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Cassandra at the Wedding Dorothy Baker Deborah Eisenberg 9781590171127 Books

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Cassandra at the Wedding Dorothy Baker Deborah Eisenberg 9781590171127 Books

I read this novel in two days and found that once I got past the first 30% that it was almost impossible to put down. The dark dry wit reminded me of J.D. Salinger in Catcher in the Rye, the endearing portraits of the characters, especially the well-meaning grandmother, reminded me of the examination of social propriety that is evident in Jane Austin's work. The minimalism and sense of California reminded me of Joan Didion. The stripped down narrative flow reminded me of Hemmingway. The references to classical philosophy and antiquity reminded me of John Banville. This is a highly accomplished work of literature but it is also a highly entertaining tale.
This is a superb almost perfect novel, full of wit and insight. It is precisely proportioned in that there are a minimal amount of characters, Cassandra, her twin sister Judith, their philosophy professor father, their wealthy grandmother, Judith's medical resident fiancée, and Cassandra's psychiatrist. All the characters are painted but the character of Cassandra, struggling with her separation from her sister Judith, is full of intelligence, cunning, despair, sarcasm, and insight. Grandmother Rowena Abbott, the orange juice heiress, is concerned about social propriety and appearances but she is loving and concerned. Judith is pulled in two directions, toward her loyalty to her twin sister and to her intelligent, supportive, wise medical resident fiancée. Baker is an economic writer, creating drama and tension with a minimal amount of characters and concentrating on one key event, the upcoming marriage of Judith and Jack Finch. This was one of the best books I have read this year and it is highly recommended.


Tags : Cassandra at the Wedding [Dorothy Baker, Deborah Eisenberg] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley: gay, brilliant, nerve-wracked, miserable. At the beginning of this novel,Dorothy Baker, Deborah Eisenberg,Cassandra at the Wedding,NYRB Classics,1590171128,Mothers;Death;Fiction.,Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.);Fiction.,Women graduate students;Fiction.,20th Century American Novel And Short Story,Death,Fiction,Fiction General,Fiction Literary,Literary,Literature - Classics Criticism,Modern fiction,Mothers,Ranch life,Women graduate students,Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev

Cassandra at the Wedding Dorothy Baker Deborah Eisenberg 9781590171127 Books Reviews

I don't understand how this book could have sunk into obscurity it's a powerful and beautiful novel, intense and absorbing, deeply layered--the kind that you want to re-read the moment you reach the last page, and one that you know you will return to regularly throughout your life. You'll have gained an idea of what the novel is about from synopses and other reviews, so I won't go into that except to say that, for me, it's most deeply about growing up, how there's really no end to the struggle to come into one's own true self--no end to the pain of it, nor the exhilaration of it.
The first and last sections of this magnificent book are narrated by the redoubtably ironic Cassandra. These describe her role in the marriage of her twin sister, Judith, who narrates the novel's center section. The great achievement of the novel is Cassandra's theatrical and mesmerizing voice, and her childish, inebriated, overdramatic attempts to prevent her sister from abandoning her. We come to love Cassandra so much that we are almost persuaded that Jude should not marry the kind, strong, prepossessing MD, Jack. Jude's voice, ironic but less theatrical, is also a convincing tour de force. But marriage, of course, is the traditional climax of the romantic marriage plot--and so it goes.

But "Cassandra at the Wedding" is not so simple. Cassandra, the reader will remember, is the famous figure from Greek mythology whose prophetic warnings of the fall of Troy went unheeded. And Judith is the biblical heroine who liberated her tribe by beheading the drunken lecher Holofernes. Taken together these two stories, lurking in the background of the names, would actually support Cassie's position at the wedding that her fragile family should not be invaded by the outsider and cast her as the protector of the clan. And indeed the vision she spins for Judith of the unconventional life they could live together as two sisters is compelling. Whether or not we are twins, the forsaking of our families of origin can feel like a betrayal and a loss.

As Deborah Eisenberg notes, in her wonderful afterword, the novel also draws upon Plato's fable that explains love as each individual's search for her lost double, who in primeval times had made one spherical whole. Twins, it might be said, participate in this wholeness, and so Cassandra's threatened loss of Judith repeats the primal sundering that lies at the heart of all longing. Her desire to prevent Judith's desertion genuinely expresses this love.

Blah, blah, blah. Such over-intellectualizing can give a kind of deepening context to "Cassandra at the Wedding," but it comes nowhere close to capturing the quicksilver shifts of tone, the tremendous humor and self-awareness that animate these two sisters and other members of their small wounded family. There is no way around it just read the book.
The novel, Cassandra at the Wedding (first published in 1962), starts out simply enough; the first-person narrator, Cassandra Edwards, tells us that the spring semester has ended at Berkeley, California, where she is writing an M.A. thesis on the contemporary French novel; and she's packing a bag to drive to her parents' ranch near Tipton to attend her sister Judith's marriage to a truly lovable man. Not only is Cassandra a budding scholar, she's a talented pianist, and competitive swimmer, and she loves her sister more than anyone--even more than her sister's fiancee--so Cassie thinks. For this is the point Cassie cannot bear to part with her nearly identical twin sister and will do almost anything to stop their wedding. As Cassie lets us deeper into her thought processes, the reader will find that--as learned and cultured as she is--Cassie isn't aware of the effects she has on others and on herself Cassie is often cynical, passive aggressive, and wantonly perverse in her refusal to "get it," i.e., to love and let love. Her insolence towards the people she says she loves is an astonishing dismissal of their emotional lives. The fact that Dorothy Dodds Baker makes it easy for us to see Cassie without Cassie seeing herself is testament to the author's mastery of irony and understatement. Without a doubt Baker has created a character who is both infuriating and heroic. In fact, it's Cassie's youth and intelligence that makes her inability to let her sister go such a riveting contemporary drama. Also of note The NYRB book cover is an appropriate painting by David Park; Deborah Eisenberg's "Afterward" is informative.
I read this novel in two days and found that once I got past the first 30% that it was almost impossible to put down. The dark dry wit reminded me of J.D. Salinger in Catcher in the Rye, the endearing portraits of the characters, especially the well-meaning grandmother, reminded me of the examination of social propriety that is evident in Jane Austin's work. The minimalism and sense of California reminded me of Joan Didion. The stripped down narrative flow reminded me of Hemmingway. The references to classical philosophy and antiquity reminded me of John Banville. This is a highly accomplished work of literature but it is also a highly entertaining tale.
This is a superb almost perfect novel, full of wit and insight. It is precisely proportioned in that there are a minimal amount of characters, Cassandra, her twin sister Judith, their philosophy professor father, their wealthy grandmother, Judith's medical resident fiancée, and Cassandra's psychiatrist. All the characters are painted but the character of Cassandra, struggling with her separation from her sister Judith, is full of intelligence, cunning, despair, sarcasm, and insight. Grandmother Rowena Abbott, the orange juice heiress, is concerned about social propriety and appearances but she is loving and concerned. Judith is pulled in two directions, toward her loyalty to her twin sister and to her intelligent, supportive, wise medical resident fiancée. Baker is an economic writer, creating drama and tension with a minimal amount of characters and concentrating on one key event, the upcoming marriage of Judith and Jack Finch. This was one of the best books I have read this year and it is highly recommended.