The Member of the Wedding
by Carson McCullers
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carson McCullersEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-08-13
ISBN: 0618492399
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Mariner Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780618492398
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Member of the Wedding
Book Review: The Member of the Wedding: a Square Peg in a Round, Round World
Summary: 5 Stars
Whereas she wrote her first two novels with relative ease, I am not surprised Carson McCullers struggled for five years on this spare novel. In my review of her first novel, "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," I mentioned my amazement that a first time novelist, at such a young age, displayed such skill and world experience beyond her years to engage the reader in story about a deaf mute and his "disciples." When one reads an author's later effort, however, he runs the risk of disappointment because of the high expectations he brings to the second work: sometimes a second effort attempts to ride the coattails of the first but stumbles. This is not at all the case with "The Member of the Wedding." I was pleased to find a more mature McCullers at work here; she relaxes her grip a bit on the stark declarative sentence and produces a narrative with lyrical quality ("The air was soft gray, and the arbor and trees were slowly darkening. It was the hour when the sparrows gathered and whirled above the rooftops of the town, and when in the darkened elms along the street there was the August sound of cicadas.") Not only has her style matured, but her main characters (Frankie, Berenice, and John Henry West)are more mature portrayals, as well: their personalities drawn in greater depth and complexity than those in her seminal work.
"The Member of the Wedding" is the story of a young girl, a "tween," growing up in a nondescript southern town during the war years (WWII). Twelve-year old Frankie Addams desperately wants to belong to something, to someone, to a world she believes has pretty much passed her by and offers nothing. She is emotionally muddled by her circumstances, which she believes almost insufferable. When her brother Jarvis, years her senior, is engaged to be married, Frankie creates a fantasy which she believes will be a panacea for her emotional doldrums, a chance to belong, be a member of something. Jarvis's wedding will be her escape; she fervently believes Jarvis and bride will include her in their lives, become the "we of me," and whisk her off with them on their honeymoon where she will be reborn, a new person in a world she deserves and has longed for. And though we know her plans are bizarre, at the same time we grieve for her naivete (third man out? A twelve-year old riding shotgun on a brother's honeymoon?): we have all been Frankie in varying degrees during those perplexing adolescent years.
McCullers frames her novel in three parts. Each section is the emotional landscape of young Frankie at that point in the story. The device of using name changes to represent different phases of a character's life is certainly not unique, but it works well in "The Member of the Wedding." A pouty, petulant twelve-year old Frankie Addams emerges as F. Jasmine (the "old Frankie") in part two, and when her wounds heal from her blasted hopes, she becomes Frances Addams, aspiring poet or radar guru and "intimate" friend to one Mary Littlejohn. And while there are no surprises concerning the outcome of F. Jasmine's grand scheme, (one page, maybe two for a twelve-year old's disillusionment and dashed dream), McCullers creates considerable tension in the dangerous tryst between an unworldly young girl and a drunken soldier and even more when an emotionally fragile F. Jasmine steals her papa's pistol and runs away from home.
The character of Frankie Addams, I believe, is in large part the author herself, autobiographical to a much greater degree than her female protagonist Mick Kelly in "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." But then one only has to read Virginia Spenser Carr's biography of McCullers, "The Lonely Hunter" to learn of her convoluted, psycho-neurotic character to see flashes of young Frankie. And even at her death at the age of fifty, Carson was unable to shed many of her adolescent ways. But had she done so, there would hardly have been the fanciful young intruder of "The Member of the Wedding" would there?
Summary of The Member of the Wedding
The novel that became an award-winning play and a major motion picture and that has charmed generations of readers, Carson McCullers?s classic The Member of the Wedding is now available in small- format trade paperback for the ?rst time. Here is the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly, hopelessly bored with life until she hears about her older brother?s wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice, and her six-year-old male cousin — not to mention her own unbridled imagination — Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go, uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be the member of something larger, more accepting than herself. “A marvelous study of the agony of adolescence? (Detroit Free Press), The Member of the Wedding showcases Carson McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and lasting best.
Twelve-year-old Frankie Adams, longing at once for escape and belonging, takes her role as "member of the wedding" to mean that when her older brother marries she will join the happy couple in their new life together. But Frankie is unlucky in love; her mother is dead, and Frankie narrowly escapes being raped by a drunken soldier during a farewell tour of the town. Worst of all, "member of the wedding" doesn't mean what she thinks. A gorgeous, brief coming-of-age novel.
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