Commonwealth: A Novel

I admit, I put this horrific excuse for literature down rather quickly, after I had been almost terminally bored by the pedestrian natterings about witless people in an artificially described party, complete with a tipsy priest being hit on by a potentially predatory young woman. If I had an assignment to write 5000 words that were totally without meaning, I doubt I could have done better than this. I doubt anyone could have done better than this. Or maybe this useless story just uses a 1970s ethos to expound upon the even more insensate interactions between people in the digital age. Either way, it succeeds in being a complete waste of time. It is possible, I suppose, that at some point, something interesting appears, something that holds one's attention somewhat better than the very soporific scenes that constitute the beginning of the book. Anything is possible. But who wants to waste one's life trying to find out, and paying for the privilege. Just yuck.

Is there a word for the opposite of synergy? A state where the whole is so much LESS than the sum of parts? If there is, then I'd have to apply it to Commonwealth. I decided to read this after hearing Ann Patchett interviewed on the radio. I have a copy of Bel Canto 'somewhere' but couldn't find it, so thought I'd start with this. The weird thing is that at any point in the book I felt fairly engaged with what was going on, but once I reached the end and looked back, it all seemed horribly disjointed. The characters are not very developed - there are perhaps a few too many - and sometimes, such as with the wife who was cheated on early in the book, it's only very near the end that we get to know anything about her at all. When you do, she's lovely and the trip to Switzerland is very enjoyable, but just as you think you've met somebody new....... well let's just say she doesn't get much more attention. Plot wise, the leaps in time are distracting. One minute a girl is a babe in arms, the next she's nursing her elderly father, then she's a 20-something law school drop-out working in a bar, then the lover to an author, then back to being a carer again before bouncing back to taking her step-kids to meet some or other parent or step-parent or......confusing stuff. The promise of the cover blurb is a mystery inappropriately revealed - a personal story confided and then spread around via a novel that reveals things the protagonists didn't know. I expected some great scandal or horror but instead the book just dances around the death of a young man without ever really explaining why it's such a devastating dereliction of family loyalty to have revealed what happened. Much is hinted at, much is promised, and at times the prose is beautiful. But like a buffet that leaves you simultaneously stuffed and hungry, it doesn't satisfy. It's also SO much like a second rate Anne Tyler novel that I kept thinking how much I wished SHE had written it instead. I'll still keep hunting for my copy of Bel Canto, but that will be make or break for me with Ann Patchett.

When Ann Patchett’s posts on Musing became spaced months and months apart, I knew she was up to something. It’s hardly worth being bummed about infrequent blog posts from your favorite author when you suspect that the woman has locked herself in her house to write something much bigger and much better than a blog post. Finally, last spring, it was announced- Commonwealth by Ann Patchett would be on sale September 13, 2016! It’s been 6 days since its release and I’ve already read it twice- it’s that good! Typically the first novel an author writes is the most autobiographical; instead, Ann’s first novel was about a home for unwed mothers. I saw an interview during which Ann said she wanted to go back and write an autobiographical novel, now that she was in her 50s, and that is exactly what she did. "None of it happened and all of it’s true." -Jeanne Ray The book starts out at a baptism party for a baby in which an unwanted guest brings gin, things get crazy, and there is a kiss between two people who should not be kissing. The story follows the baby from her baptism party until she is 52 moving seamlessly throughout time delving into the world of divorce, blending families and grown children of divorced parents. Other reviews have described the movement of time in the novel as “fluid” which is, in fact, the best way to describe the masterpiece Ann Patchett has created. Ann’s is just one of many novels that jump back and forth in time however the passage of time is just that in other books- jumpy. I’ve not read another book that managed time quite so well and it was, indeed, fluid and made the novel that much more beautiful. There are glimpses into lives at various points along the way and the reader is left to fill in the missing years on their own- a task that is quite enjoyable and effortless. "She had needed to keep something for herself.' Another aspect that I enjoyed was the presence of books throughout the novel. I’ve always loved books about books and while this was not one of those novels, there were countless books name dropped throughout the novel. Books were often used to assist the various characters during difficult times. There is nothing more comforting than a good book read at the right time and this message was made quite clear. "Life, Teresa knew by now, was a series of losses. It was other thing too, better things, but the losses were as solid and dependable as the earth itself." Finally, I loved that this book talked about places familiar to me. Part of it took place in Chicago and Evanston, both places I’ve resided in while just starting out as a special education teacher. I cracked up as I read about where I currently live described as “the parts that aren’t Chicago” which is a common view of Illinois- Chicago and cornfields. I imagine Ann is somewhat familiar ...

Ann Pachet's novel "Commonwealth" is a somber reminder of how poor choices made by adults affect their children for the rest of their lives. Bert Cousins, a lawyer with three children (and one on the way) did not relish what should have been the joys of fatherhood. He disliked the noise, the responsibility, and the demands on his own time, delegating all of that to his stay-at-home wife Teresa. Bert went in to the office on the weekends, not only to catch up on work, but to escape the hubbub of the house with three small children. One fateful Sunday, he showed up uninvited to a christening party of a family he didn't really know, just to have an excuse to leave his own house. During the course of a party, involving lots of gin and orange juice, lust sets in and Bert starts kissing, of all people, Beverly Keating, who is the mother of the baby that the christening party is for. Bert would shortly thereafter leave his wife Teresa, and Beverly would leave her husband Fix Keating, and move from California to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Beverly's two children, Caroline and Franny, lived with their mother year round, visiting their beloved cop-Dad dad Fix for only two weeks in the summer. Bert, using his lawyer skills to full advantage, was able to get visitation rights for the entire summer, so that his four children, Cal, Jeannette, Holly and Albie, were forced to spend two months in Virginia. Apparently, Bert just had to "win," because once the kids were in Virginia for the summer, he paid no more attention to them than he had when they lived in California. If anything, the neglect escalated, and stepmother Beverly had no inclination to take up the slack, as Bert's first wife Teresa had done. Small and great tragedies ensue. The book is told from alternate viewpoints in different chapters. Readers get the story over at least five decades from Fix, Bert, Teresa, Jeanette, Albie, Holly,and Franny. Because a lot of the story is revealed from the characters' reminiscing about the past, it is not chronological, and therefore at times hard to follow, but I think that actually enhanced the experience of reading the book. The technique of revealing the plot in different characters' memories had me wondering, "What did actually happen on the fateful day in Virginia?' I wasn't sure until nearly the end of the book. The guilt of the horrific incident haunted five of the six children for the rest of their lives. At one point the author states that the only thing the six children had in common was the absolute hatred of their parents. The kids were teenagers then, and they grew out of it, but it is hard to imagine a sadder backdrop for growing up than to be united in hatred of parents. Not surprisingly, the children had adjustment and relationship issues into adulthood. One of the most significant developments was that bartender Franny en...

quick read. The characters were all so real, so relatable. I miss them already. I am looking forward to reading more from Ann Patchett.