impact on her.
“She didn’t have too much trouble, either, with Newton’s ideas about gravitation or his three laws of motion, except for the third one. Her life experience seemed to indicate that if you weren’t careful, often the reaction was stronger than the original action, not equal to it. Against Mr. Newton’s ‘equal and opposite reaction’, she suggested ‘sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.’”
Margaret’s reactions - to life, death, war, natural disaster – provide excellent detail but very little emotion. The reader sees very well what is happening around her as she moves from child, to woman, from her family into marriage…as she and the world move into the twentieth century. We see it, but we don’t feel what she feels. Until later in her life, when she starts to look back at all that has changed, and how little she has changed.
All throughout the book, there was a conflict between the passage of time and the reluctance for many of the main characters to acknowledge it. Not in regards to their age or their lives, but as it related to the world. From the late 1880’s to World War II – the world changed in so many ways that it seems impossible to count them all. And yet – the manners, the actions, the lives of Margaret and her husband Andrew, alter very little.
“And this feeling evolved into a more frightening one – she was herself, old, sixty-two, and her mind was so full of everything that she had seen and done and imagined that she didn’t know was to make of any of it, how to think, what to do, how to live.”
Margaret’s story is an interesting one…in the way most “everyman – caught up in the middle of extraordinary events” stories are. Hers are a set of eyes that gave me a fresh view into a fascinating part of our nation’s history. At the end of the book, I felt as if I still didn’t know very much about her, but did know a great deal about the characters around her. Which might have been true for Margaret herself.
“I do, said Margaret, I do remember it now that I’ve dared to think about it. There are so many things that I should have dared before this.”