So I'm joining the stragglers writing this blog on Monday night - it took me awhile to plow through to the end of Who Would Have Thought It? I still find fault with Ruiz de Burton's writing style, somehow she managed to bog the book down with excess verbiage while leaving central characters undeveloped, but I can say this: If I was a young lady in the U.S. circa 1872, she'd be my first choice to sit down with and rail about the patriarchy over a nice spot of tea. Ruiz de Burton is a fascinating person who I enjoyed catching a glimpse of throughout the novel. This is a woman who has passionate opinions on every facet of the society she lives in - and pulls no punches in calling people out on their ostentation and hypocrisy. Though the writing is lackluster, it is occasionally funny, and provides lots of food for thought.
I appreciated the diversity of social issues that Ruiz de Burton commented on, both indirectly through characters and directly as narrator. In the second half of the book we find, amongst all of the melodrama, a searing indictment of war that maims and degrades the average man while lining the pockets of the rich, a mockery of the nouveau riche and their superficial lives, and a cynical portrayal of gender relations. Though Ruiz de Burton doesn't offer any answers to these societal conundrums, she must at least be commended for satirizing them.
Before I found out what the title refers to, that shriek of Mrs. Norval, I thought that it was an apt response to the duplicity of appearances which is a central theme in the book. The little "black" orphan is a white Mexican-American with trunks of gold, the abolitionist and pious Mrs. Norval is in fact racist and has an affair while it is still uncertain if her husband is dead, and the "two worthy reverends" are ruthlessly conniving - who would have thought it? Ruiz de Burton delights in uncovering "rogues" in the most unexpected places.
As to whether she was a feminist is an interesting and difficult question - just because a woman takes a look around and sees the structures that oppress her it doesn't mean that she's a feminist. Did she purposely make her critique indirect so that her novel would have greater legitimacy or was she merely writing a clever satire without a single emancipatory urge in her? I can't answer that but I do know that women in earlier time periods, and in even more suffocating social conditions, have more directly and persuasively shown women's intelligence and independence. Check out Sor Juana circa 1648 - there's a woman who doesn't beat about the bush.
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4 comments:
Does a feminist novel require emancipation? The first half of the Narrative of Frederick Douglas doesn't really call for emancipation, but it certainly is a black rights memoir. I think she's a talented enough writer for her book to have feminist ideals without it being blatant or overwhelmingly critical.
I made a spelling error. bwahhhha
I think it is interesting that you mention that a woman can look around her at the social institutions in place that in this case opress her without being a feminist. I agree and find that labeling any work as a feminist work takes away from it (as with all labels), or if such a label is appropriate that such works are often less effective, interesting, or moving. This novel especially would be difficult to give a label as it doesn't seem to be espousing or supporting any ideas, and at times it even seems ambivalent about the ideas it presents. And in terms of the novel's strength, as interesting as it is at times, I agree that it lacks the force of many other novels dealing with feminist issues. And Sor Juana is a great example of that, as the first Mexican woman writer (at least the first one I know of and one of the greatest).
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