Fishy tale.
I just finished reading The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd. While I enjoyed it on the whole, there are a few things that I'm having trouble reconciling.
Here's the basic plot: Jessie, estranged daughter of Nelle, receives a phone call early one morning. Some of her mother's friends inform her that her mother has cut off one of her fingers. Nelle's friends, who still live near Nelle on an island off the Carolina coast, beg Jessie to return home (where she hasn't been in a while) and care for her ailing mother. Jessie says a quick goodbye to her husband, Hugh (a psychiatrist), and heads for the island. Once there, Jessie is confounded by her mother's actions and seduced once again by the island that she used to call home. She meets a monk, Brother Thomas (yes, there is a monastery on the island - a bit of a stretch, I agree), that she feels an immediate attraction to. Brother Thomas - whose given name is Whit - tells Jessie that he was previously a lawyer, before the death of his wife and unborn child sent him hiding away from the world in the monastery. Brother Thomas, who has not yet taken his final vows, begins an affair with Jessie which changes them both indelibly. Along the way, Jessie learns more about herself, her mother and her late father.
Mmmkay, my opinion - Kidd is a fabulous descriptive writer. She has a way of catching the spirit of a place and making you feel as if you are there - what you see, what you smell, the types of food you'd eat. It's very seductive. She also has an affinity for the mystical, as is clearly seen in her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees (which I adored).
However, there were a few things that didn't gel in this book for me. I could never reconcile Jessie's infidelity to her husband, Hugh, who seemed like a nice, educated man whom she truly loved and had spent twenty years with. The two of them had a lovely daughter together, and what seemed like a happy life. Kidd tries to make Jessie's actions sympathetic to the reader by showing us how her art had played a smaller and smaller role in her life as a wife and mother, but I kept coming back to the fact that this was Jessie's CHOICE. Hugh never forbade her to create her art. She even had a home studio where she could work. She just never made the time to go up there. My final conclusion was that, if Jessie had lost a piece of herself over the years, married to Hugh, it was because she didn't keep it alive. She couldn't blame that on the guy.
Anyhoo, since Jessie had felt that her own identity was somehow "absent," she felt justified/allowed/able (?) to make the decision to cheat on her husband. (At least she asked him for a separation first, but that was cold comfort to him, as you can imagine.) Via this affair, she rediscovers herself, begins to paint again, feels more alive, etc.
Overall, I'd say this book is worth reading, but it wasn't as good as The Secret Life of Bees, in my opinion. I'd give it, say, 3 stars out of 5.
Here's the basic plot: Jessie, estranged daughter of Nelle, receives a phone call early one morning. Some of her mother's friends inform her that her mother has cut off one of her fingers. Nelle's friends, who still live near Nelle on an island off the Carolina coast, beg Jessie to return home (where she hasn't been in a while) and care for her ailing mother. Jessie says a quick goodbye to her husband, Hugh (a psychiatrist), and heads for the island. Once there, Jessie is confounded by her mother's actions and seduced once again by the island that she used to call home. She meets a monk, Brother Thomas (yes, there is a monastery on the island - a bit of a stretch, I agree), that she feels an immediate attraction to. Brother Thomas - whose given name is Whit - tells Jessie that he was previously a lawyer, before the death of his wife and unborn child sent him hiding away from the world in the monastery. Brother Thomas, who has not yet taken his final vows, begins an affair with Jessie which changes them both indelibly. Along the way, Jessie learns more about herself, her mother and her late father.
Mmmkay, my opinion - Kidd is a fabulous descriptive writer. She has a way of catching the spirit of a place and making you feel as if you are there - what you see, what you smell, the types of food you'd eat. It's very seductive. She also has an affinity for the mystical, as is clearly seen in her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees (which I adored).
However, there were a few things that didn't gel in this book for me. I could never reconcile Jessie's infidelity to her husband, Hugh, who seemed like a nice, educated man whom she truly loved and had spent twenty years with. The two of them had a lovely daughter together, and what seemed like a happy life. Kidd tries to make Jessie's actions sympathetic to the reader by showing us how her art had played a smaller and smaller role in her life as a wife and mother, but I kept coming back to the fact that this was Jessie's CHOICE. Hugh never forbade her to create her art. She even had a home studio where she could work. She just never made the time to go up there. My final conclusion was that, if Jessie had lost a piece of herself over the years, married to Hugh, it was because she didn't keep it alive. She couldn't blame that on the guy.
Anyhoo, since Jessie had felt that her own identity was somehow "absent," she felt justified/allowed/able (?) to make the decision to cheat on her husband. (At least she asked him for a separation first, but that was cold comfort to him, as you can imagine.) Via this affair, she rediscovers herself, begins to paint again, feels more alive, etc.
Overall, I'd say this book is worth reading, but it wasn't as good as The Secret Life of Bees, in my opinion. I'd give it, say, 3 stars out of 5.
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