I found this book at the airport, and chose it for the sole reason that the New York Times Book Review voted it the best book of the year (presumably 2006, as that is the copyright date). Naturally, being a conservative from the the Western part of the country, I wanted to hate it. What do those pretentious snobs at the NYTBR know, anyway?
Well, in this case at least, they know good writing. Or great writing, rather. Messud’s prose is a feast for the mind: elegant, evocative, in turns elaborate and succinct (well, mostly elaborate). Perhaps at times she is too wordy, perhaps a bit too confident in her ability to guide the reader through labyrinthine sentences. But in the main she uses her mastery of the language to paint pictures, give life to interactions and events, and reveal the characters’ souls, with power and precision.
A quote on the book’s cover calls it a “comedy of manners”, and it is that, but it is much more. The characters are not merely the objects of satire. Messud displays the thoughts, emotions, motivations, and regrets of the characters splendidly, eliciting both sympathy and judgment. The characters are real, three-dimensional. The reader is not told that a particular person is shallow or deep, but the author patiently discloses the depth of each character through that character’s interactions and thoughts. Some characters emerge as more shallow than others, but none is treated dismissively and by the end of the book I felt I knew each one.
Knowing the characters was not, by and large, a pleasant experience. None of them would be a likely friend of mine, nor me of theirs. For the most part they are selfish, even narcissistic, and nearly all of them at some point accuse another of just that trait. They are liberal, atheistic, opinionated. Simply put, they’re distasteful and pretentious New York elites or wannabes. There were points early on at which I wondered whether I could finish the book because it didn’t seem to be written for someone like me. But my persistence paid off, for Messud’s genius is that she made me want to know these people in spite of myself, in spite of them. She gave me just enough sympathy for them to keep me turning pages, even eagerly.
The storylines are not complicated: members and wannabes of the New York intelligentsia struggle with their professions and relationships over the course of a few months in 2001. Frederick Tubbs has dropped out of college for reasons that would have made Holden Caulfield proud (were that possible). He then seeks to make it as a New York intellectual by hitching himself to the wagon of his uncle Murray Thwaite, an aging 60’s radical and leading liberal commentator. Along the way we come also to know Murray’s daughter, her friends, and her love interest. What fills the nearly 500 pages is the interior lives of individuals. Messud’s human insight is profound, and her ability to convey it is no less. Her commentary on the human condition as it exists in this miniscule subset of the populace is subtle yet distinct, sad and rarely hopeful, yet not wholly dark.
The Emperor’s Children is not a light read and it is far from being my favourite novel (Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is still king of that mountain). For all of Messud’s insight and literary prowess, I cannot yet say precisely what I’ve taken away from the book. It’s too good to be merely entertaining, yet it needs something (I know not what) to push it into the next echelon. Perhaps if you pick up a copy you can tell me what it lacks, or that I’m the one lacking. If you can stomach the characters, you won’t regret the purchase or the investment of your leisure time.
