Where'd You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple
I love satire. I love comedies of error. I love Arrested Development. I love the first 2/3 of this book.
One of the things I never get tired of reading on the internet is comments on satire pieces. It will never stop being funny that people read outrageous articles about how one ER has started just handing out narcotics to anyone who asks and not only believe it, but react vehemently to it. "I know it's satire, but there are people who actually think that way!" always makes me giggle.
The main story is that an East Coast transplant finds inspiration for her ground-breaking (no pun intended) architecture in sunny, Los Angeles County. Her foolish pride is demolished and she flees to Seattle, the least sunny place on Earth. Here she spirals out. Unlike some other reviewers, I do not have trouble deciding how I feel about Bernadette. She's charming, unusual, and most likely suffering from mental illness. In short, she's a genius with a MacArthur Grant to prove it. I actually prefer my main characters to be at least a little disturbed, and Bernie certainly fits that bill.
So, the first 4 sections of Where'd You Go are like a scrapbook of emails, handwritten notes, magazine articles, et cetera, pieced together with short paragraphs of narration. It works well to keep the story moving without getting bogged down in repetitive or banalities. This is Semple's forte. She switches from one voice to another without confusion. I literally read different missives in different voices in my head. The bumbling Head of School, anxious to not offend anyone, reads so differently than the snooty Christian neighbor or the self-empowered divorcee.
Sections five and six, however, get smacked with an iceberg. The pace shifts to neutral with no warning and the format switches to chick-lit narrative......................... Sorry, I fell asleep just thinking about it. Not only does the format change, the story becomes unbelievable. Up to this point everything that has happened is outrageous and unlikely, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Now it's losing passengers from cruise ships and people stowing away to the South Pole. And yet, if Semple had kept with the epistolary, it would have worked. I would have fallen for it.
A few things I loved about this book- the humor isn't laugh-out-loud, but is quite amusing. The more obvious ironies are just as funny as the more subtle ones. The caricatures are well constructed. I particularly loved Soo-Lin, who attends Victims Against Victimhood meetings and is quick to TORCH her friends with what she has learned in her self-help group. Ollie O, the PR guy for Galer Street School is also a riot. Reading his emails took me back to the days of working for a man who insisted that every publication be full of ALL CAPS and bolds, italics, and underlines and sometimes ALL OF THE ABOVE!!! I also loved the relationship between Bernadette and her daughter. Bee is totally normal and lovable, which makes her strange. The two "share a fascination with what (they) call happy-angry people." And if I couldn't find enough reason to love Bee, her favorite movie is Xanadu, the 1980 Olivia Newton-John-and-Gene-Kelly-on-roller-skates masterpiece.
Besides the abrupt shift in format and pace there were a few places where the writing is clumsy. I had to read a few phrases more than once to find the right emphasis and flow. I only marked it twice, so it wasn't excessive, but it was enough to note. A book this simple should not require multiple passes to make sense. It's a minor complaint, but I'm here to tell you what I really think.
Overall, I liked Bernadette. The hilarity balances the tragedy enough that it is beachworthy. I would not go so far as to declare it uproarious or laugh-out-loud. I never even chuckled. But I can always pop in the Bluth family for that.
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