*Don't read this til you've finished the book!
Ok, I'm not saying this to go straight to the flaws... although it looks that way. I'm just going to say that Viviana's story was a little off. Bipolar? Come on. I wonder if the author knows anything about being bipolar. Bipolar symptoms don't just pop up all of a sudden out of nowhere. There's usually gradual signs of it. And her manic state lasted for months which is very unrealistic. They usually last only a couple of days. I don't know. I just think that if the author wanted to use this as the excuse for Viviana leaving, she should have done more research.
I'm not going to say anything else just in case Rachel decides to peek. Well, except that I really really loved this book and it's going amongst my favorites. Great choice Heidi!
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Comment Part One...
ReplyDeleteKay, I've taken a really long time to reply to this! After you posted this, I reflected on this part of the story from time to time but, obviously, didn't write anything--I think maybe I was delaying until Rach finished the book?
In any case, I'm far from an expert on bipolar disorder but it does seem that perhaps Vivianna's situation was portrayed somewhat inaccurately. Perhaps over-dramatized for the sake of the story? I don't know. In particular, as you mentioned, being manic for months seemed a bit off. (The stuff with buying excessive numbers of towels etc. actually struck me as kinda right.)
But it definitely seems like living alone with a bipolar parent--whose condition is undiagnosed, unrecognized, and untreated--would feel to a child like a precarious situation, and the story certainly conveys precariousness. In reading this book, THAT aspect--the awful precariousness--really hit home. I felt really angry on Claire's behalf (probably for personal reasons). As I finished the final chapters, I remember feeling two emotions, one really positive, one really negative...
The first feeling was a kind of joy that love can happen unexpectedly. I just loved the idea of these strangers all landing in each other's paths, and love happening. Claire needing people and people showing up. Cornelia loving Claire as her own daughter. I don't know, it just struck me as lovely, lovely, lovely that people could love non-family as deeply as family. And for no reason! Just happenstance.
But I also felt like everything ended up much better for Cornelia than for Claire. I felt concern for Claire living alone with her mom... I remember, in the text, there being something about the mother-child relationship being irreplaceable, and the idea that Claire needed to work things out with her mom. Maybe so. In a way, that made a lot of intuitive sense to me. But, I just hated that Claire ended up in the sole care of a person who'd ABANDONED HER!
It's so hard being helplessly dependent on someone who's not truly able to manage their own self, who's not all that functional in many ways. Someone who's not aware of how they impacts others. I guess I just outright really personalized this.
But in the end, you know--I was just sad and angry for Claire and myself. I just saw a connection between Vivianna and my parent, who was more-or-less destroyed by the illness and can't be trusted to parent normally. I resent that my parent was ruined by it. But I feel so sad, too, for that parent. But then I also resent the weirdness of the whole situation, and am only recently really recognizing that things I took to be normal, growing up, really weren't. It would have been so helpful to have that knowledge when I was young! Instead of being semi-abandoned to a precarious situation, like Claire!
(Maybe the fact that I just started facing my ill parent issues in therapy is really obvious? Resentment that I never allowed myself to feel finally coming to the fore?)
I love that love walked in, and that love of a child changed Cornelia's life. I wish the effects of brokenness and illness could walk out as easily as Martin walked out on his responsibilities to his child!...
Comment Part Two...
ReplyDeleteRach mentioned noticing unrealistic things about this novel, and, that didn't bother me. I sometimes like reading fairytales, even if written in the guise of realism. Just, the way things ended up didn't feel like a truly Happy Ending for Claire. I wanted an unlikely, perfect ending for her, like her heroines receive in the books Claire adores. Maybe the author intended a more perfect ending; I didn't quite feel it.
Hopefully this made sense. I'm glad you posted this! Interesting to contemplate, even if I took it in a highly personalized direction.
Oh, and on a happier note--I am really relieved I grew up with TWO parents. And that my ill parent was relatively okay when I was young. And that my other family member affected by this illness has so many more resources at their disposal than my parent--so many more options and such a better prognosis. There's a happy ending of a sort, in that--that my generation is so much better off than previous generations of my family--less severe symptoms, and more support, more treatment options.
This is definitely where the book hit me most deeply!
Just to explain--I wrote all of the above as one comment but the computer wouldn't accept its long length. I divided it arbitrarily. It's meant to be one meandering thought... Hopefully not too meandery.
ReplyDelete--H.