![]() ![]() Like Miss Emily, the teen-age Lisbon girls are forbidden to date or fraternize with boys by a possessive parent, in their case a rigidly Roman Catholic mother. The reader becomes even more interested in why this "we" persists in its fascination with the five Lisbon sisters of suburban Grosse Pointe, Mich., than in why each of the girls "took her turn at suicide." And, as in Faulkner's tale, that narrator serves both as a device for emphasizing the girls' isolation and finally as the novel's true protagonist. Eugenides is not only writing about tragically repressed young girls but also using a collective narrator to tell their story. ![]() ![]() It seems fitting to mention "A Rose for Emily" by way of introducing Jeffrey Eugenides's first novel, "The Virgin Suicides," because Mr. Typically, he never mentioned the story's most complex feature: a collective narrator pieces together the ghoulish story of proud, love-famished Miss Emily, isolated in her crumbling antebellum mansion, who eventually murders her Yankee lover and sleeps for a generation beside his moldering corpse. WHEN a bewildered student asked him to explain his famous short story "A Rose for Emily," William Faulkner declared that he was simply writing about a "young girl with a young girl's normal aspirations to find love" who was "repressed" by her selfish father, with tragic results. THE VIRGIN SUICIDES By Jeffrey Eugenides. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() ![]() Terry from the Say Cheese and Die books is pretty likable, and I especially like how he helps Greg and Shari out in the sequel. These include Eddie in A Night in Terror Tower, Terri in Ghost Beach, Josh in Welcome to Dead House and the Wald twins in Beast from the East. The best, for me, are the ones who work in tandem with the protagonists, even if some of them have their moments of obnoxiousness. These include Tara from The Cuckoo Clock of Doom (obviously), Ginny in Bad Hare Day, Mickey in The Barking Ghost and Greg and Pam in Don't Go to Sleep. They're bratty and annoying nine times out of 10, occasionally tolerable and sometimes barely factor into the plot (Mitzi in Attack of the Mutant, for example).įor me, the worst siblings are the ones who aren't just bratty and/or annoying but are straight-up cruel to the protagonists. Goosebumps siblings are an interesting breed. ![]() ![]() ![]() In case of last-minute event changes, please do check Paul's Twitter account closer to the date. ![]() W.) on Pride Sunday, Jfrom 11:30 am - 3:30 pm Paul is setting up a table with recommendations of books that appreciate difference. To Torontonians: Paul is signing his book as well as celebrating diversity (of all types) in kids' books at Indigo Bay & Bloor (55 Bloor St. You can find Paul on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and also see Orca's interview with Paul on their blog. Paul lives and bakes with his nephew, three dogs and a little grey parrot. His debut young adult novel, Cub, is part of Orca's Soundings Series: short, high-interest novels specifically for teens. Paul Coccia is a Toronto author with an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and an avid home-baker. ![]() |