![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenluaI picked this book up on an impulse, in part due to a pull quote from the WaPo review: "like Marilynne Robinson with a light vinaigrette." Y'all may recall I lost my mind over Gilead a few months ago. I was hankering for "that, but in a different flavor."
As it turns out: this book is not that at all. Nothing here rivals the depth of what Robinson's trying to wrestle with or Robinson's lyricism, sorry.
But! it's still a plenty fun book, with some charm and some interesting things to say.
The setup promises a sort of church-committee-flavored version of Parks and Recreation. Dana's been a committed member of her church for over twenty years, but lately, she's felt herself drifting—the handbell choir is annoying; she finds some of the new minister's liturgical tics grating; she's been finding reasons to skip Sundays. But when she hears the current minister is planning to leave, and she's invited to apply for the search committee to find a new one, she thinks maybe this is just the thing to renew her faith, and joins the search with gusto.
The resulting committee is a charmingly mixed lot. There's Riley, the frazzled science postdoc in a complicated polyamorous relationship that's clearly falling apart. There's Belinda, the venerable longtime church secretary who knows all the dirt on everyone and the skeletons in all the closets. There's Sam, who's there because he married into the family whose $$$$ donations singlehandedly fund the minister's salary. There's Jennie, the tattooed twentysomething firebrand who's SICK of all these old white middle-aged guys and is ready to TAKE CHARGE. And there's Curtis, the charmingly clueless gay guy who only started attending this church three months ago when his old Evangelical Christian congregation was really fucking mean to him over the whole "being a gay guy" thing—
Oh, right, did I mention that the church in question here is Unitarian Universalist?
Which was not what I was expecting! but, man, what a fun choice of setting.
See: I went to a Unitarian Universalist church once, in my earliest teens, when I was on a mission to visit every house of worship in my hometown at least once. The worship service was like nothing I'd ever been to before, or since. The eldest son of the town's scary-sharp homeschooled family opened the service with a performance of Chopin that made me seethe with jealousy because his technique was so superior to my own (we all knew this family because they were the only atheist homeschoolers anyone in town had ever heard of, which gave them a faint aura of mystique and menace amongst the teeming masses of Southern Baptists and Church of Christers around them), and then his hippie mom gave a sermon on How To Dodge The Draft, based on choice factoids she'd picked up during her Vietnam-era student protest days at UW-Milwaukee. (She was giving this sermon during the Bush years; she was anxious that the draft might be reinstated, and expanded to include women.) Then, after the sermon, the floor opened for free and open discussion (a discussion!!! after a sermon!!! I never!!!!), and one Vietnam War vet stood up to say he hated everything the lady had just said and he'd been proud to serve his country, and then a different Vietnam War vet stood up saying actually that whole war was dumb as hell and more people should've bowed out, and a kindly moderator ensured everyone had a chance to say their piece until the whole thing got cut off by the booming strains of the service's outro, "War" by Edwin Starr (as in "War, what is it good for? / Absolutely nothing!"). I didn't go back—I was looking for something a little more scholarly and meditative—but, boy, did I like the cut of their jib.
The UU church in this novel is not quite as over-the-top than the one I experienced—they do seem to have some form of liturgy, even if it's got a lot more Mary Oliver poems and an active allergy to anything resembling communion. But it's still pretty offbeat (at one point, one of the more serious contenders for the role of minister is a self-proclaimed Wiccan witch from Alabama). And this goofy little UU church is regarded by Dana with touching reverence. A lack of any fixed theology does not mean a lack of seriousness, to Dana; this is the church her mother went to, and which provided great comfort to her after her mother's death; this is the place where she's volunteered on countless committees and watched families grow up; this place is home.
ANYWAY. So, like a sitcom, we've got this charmingly mixed cast on the search committee... but, also like a sitcom, it kind of rides the line between "loving portrait" and "hamfisted caricature."
For instance. Okay, Riley's complicated clearly-failing polyamorous relationship is amusing enough; anyone who's skirted the edge of enough polycules can spot this kind of guy a mile away. But it also feels a little like... are we making fun of this guy, or are we doing a lazy "lollollol kids and their ~*~weird~*~ relationships amirite" bit, here? And Jennie's brashness, and her devotion to tearing apart the CisWhiteAbledHeteropatriarchy, had me wondering at times whether Jennie was a real character or if it was more like the author had read one-too-many Tumblr posts and decided to base a character on that? And it's tricky because I HAVE, in fact, met some people who talk like 2010s-era Tumblrinas in real life. But they're pretty few and far between! and I wasn't entirely convinced Jennie would be one of them!!!
And all this is compounded as tension mounts on the search committee—it breaks into two clear factions, young versus old, Jennie versus Dana, leading to kind of Netflix's The Chair vibes (derogatory).
I could imagine all this working just fine for some readers (particularly, uh, readers more likely to align ideologically with the lil' old church ladies), and working not-at-all for others. For me personally—it fell into this interesting middle ground, where I think the narrative is definitely skewed in its sympathies in a way that's sometimes distasteful, but also, it's just astute enough in the details it provides that you can "read between the lines" and see a more fully rounded picture, if you choose? So yeah, the narrative identifies with Dana's perspective a little bit too much. But there's plenty in the text that also shows Dana's snakish and self-aggrandizing side, and there's also plenty in the text that shows Jennie's virtues; you're going outside the intended reading but you're not misreading if you choose to linger on those a little more. It worked well enough for me.
Also: the ending is surprisingly gutting!!!! everyone is miserable!!!! Parks and Recreation could never!!! Honestly it rocketed up quite a few points in my estimation on that basis alone; it would've been all too easy to wrap it up with Ultimately Things Worked Out For The Best, or even some vindication of one point of view or another. But, no, sometimes your small band of volunteers just ruptures & a bad choice is made & people drift apart & then everything kind of sucks and life's gotta go on somehow!!! yes!!!
As it turns out: this book is not that at all. Nothing here rivals the depth of what Robinson's trying to wrestle with or Robinson's lyricism, sorry.
But! it's still a plenty fun book, with some charm and some interesting things to say.
The setup promises a sort of church-committee-flavored version of Parks and Recreation. Dana's been a committed member of her church for over twenty years, but lately, she's felt herself drifting—the handbell choir is annoying; she finds some of the new minister's liturgical tics grating; she's been finding reasons to skip Sundays. But when she hears the current minister is planning to leave, and she's invited to apply for the search committee to find a new one, she thinks maybe this is just the thing to renew her faith, and joins the search with gusto.
The resulting committee is a charmingly mixed lot. There's Riley, the frazzled science postdoc in a complicated polyamorous relationship that's clearly falling apart. There's Belinda, the venerable longtime church secretary who knows all the dirt on everyone and the skeletons in all the closets. There's Sam, who's there because he married into the family whose $$$$ donations singlehandedly fund the minister's salary. There's Jennie, the tattooed twentysomething firebrand who's SICK of all these old white middle-aged guys and is ready to TAKE CHARGE. And there's Curtis, the charmingly clueless gay guy who only started attending this church three months ago when his old Evangelical Christian congregation was really fucking mean to him over the whole "being a gay guy" thing—
Oh, right, did I mention that the church in question here is Unitarian Universalist?
Which was not what I was expecting! but, man, what a fun choice of setting.
See: I went to a Unitarian Universalist church once, in my earliest teens, when I was on a mission to visit every house of worship in my hometown at least once. The worship service was like nothing I'd ever been to before, or since. The eldest son of the town's scary-sharp homeschooled family opened the service with a performance of Chopin that made me seethe with jealousy because his technique was so superior to my own (we all knew this family because they were the only atheist homeschoolers anyone in town had ever heard of, which gave them a faint aura of mystique and menace amongst the teeming masses of Southern Baptists and Church of Christers around them), and then his hippie mom gave a sermon on How To Dodge The Draft, based on choice factoids she'd picked up during her Vietnam-era student protest days at UW-Milwaukee. (She was giving this sermon during the Bush years; she was anxious that the draft might be reinstated, and expanded to include women.) Then, after the sermon, the floor opened for free and open discussion (a discussion!!! after a sermon!!! I never!!!!), and one Vietnam War vet stood up to say he hated everything the lady had just said and he'd been proud to serve his country, and then a different Vietnam War vet stood up saying actually that whole war was dumb as hell and more people should've bowed out, and a kindly moderator ensured everyone had a chance to say their piece until the whole thing got cut off by the booming strains of the service's outro, "War" by Edwin Starr (as in "War, what is it good for? / Absolutely nothing!"). I didn't go back—I was looking for something a little more scholarly and meditative—but, boy, did I like the cut of their jib.
The UU church in this novel is not quite as over-the-top than the one I experienced—they do seem to have some form of liturgy, even if it's got a lot more Mary Oliver poems and an active allergy to anything resembling communion. But it's still pretty offbeat (at one point, one of the more serious contenders for the role of minister is a self-proclaimed Wiccan witch from Alabama). And this goofy little UU church is regarded by Dana with touching reverence. A lack of any fixed theology does not mean a lack of seriousness, to Dana; this is the church her mother went to, and which provided great comfort to her after her mother's death; this is the place where she's volunteered on countless committees and watched families grow up; this place is home.
ANYWAY. So, like a sitcom, we've got this charmingly mixed cast on the search committee... but, also like a sitcom, it kind of rides the line between "loving portrait" and "hamfisted caricature."
For instance. Okay, Riley's complicated clearly-failing polyamorous relationship is amusing enough; anyone who's skirted the edge of enough polycules can spot this kind of guy a mile away. But it also feels a little like... are we making fun of this guy, or are we doing a lazy "lollollol kids and their ~*~weird~*~ relationships amirite" bit, here? And Jennie's brashness, and her devotion to tearing apart the CisWhiteAbledHeteropatriarchy, had me wondering at times whether Jennie was a real character or if it was more like the author had read one-too-many Tumblr posts and decided to base a character on that? And it's tricky because I HAVE, in fact, met some people who talk like 2010s-era Tumblrinas in real life. But they're pretty few and far between! and I wasn't entirely convinced Jennie would be one of them!!!
And all this is compounded as tension mounts on the search committee—it breaks into two clear factions, young versus old, Jennie versus Dana, leading to kind of Netflix's The Chair vibes (derogatory).
I could imagine all this working just fine for some readers (particularly, uh, readers more likely to align ideologically with the lil' old church ladies), and working not-at-all for others. For me personally—it fell into this interesting middle ground, where I think the narrative is definitely skewed in its sympathies in a way that's sometimes distasteful, but also, it's just astute enough in the details it provides that you can "read between the lines" and see a more fully rounded picture, if you choose? So yeah, the narrative identifies with Dana's perspective a little bit too much. But there's plenty in the text that also shows Dana's snakish and self-aggrandizing side, and there's also plenty in the text that shows Jennie's virtues; you're going outside the intended reading but you're not misreading if you choose to linger on those a little more. It worked well enough for me.
Also: the ending is surprisingly gutting!!!! everyone is miserable!!!! Parks and Recreation could never!!! Honestly it rocketed up quite a few points in my estimation on that basis alone; it would've been all too easy to wrap it up with Ultimately Things Worked Out For The Best, or even some vindication of one point of view or another. But, no, sometimes your small band of volunteers just ruptures & a bad choice is made & people drift apart & then everything kind of sucks and life's gotta go on somehow!!! yes!!!
no subject
Date: 2024-08-21 12:21 pm (UTC)I enjoyed your anecdote about visiting a UU church, as my background is "kid from my town's scary-sharp non-evangelical homeschooled family" -- we joined the local UU church when I was 12, at which point I feel in love with it. I'm not musically talented, but I appreciated that my church at the time had a budget to pay local musicians to perform in services. Also we weren't precisely atheist, but we partly got recruited into the church by homeschooler friends who were atheist and then left after the much-beloved atheist minister was replaced by someone who was theologically Christian. But they stayed in the Wednesday morning philosophy discussion group, which had a life of its own! The one you visited sounds a bit more out there than any UU church I've been to (and also great!) but both it and Dana's church are very recognizable as UU to me.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-21 06:35 pm (UTC)and gosh, a philosophy discussion group sounds so nice, especially around that age... i was digging my way through a bunch of existentialist philosophy books on my own back then and was DESPERATE to discuss them with someone; so glad you had a group for that!
no subject
Date: 2024-08-22 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-23 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-23 06:51 am (UTC)