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Title: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor ISBN: 0-375-70117-6 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 June, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (12 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Much Ado About Characters with Little Impact
Comment: Although Peter Taylor was a fine writer, I doubt that A Summons to Memphis merited the Pulitzer Prize in 1987. It seems almost that this novel should have emerged from an earlier decade, perhaps the 40s after World War II, given its restrained and old-fashioned tone.
The dynamics of the Carver family keep the story interesting, but ultimately there is not one defining event which is dramatic enough to place what happens to this family within a larger, universal context. The personal misfortunes of each family member collectively do not constitute or even come close to tragedy. A move to another city and the loss of the person one hopes to marry may be unsettling, but they are not earth-shattering events. The reader does not see any significant emotional impact that these events have had on any of the characters. Moreover, there is not one character who is so likable or lovable that the reader is moved by his or her fate. Even at the ending of the story, I did not feel empathy for Phillip Carver, despite his conflicting emotions about his father or his proclaimed independence of spirit.
The central weakness of this novel is in the lack of character development and the failure of the author to reveal anything of the characters' inner lives. The two sisters, Josephine and Betsy, for example, might as well be called "Tweedle-Dum" and "Tweedle-Dee." They are practically indistinguishable from one another, and their viewpoints and responses to events are identical. They are not fully rounded characters and reside in the realm of caricature and burlesque. In a similar vein, the mother of the family was part of a vibrant social scene in Nashville. She is depicted as having strong, fortifying qualities (she places their move to Memphis is an historical perspective and braces the children for its attendant changes on their lives) inexplicably lapses into invalidism and helplessness after the move. No reason is given, other than that this occurs shortly after the onset of a severe headache one day. Even Alex Mercer, a lifelong friend and ally of the narrator, stops communicating after the death of the father, George Carver, and the reader is left wondering why.
Although it succeeds as a well-told narrative about a southern family with a domineering father, A Summons to Memphis does not succeed in bringing us unforgettable characters whose lives resonate long after we finish the book.
Rating: 5
Summary: Restrained and dignified look at a family¿s troubled history
Comment: Winner of 1987's Pulitzer Prize, this genteel and very old-fashioned tale of a troubled family is more in the tradition of Eudora Welty than that of Jonathan Franzen. Filtering the whole story through the eyes of Philip Carver, a collector of antique books in his late 40's, the author startles the reader by making no effort whatsoever to involve him vicariously in the action, something we now take for granted in modern fiction. Instead, he requires the reader to get to know Philip through his first-person narrative, draw conclusions about his background, and observe how unfolding events change his perceptions, not only about present actions, but of the past, as well.
Philip is, at heart, very much a southern gentleman, despite the fact that he thinks he has escaped his Nashville and Memphis heritage for New York, where he has lived for almost fifteen years, unmarried, with Holly Kaplan. Despite the painful relationship he has had with his autocratic but reserved father, now in his eighties, he responds to a series of phone calls from his unmarried sisters and returns to Memphis, where his father is planning to remarry, an eventuality which the sisters find anathema and which they are determined to countervail.
Both the immediate situation in Memphis and the history leading up to it are told in the past tense, with flashbacks to still earlier times, a rare and difficult narrative approach which keeps the reader at arm's length, but Taylor manages to give emotional power to unfolding events, in part, because Philip's narrative restraint contrasts so sharply with the meanness and manipulation of his "well-meaning" father and, now, his sisters. The irony grows as the reader sees parallels between the present circumstances of the father, his fiancée, and the sisters, and events which happened many years ago. The tables have been turned, but Philip exhibits no sense of victory, no gloating, only growing self-awareness and understanding. He remains a gentleman to the very end in this most unusual and enlightening novel.
Rating: 3
Summary: Betrayal and Pay Back
Comment: I know, I know, Pulitzer Prize novel, but I just couldn't warm to it. First of all, I found no character I could like. The protagonist is a middle aged gentleman now living a dull, colorless life in New York City with a woman as drab as he is. He is still angry at his father for moving the family from Nashville to Memphis when he was 13 years old. The father had been betrayed by his partner and best friend, and was so humiliated and enraged that he uprooted his family and commanded them never to utter the name of his betrayer again. The move affected every member of the family adversely. The mother seemed to adapt at first, but soon took to her bed and stayed there for thirty years. The 18 and 19 year old daughters had their beaus run off by their father. One because he came from Nashville, and the other because he was distantly related to the father's betrayer. The second son joined the armed service as soon as he became old enough and died in the Second World War.
Forty years later, when their father is planning to remarry after his wife's death, the adult daughters plot to stop the wedding, and enlist their brother to return to Memphis to assist in their scheme. Evidently it was a common practice in Memphis to prevent elderly widowers from remarrying in order to save the estate from falling into the new spouse's clutches. In this case it is motivated more by revenge than financial concerns.
This is the story of a controlling parent and children too cowed to take control of their own lives. The father in this novel was so self absorbed that he did not see his family as individuals, but only as extensions of himself. Therefore he had no realization of the pain he was inflicting. Their lives were irrevocably damaged by their father's action, but they could have saved themselves and chose not to do so. Their subsequent revenge on their eighty year old father could not have been satisfactory, and did not liberate them in any way. A cold, sad book, impeccably written, but not engaging.
Not being a Southerner, I don't relate to a place and time where one's pedigree is more important than one's character, and folks can pinpoint one's origin right down to an area of a few blocks by one's accent. Where a certain style of dress is deemed to be "Nashville" and another "Memphis". Since this is definitely a regional story, perhaps I lack the necessary understanding to review this book properly.
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