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A review by thelizabeth
So Big by Edna Ferber
3.0
I guess I should admit that I was hoping this book would feel ahead of its time. It sounds so much like it will be: a woman becomes independent, successful, and respected (!) in a man's job, isn't super involved in romance, and critiques the lifestyle of capitalists. However, to read it, it falls very much into the historical middle ground: being an enlightened story for its period, but disappearing as such once its audience is changed by real-world progress (many) decades later.
I think about this problem a lot, and never quite know what to feel about it. Does the author's hard work have less value if it is still at some fault? It might not be fair, but if I'm honest, it really does disappoint me.
Essentially, it works all right as a novel and a light discussion of beliefs. But I think my feelings would have improved a lot if the reading itself had been more rewarding. For all of the character's appreciation of beauty, Ferber's writing is not very beautiful. It seems deeply unpoetic and proclamatory to me, without a lot of nuance to bite into. These things simply aren't my favorite, but there's also something just kind of generally loopy here that doesn't feel structurally sound. Ferber's transitions are all sort of confused and unclear. And there's a not insignificant amount of straight repetition -- sometimes of entire scenes or paragraphs -- that I just can't figure out. It doesn't feel like intentional style.
So, it's ok that it's old-fashioned, but I kept expecting something subversive to happen anyway. That just isn't what you get here, of course. I did like the hints that I thought I was following -- Selina's oddly intense relationship with a 12-year-old boy, or Dirk's semi-adulterous friendship that I was hoping would get all Brideshead. It did its duty, but it doesn't engender a lot of jaw-drop awesomeness.
The structure also bothered me when I didn't really know where to land my emotions. Selina's emotional struggles are straightforward enough, but I kept having this feeling that she wasn't really the point. Her son Dirk is the point. He's not the main character in page length, but the point of Selina's time is to frame his time. And he has almost no feeling to carry us. I didn't like his time in the book very much.
I think Dirk is intended to bring the reader toward the soullessness of capitalism, as he falls from the brave and true working class into the artificiality of wealth. It's a pretty straightforward morality swing. Selina is an easy heroine to like because she's very like other heroines: she strives for beauty amongst people who just don't understand it, and she profits from hard work, is kind to people, and appreciates the little things in life. What's not to like? So, the way she works as a foil to her adult son is pretty obvious, and not very intricately inspiring. If Dirk were more complexly built, it definitely would be. But he is a just pretty solid hunk of whatever the author says he is.
Ultimately this was the great weakness of the writing for me -- character traits are immensely broad and singular throughout. Nothing to do about it. There was often contradiction as well, and it made the characters crumble more than they already would if you thought about them for ten minutes. For instance, we're told that Dirk is "quick to sympathy," but quite honestly this is never ever true of him (including in that same scene). Dirk is a jerk. He is a jerk as a kid and he is a jerk as a man. He seems to mean well, but is selfish and shortsighted and unengaged. That's partly the point, I know -- Selina's tragedy is having a son who doesn't know what beauty is. But y'know. It made any step he took mean less to me, and it made the ending mean less.
(Instead, I was mostly upset that right on the very last page, Ferber got some racist dialogue in. It's hard to read around, at a moment like that. That is pretty much a wash.)
However, I'm being tough here. It didn't make me mad, as much as a book I really dislike would. There's a lot to appreciate, as it's one of those books that's a little disjointed because it holds a lot of differing things inside it. And one thing of immense value is the sure existence of details that wouldn't be there if it hadn't been written when it was. Almost anyone can catch details at a later date, but not necessarily what was really thought of them, how they really were incorporated with life. Like Selina's war with the heating drum in her room. Or Dirk and Selina's discussions of architecture. (I very much liked when she said she thought that being an architect was the next best thing to being a playwright -- seeing your work enacted.) Also, I frankly loved it when Selina fell in love, and was simply swept away with thoughts about his hands.
It's also not nothing that Edna Ferber used to be immensely famous, a lifelong literary celebrity, and today every bookish person I know (and myself!) did not know her name. (Though many of her famous titles persist.) That alone is worthy of discussion, and of course, reading.
Anyway. I was first interested in this book because of a post by Kelly Hogan, and I do recommend her advice re. rye bread and cabbages.
I think about this problem a lot, and never quite know what to feel about it. Does the author's hard work have less value if it is still at some fault? It might not be fair, but if I'm honest, it really does disappoint me.
Essentially, it works all right as a novel and a light discussion of beliefs. But I think my feelings would have improved a lot if the reading itself had been more rewarding. For all of the character's appreciation of beauty, Ferber's writing is not very beautiful. It seems deeply unpoetic and proclamatory to me, without a lot of nuance to bite into. These things simply aren't my favorite, but there's also something just kind of generally loopy here that doesn't feel structurally sound. Ferber's transitions are all sort of confused and unclear. And there's a not insignificant amount of straight repetition -- sometimes of entire scenes or paragraphs -- that I just can't figure out. It doesn't feel like intentional style.
So, it's ok that it's old-fashioned, but I kept expecting something subversive to happen anyway. That just isn't what you get here, of course. I did like the hints that I thought I was following -- Selina's oddly intense relationship with a 12-year-old boy, or Dirk's semi-adulterous friendship that I was hoping would get all Brideshead. It did its duty, but it doesn't engender a lot of jaw-drop awesomeness.
The structure also bothered me when I didn't really know where to land my emotions. Selina's emotional struggles are straightforward enough, but I kept having this feeling that she wasn't really the point. Her son Dirk is the point. He's not the main character in page length, but the point of Selina's time is to frame his time. And he has almost no feeling to carry us. I didn't like his time in the book very much.
I think Dirk is intended to bring the reader toward the soullessness of capitalism, as he falls from the brave and true working class into the artificiality of wealth. It's a pretty straightforward morality swing. Selina is an easy heroine to like because she's very like other heroines: she strives for beauty amongst people who just don't understand it, and she profits from hard work, is kind to people, and appreciates the little things in life. What's not to like? So, the way she works as a foil to her adult son is pretty obvious, and not very intricately inspiring. If Dirk were more complexly built, it definitely would be. But he is a just pretty solid hunk of whatever the author says he is.
Ultimately this was the great weakness of the writing for me -- character traits are immensely broad and singular throughout. Nothing to do about it. There was often contradiction as well, and it made the characters crumble more than they already would if you thought about them for ten minutes. For instance, we're told that Dirk is "quick to sympathy," but quite honestly this is never ever true of him (including in that same scene). Dirk is a jerk. He is a jerk as a kid and he is a jerk as a man. He seems to mean well, but is selfish and shortsighted and unengaged. That's partly the point, I know -- Selina's tragedy is having a son who doesn't know what beauty is. But y'know. It made any step he took mean less to me, and it made the ending mean less.
(Instead, I was mostly upset that right on the very last page, Ferber got some racist dialogue in. It's hard to read around, at a moment like that. That is pretty much a wash.)
However, I'm being tough here. It didn't make me mad, as much as a book I really dislike would. There's a lot to appreciate, as it's one of those books that's a little disjointed because it holds a lot of differing things inside it. And one thing of immense value is the sure existence of details that wouldn't be there if it hadn't been written when it was. Almost anyone can catch details at a later date, but not necessarily what was really thought of them, how they really were incorporated with life. Like Selina's war with the heating drum in her room. Or Dirk and Selina's discussions of architecture. (I very much liked when she said she thought that being an architect was the next best thing to being a playwright -- seeing your work enacted.) Also, I frankly loved it when Selina fell in love, and was simply swept away with thoughts about his hands.
It's also not nothing that Edna Ferber used to be immensely famous, a lifelong literary celebrity, and today every bookish person I know (and myself!) did not know her name. (Though many of her famous titles persist.) That alone is worthy of discussion, and of course, reading.
Anyway. I was first interested in this book because of a post by Kelly Hogan, and I do recommend her advice re. rye bread and cabbages.