Acton reviewed The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Review of 'The Virgin Suicides' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
This novel was certainly engrossing. I saw the movie a long time ago, and agree with beckerbuns that I'd like to see it again, now. Eugenides is a fantastic writer, and this story certainly succeeded in being haunting and surreal. I admired the elm tree metaphor; this sad family was diseased and dying. The way the entire neighborhood quietly knew this, and kept their distance, added to the surreal nature of the plot--surely, in real life, four girls absent from school for such a long period of time (among other things) would result in some sort of intervention. Or, I like to think so...I liked the narration, by a handful of sensitive boys who struggled to understand the unknowable, because it rang true to me--try as they might to scope out what was going on in that house, they never penetrated the nature of the despair and isolation, and they …
This novel was certainly engrossing. I saw the movie a long time ago, and agree with beckerbuns that I'd like to see it again, now. Eugenides is a fantastic writer, and this story certainly succeeded in being haunting and surreal. I admired the elm tree metaphor; this sad family was diseased and dying. The way the entire neighborhood quietly knew this, and kept their distance, added to the surreal nature of the plot--surely, in real life, four girls absent from school for such a long period of time (among other things) would result in some sort of intervention. Or, I like to think so...I liked the narration, by a handful of sensitive boys who struggled to understand the unknowable, because it rang true to me--try as they might to scope out what was going on in that house, they never penetrated the nature of the despair and isolation, and they were forever affected by it. Which, I suppose, circles 'round again to the elm tree metaphor.
